National Post, Canada: “Malta becomes the latest ‘sunny haven for shady people'”
There seems to be a second wave of negative media interest in Malta’s cash-for-passports scheme, as it has begun to sink in.
I await with trepidation the details of the compromise the government is said to be reaching with the Opposition, and trust that the Opposition has not allowed itself to be used as a stooge.
It would also be pleasant and satisfying to see the word ‘mistake’ eradicated from the political dictionary. There are no mistakes in politics, but only deliberate decisions, some of which work and some of which don’t.
When the Opposition leader said that the government should understand that its cash-for-passports scheme was a “mistake”, he undersold the full gravity of the situation and let the dangerous idiots off the hook. That was no mistake. That was a dangerously crazy but entirely deliberate decision in which the government persisted despite criticism, and for which the prime minister, all members of his cabinet and all his backbenchers voted deliberately and consciously in parliament.
A mistake, at least in idiomatic English, is when you put something away in the wrong cupboard because you are momentarily confused.
The Maltese zball has a different meaning, with stronger implications of a bad decision. To avoid having the press translate his zball into ‘a mistake’ rather than ‘a bad decision’, Simon Busuttil should avoid using the word and find another one which can’t be ambiguously interpreted by reporters whose knowledge of idiomatic English is weak.
10 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/12/19/malta-becomes-the-latest-sunny-haven-for-shady-people/
Bil-Malti nghidu zball ohxon.
“Żball oħxon” sounds like an apt description of the PM himself.
Any agreement the Opposition has agreed to should only be in line with a residency permit tied to real investment with jobs and the possibility of citizenship within a long-term timeframe of maybe 5 years.
The Schengen visa could be added as a sweetener but at least this contains the “investors” to within the Schengen zone.
Invisible, one can read the words that complete the headline:
“run by shady people.”
Malta has always been ‘a haven for shady people and businesses’. It’s now reached a climax and things have gone viral. Bravo PL!
A ‘zball’ in that context should have been translated into a ‘serious error of judgment’.
The law is still there, how can we be sure that they are NOT selling any passports?
And a mistake, error, zball or wrong decision is always followed by a ‘sorry’ in well mannered people.
[Daphne – Well, so is a bad decision, when there is more to be sorry about because that’s something you actually decided to do rather than did mistakenly.]
very shady indeed … Henley something….