Is it just me, or is all the exposure given to this man’s mental illness more than a tad distasteful and inappropriate?
So it turns out that the poor chap in the Mosta cats case is a schizophrenic. What a surprise, I don’t think. I suppose there are people out there who imagine that anyone who does that – and I don’t mean kill cats, because those of perfectly sound mind do it, but all that business with the crosses and the notes – is just your average sadist.
Oh indeed. That this was a person with a serious psychiatric disorder, and not a disciple of the Marquis de Sade, was obvious from the start.
Now that it has been confirmed, can everybody please just simmer down? Schizophrenics don’t choose to be schizophrenics. It’s a terrible burden they and their families have to deal with for life. There is no cure. There is only medication which keeps the symptoms in abeyance. The individual remains a schizophrenic.
There are more schizophrenics taking medication and holding down the semblance of a normal life than you might think. The individual in this case was one of them – he qualified as an engineer and was in regular employment.
The last thing any person with schizophrenia needs is the public branding of schizophrenics as dangerous cat-killers. The beings that schizophrenics are most likely to harm are themselves. The suicide rate among schizophrenics is high. They kill themselves not because they are ‘crazy’, but because when they are lucid they are overwhelmed by the terrible awareness of the cross that they and those around them have been given to bear.
What price a cat next to humane consideration for another human being? What does it say about you when you become more agitated about a cat than you do about treatment meted out to an already vulnerable human?
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So very true. I love animals and would not harm them in any way – I am even incapable of doing so. However, we must get our priorities right and whilst we are horrified by animal cruelty we must not forget cruelty to vulnerable human beings.
We do have a problem with illegal immigrants but that does not mean that we treat them like sh..t. They too have their dignity.
Just because a man is mentally ill it does not follow that he should be stripped of his privacy. Bandyng his illness around like that is unethical, lacking in Christian charity and basic decency, and in very bad taste. It is likely to aggravate his chronic illness as well.
That is present day Times of Malta for you. Mabel Strickland must be spinning in her grave.
If a person has a disability in the use of his legs and is in a wheelchair, we pity him and try to help him. Fine. But sometimes we laugh at a person with mental disability.
So so very well said!
Schizophrenia is a cruel illness. Sufferers live in their own miserable world. More often than not, the voices they hear are threatening, hence the battery of medication.
Yes, people living with these patients suffer as well. I know since I had a very close member of my family who was diagnosed with this illness at a young age. She lived hell on earth, and worse is that twenty years ago this was a terrible stigma.
These patients, once diagnosed, were locked up in Mount Carmel Hospital, stuffed with pills and given shock treatment, only to become institutionalized for the rest of their lives.
Luckily nowadays there is awareness, so perhaps now people will leave him alone.
Unfortunately in Malta we have gone to extremes as usual. For some, animals are more important than humans. Unless the animals are birds of course.
This what newspapers are thriving on now: cat killers and exposing their mental illness inappropriately. Times of Malta love stories of this sort. Instead it should be exposing the daily corruption done by this government which it helped to elect.
I really do not like it when somebody compares feelings for animals and feelings for humans.
Maybe this case is a tad different but recently I heard how the bishop of Gozo was talking about our very low birth rate and he said that there is more love for animals then for kids.
Really what has that to do with each other? Yourself dear Daphne, some times also compared the treatment of illegal immigrants to our love for animals.
I do not see any comparisons. Now I am sure that you also love animals as you mentioned a dog you have and the birds that come to your garden.
I remember that when Britain was our colonizer and the British more advanced then us (educationally and economically) the Maltese used to remark ‘they love their animals more then their children’.
[Daphne – It was the usual Maltese racist prejudice to say that the British loved animals but not their children. The reality is that the Maltese of the period treated their children horrifically badly, and many still do. Practically throughout the 20th century there was no notion of childhood in Malta – children were small adults and treated as such. There was savagery and beatings and widespread abuse. And school was thought completely unnecessary. You see a hangover of all of this still today.]
Gandhi said ‘Judge the progress of a nation and its people from their treatment of their animals’.
[Daphne – Gandhi achieved a great deal but in many respects was the most awful hypocrite. You should judge a nation by the way it treats its people. By that standard, Gandhi’s nation failed catastrophically to impress in his time and continues to do so today.]
I always also wondered why the Catholic Church never spoke in defence of animals.
With all due respect, but after having lived and worked in the UK for several years, I came to the conclusion that in the Brits, tend to treat their pets better then their kids.
[Daphne – The most ill-treated children I have ever seen are Maltese. Why do you think so many Maltese adults are ignorant savages? Because they were brutalised as children. And it’s still going on today. I can’t bear to be around groups of Maltese parents and their children. I have to walk away.]
I still cannot understand how the press can bandy about private citizens who end up in court (same principle as you mentioned some time ago about the press reporting on accidents).
I think the press and none of us have the right to grill private people. But then, what should be done vis a vis the Erin Tanti case? Should it go unreported too? Or the cases where hard core criminality is involved?
Yes indeed. Some have spaces in their hearts to harbour love of animals but they may also have the hate for immigrants which is also a psychological condition. Why does not anyone shout foul when these ill feelings get publicly aired and pronounced ? Are we all in it ? Do we all have it ? Or do we ?
What price a cat that is already dead next to humane consideration
By what authority did Peralta order the forced hospitalisation of a man who has not been found guilty of any crime, and couldn’t on the charges he faced even if he could have been held responsible?
A magistrate may recommend hospitalisation, but cannot order its enforcement.
No one can be forced into hospital unless certified by at least two doctors as being a danger to self or others – and ‘other’ means humans, not animals.