So it’s all right to mix politics with religion when the religion is Islam
I thought I had best upload a photograph of the prime minister, because at this rate of invisibility we’re soon going to forget what he looks like.
Joseph Muscat has made a point of telling us, over the last five years, that he doesn’t mix politics with religion.
We now see that he was talking only about the Roman Catholic Church.
It is, apparently, perfectly all right – even highly desirable – to mix politics with religion when the religion is Islam and can net you votes.
Then you can give a press conference with representatives of Islam and make it clear to the public that you have given a job to “a Muslim”, in your office, because he was “instrumental” in persuading others of that religion to vote Labour.
And if this means that all Maltese Muslims are now branded in the public mind as qabda Laburisti, what do you care? The most important thing is that Labour isn’t associated with anything nasty and oppressive like Catholicism, which is SO yesterday.
Below, you’ll find the link to my column on this subject.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-05-09/opinions/goodness-i-thought-labour-could-pay-its-own-consultants-1552318466/
The Curia of the Malta Diocese employs a Muslim woman, and they never made a fuss about it.
Imam Farrugia Borg was a Gaddafi supporter; he should not occupy any top official post in our civil service. The Libyans would not take it lightly.
Imam Farrugia Borg was a Gaddafi supporter. Is it that the main reason that, according to Labour, who were always pro Gaddafi, he is qualified to occupy any top official post in their govt?
Well said Gahan!
And so is Imam Said I would say and that is the reason why they backed Joseph. They must have appreciated the fact that he sat on the fence whilst Malta, under the PN government, was helping the revolution in many ways.
Catholic Church in Malta gave large tracts of land costing hundreds of millions of Malta pounds, so that Catholic schools would be free of charge . As a taxpayer I expect that the Muslim community does the same thing to get the €400,000.
The Catholic Church’s finances are in the red because of its charities, mainly dar tal-Providenza. What charities do the Muslims run to ask for this money?
As a taxpaying citizens I don’t expect the Government to give such handouts. If the school is not economically viable , it should close down or ask for higher fees, after all we have empty government run schools.
[Daphne – The state subsidises Catholic schools and does not allow them to charge fees, Gahan, which is a mess that should never have happened but which owes its existence to the ‘jew b’xejn jew xejn’ crisis created by Labour PM KMB in the mid 1980s, later leading to the church-state property agreement and God knows what else. My own view is that church schools should be no different in status to independent schools, and that they should charge the same realistic fees.]
Church schools are not exactly free, as you rightly pointed out property was ‘bartered’ in exchange of ‘free’ education.
More details here:
http://maltadiocese.org/files/2009/09/agreement-on-church-schools.pdf
My point is that the Church donated land to the Malta government, which in return agreed to shoulder the expenses for the salaries of the teaching staff, so that the Church could continue to carry with its mission.
I can’t see anything of the sort in this €400,000 donation.Why should the taxpayer pay that money to a school which is not helping in the integration of the Muslims in Malta?
If this Muslim school is ‘bailed out’ by the Maltese government , the latter should get part of the ownership of the school, for which the school should pay an annual rent of 5% of the €400,000 donation.
That would be fair with the Church which has all those expensive buildings at our disposal free of charge, and to the private schools which never got and should not get this sort of bail out money.
This is not religion I’m writing about. This is fairness with the taxpayer and other schools who would rightly ask for ‘more’ on a student per capita calculation of about €2,700 per student.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20070826/education/maria-al-batool-school-goes-secondary.6969
This is a recent Reuters report on the shady World Islamic Call Society which used to contribute 60% for the school finances:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-libya-missionary-idUSBRE82S07T20120329http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-libya-missionary-idUSBRE82S07T20120329
In that case Daphne, the Government should return all the land given to them under the Church/State agreement back to the Church.
My partial reservation to your post here is the fact that Josephmuscat.com managed to sneak in and push people into the Church’s Environment commission to support their tnaqqis tal-kontijiet tad-dawn u l-ilma bil-power stejxin tahdem bil-gass. He stil uses, and will continue using, the Catholic Church for his own purposes nonetheless.
Joseph Muscat. Unity personified. In one fell swoop, driving a wedge between PL and PN voters, between Muslims and the rest of the Maltese, between Catholics and Muslims, between the Imam and the Muslim community.
Anyone remember the obnoxious little green man in the Asterisk books?
Had you been paying attention to the minutiae of EU politics you’d have realised that Joseph is acting very much in the spirit of the Union.
No links. Remove the shutters and do your own frigging research.
Is the Islam School funded by Libya today? It has been two years since the overthrow of Gaddafi, and I am sure Libya has the resorces now to fund its overseas schools – if it wanted to.
Or is Libya today not willing to fund a school which according to various news bits, seems to be run by pro – Gaddafi sympathisers. Or is it not run by pro Gaddafi sympathisers?
Why aren’t newpapers, tv and radio stations not asking Franco Debono about anything and everything the government does, as they used to do before the government changed?
Has he become irrelevant?
Can someone please remind me who the chubby balding chap in the picture is? Seems vaguely familiar