Absolutely top comment of the day (so far)
I’ve been looking for a way to define the ‘movement’ around Joseph Muscat, having noticed that the common factor underlying what is said and done by its supporters/participants (however educated and ‘posh’ they claim to be) is intolerance and a failure to understand the spirit of democracy.
Then somebody calling himself Jimmy sent in this comment:
What’s worrying is that the concept of a ‘movement’ has come to mean a ‘mixed but totalitarian group’ in the minds of Labour’s old and new aficionados.
That’s it: they’re totalitarian. Even the fashionista/gay crowd are totalitarian and completely intolerant. What do I mean, saying ‘even’ them? Especially them.
Anybody who doesn’t fit in with their value system and their group-think is not allowed to be. It’s a frightening, bullying force to be reckoned with, like being back in the school playground.
My lifelong complete indifference to peer pressure, cliquey behaviour and being part of a group has served me well and will, I hope, continue to do so. That’s wrong: I am not indifferent to it, but actually resist it and regard it as dangerous and prejudicial to the development of the individual.
I read a recent review of the results of the general election which suggested that what happened over the last five years is the growth of individualism and people thinking for themselves.
He couldn’t be more wrong. My observation, which I believe to be more accurate, is that what we have seen is the fragmentation of large groups into much smaller and specific ones. But they are still operating as groups. When the group is small and specific, the people within it feel more engaged and involved, and they become more personal in their statements and more vociferous, especially when buoyed up by their Facebook friends.
These last five years have been one giant exercise in how to use peer pressure to influence individuals who fear rejection by the group or who wish to belong to a group. The general election result was proof of how successful this strategy is in a Maltese context, where belonging to a group or clique is considered so important to one’s mental and social survival.
This mentality is the reason why Facebook, which was designed and intended for students and people below the age of 30, has taken on a life of its own among my contemporaries in Malta. That’s another anthroplogical research paper waiting to happen. If there is anyone out there who is working on it already, please do get in touch as I am fascinated by the subject.
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Problem is quantifying the effect. The proliferation and impact is undeniable but quantifying the effect that this has had on the electorate is a nightmare. Trying to find research methodologies for it though :)
Mixed methods might help. There are some excellent books and articles on the subject
Muscat: “We will govern as a movement”
‘Messianic democracy is totalitarian. The substitution of one man for the people, and the reduction of the people’s role merely to being supporters and cheerleaders for one man’s actions, is antithetical to democracy.’
Try explaining that to the new bourgeois .
This ties in with what you wrote above. It’s a comment on Facebook.
Dominic Azzopardi malta tghana lkoll ,,,,imma biex tibqa tghana lkoll irridu ikollna il kontroll fidna ahna uxxx
Din tfakkarni fi placard kbira imwahhla mal-hadid ta’ krejn fit-Tarzna wara li Fenech Adami rebah i-elezzjoni tal-1987: Tiggvernaw intom – Immexxu ahna!
Id-demokrazija a la Labour.
Groupthink: totalitarianism by rationalised conformity, a weapon in the arsenal of collectivist regimes everywhere.
I can’t help thinking that Labour may have looked to the UK in the Blair/Brown years for this one, namely Harriet Harman with her patronising and sanctimonious ‘equality’ agenda.
It starts off as political correctness, and pretty soon it’s an excuse for the state to interfere in every aspect of our lives.
This so-called movement worked on your average-IQ person because it re-invented advertising. It is similar to what happened with the tablet-PC. Microsoft developed and shelved it well before Apple did. The latter just knew how to advertise it better by saying it’s a new thing; their new product.
On a separate note, I wonder whether the bright sparks (for whom the economy was a total non-issue this election) who voted PL are following what’s currently happening in Cyprus.
Quite frankly I do not think they could be bothered. They got what they wanted – a change – and that is all they are interested in. Problem is they got us into a mess that they will experience soon.
A depressing thought, though sadly you’re right. For the same people, bailouts and bank runs are things that only happen to other people.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21825981
I think these graphs prove what you’re saying about the reason why Facebook is so much popular among people above the age of 35 in Malta, unlike other countries like the UK and USA.
http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/malta
http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/united-states
http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/united-kingdom
[Daphne – I’m not really happy comparing bare percentages. I’d really like to see some information on rate of activity. Those statistics are based on simply having an account, and tell us nothing about how the account is used or the frequency with which it is used to communicate. I’d also like to know more about the peculiarities of Facebook use in Malta, where it seems to me to be used like the old-style ‘party telephone line’ or village pump among people who see/know each other on a routine daily basis, whereas in much larger societies you would use it to keep in touch with people who live hundreds or thousands of miles away and who you might see once every few years.]
Your last sentence says it all. Confirmed.
Why oh why do I always seem to have to agree with you, Daph. Well said.
How is this any different from what’s going on in other countries though?
Fixing tolerance (“or else!”) as the central social virtue, and ignoring the larger value of working towards a common good, is the name of the game. Labour played that game and won, in large part (certainly among younger voters) because they echoed the messages we’re being fed by a powerful confluence of media concerns that’s transnational, and invested in every Western social and cultural outlet. I’m not suggesting some kind of mass conspiracy – it’s a logical reaction to our fixation with the individual, divorced from society and set at the centre of reality, that’s been maturing for over a century.
We seem to be witnessing Malta’s response to a popular, global phenomenon. And as per usual, it’s come late, and poorly presented.
i think that the word movement means that everything revolves around him anf his gang on the 4th floor
I totally agree with you, Daphne. Being gay, I always was confused as to why other gay men and women my age were saying that “If you are gay you have to vote Labour because if you don’t you are voting for the conservatives”.
I never understood it. It was like my sexuality dictated my vote.
What nonsense, and if anything it made more sense to support the PN and Karl Gouder as he is a brilliant role model for all gay men and women in Malta: sound, mature and knows how to wear a tie.
Unlike Cyrus, who thinks it’s not a problem to email photos of an ex boyfriend to that ex-boyfriend’s boss and then ask the police to cover it all up.
The reason why those flaming queens never got anywhere with the PN government was because no matter how many times Mr Gouder tried to set up some sort of meeting with other MPs, the flock of drag queens would show up in jeans and bright colours screaming the words “Gay Marriage” and acting like a bunch of immature teenagers.
They would show up confirming the conservatives’ prejudice about gay men and women, that we are all unstable and unfit to commit and raise children, and turn them off straight away, not to mention make them look stupid.
How embarrassing. Even when they were told to wear suits, or something that resembled a suit, they still showed up looking like trash.
The PN would do well to understand that its value system, which helped it survive Mintoff and KMB, bring Malta out of the dark ages, into Europe, and finally have an economy as sound as it is now, is what it needs to fall back on in this period. No dancing to the tune of Labour’s hysterical flock of sheep.
What worries me is that there are people who are now going to be afraid to vote PN because so many people voted PL last election.
That is exactly what Muscat wanted: to left-foot the PN, create division like it did when it was in opposition, and get rid of it, so that there will only be Muscat and the PL. He goes on about stopping the politics of red and blue, how the time of political parties is over and how it is all about the movement now. I think he just wants everyone to be red.
Similar studies have been done before- mainly in the growing field of Cyber Anthropology. As an anthropology student I am not aware of any Maltese scholar taking up such a topic.
It would be quite interesting though, and extremely beneficial for party politics.
We tend to base political predictions on statistics and raw data that can only provide information and a limited, one dimensional perspective. Yet here we all are attempting to deconstruct the outcome of this general election; an outcome that might have a multitude of different causes and personal choices – some even contradictory when seen alongside each other.
I applaud you on your holistic approach, Daphne.