“Labour has politically deceived the electorate in a big way on this. This unadulterated fact does not appear to have sunk in yet.”
Last Thursday’s leading article/editorial in Times of Malta – worth a read if you haven’t done so already.
The only bit I disagree with is the line “the gay community is now forever grateful to Dr Muscat”.
There is no such thing as the ‘gay community’, even though the expression is often used.
There are only gay people, from all walks of life and of all political beliefs and interests.
The fact that working-class gay men and a few women from Mintoffian family backgrounds are the most vociferous group of all does not mean that they are the most numerous or that they are representative of all gay people. Nor does it mean that the very many gay people who despise, dislike or are disgusted by Joseph Muscat the person and who do not support his party or his government are now going to start voting Labour or admiring him.
Most of those who voted Yes in the divorce referendum regard Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando as something they might want to scrape off the sole of their shoe, and the fact that many people have divorced does not mean they will ever vote for him.
People will always do what it pays them to do, get what they can, and then carry on regardless, doing what they please anyway.
Did people remain forever grateful to the Nationalist Party for taking Malta into the European Union against the ferocious opposition put up by Joseph Muscat and his boss Alfred Sant?
No. They were so ungrateful that in the first EP election a few weeks after Malta joined the European Union, they went and voted Labour or AD, and the absurd result was that the party which made membership possible got just two seats while the party that fought to keep us out got three.
The grateful electorate voted out the people who took them into Europe and voted in the man who did his damnedest to keep them out – Muscat. And on Palace Square a few days ago, they booed the man who was instrumental in campaigning for EU membership – Simon Busuttil – and celebrated the man who told them they shouldn’t have an EU passport and should stick to being trapped on this rock. He would have denied them an EU passport, but he ‘gave’ them civil unions so they’re happy.
Many of the people who voted Labour for civil unions will just switch back again. Many gay people voted PN in the last election because not even the promise of civil unions was enough to stomach five years of Muscat as prime minister.
Prominent in the photographs and film footage of the celebrations on Palace Square there was one such example of opportunistic voting: Anthony Sultana with his husband-to-be, Jeff Fabri. Sultana pretends to support Muscat and Labour because Muscat and Labour are liberal and ‘pro-gay’. The real reason is that he comes from a Mintoffian family and has voted Labour all his life, the exception (he claims) being in 2003 when he voted Yes to EU membership and then voted PN to shore that up. His boyfriend Jeff, meanwhile, designed the new Labour torch logo which replaced the old one.
This is exactly what I mean. Just as Anthony Sultana voted yes to EU membership and then PN in 2003 despite being a lifelong and committed Laburist from a family of Mintoffians, then promptly switched back to voting Labour once he had safely got his EU passport, so very many people will ‘get their civil union’ from Labour and then move on, back to voting for whatever they preferred in the first place.
Nobody is forever grateful to anyone for anything, let alone electors to politicians.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140424/editorial/Muscat-displaying-utter-ruthlessness.516169
Amen
All goes to prove what I thought all along , even before the election , it’s not what Muscat says but what he doesn’t say
told of Cheaper utilities but not How
refund Vat on motor cars but not how
introduction of civil union bill but not how
Passport scam not even a hint
As the months pass the list will make worrying reading.
With regard to this article I mostly agree with you, but I would like to point out certain things. In a previous post you mentioned that the only gay people who were celebrating in St. George’s Square were laburisti who happened to be gay men – that is categorically untrue. I went and I never in my life gave labour any sort of vote whatsoever (and do not plan to anytime soon). Which leads to my second point. I went because I feel a connection with the gay Maltese gay community, which *does* exist. And it was my duty, as part of this often demonised community, to celebrate this milestone for LGBTs (not a ‘Labour 1 – PN 0’ bacchanal).
Who else can understand what is it like to be gay in a deeply Catholic (and let’s face it, sometimes backward) country? Who else has gone through the heartache of having homophobic parents/friends/colleagues? Who else can empathise with being laughed at for holding my partner’s hand? The gay community, the community which can understand and accept.
[Daphne – Count your lucky stars you didn’t grow up a girl/woman in Malta in the 1960s – 1990s (it was a hell of a lot worse before that) if you think your experience as a gay boy/man in the 1990s-present was so terrible. You really have no idea. I think we can extend the jokes about men with colds behaving as though they are dying of cancer whereas women with colds just take two Panadol and go to work to this field too.]
Actually, I am somewhat aware. I’m following a course on gender studies at university and I am deeply invested in women’s issues. Both women and LGBT people have suffered under the patriarchal system. Am I saying that being gay is easier than being woman? No – I am merely relating my experience as a gay person living in Malta now.
And a joke about a cold is different to hearing ‘ARA DAWN IT TNEJN IHOBBUH F’S*ORMOM *hooligan laughter* when you are on a date – or – ‘TAF FEJN IDAHLUH IL-GAYS? HEKK TRID INT?’ and this from a teacher.
I’m not saying that women do not experience these kinds of verbal attacks.
[Daphne – Yes, in fact we experienced far worse than that. And at least in your case it’s just verbal and you weren’t routinely followed and harassed by flashers and perverts making obscene suggestions. Or have men begin masturbating next to you on a public beach so that you had to pack up your things and leave. Are gay men grabbed between the legs as they walk along? Are they examined from top to bottom and have to walk the gauntlet of a narrative description of their body parts as they try to reach their car or the bus? I don’t think so.]
Come off it Daphne, this is not a competition to see who has suffered most (which is highly debatable anyway), it’s about a minority being granted a legal right which the rest of the population takes for granted.
Besides, if you think women had it so bad then how tough must it have been for Maltese lesbians in those times?
There were lesbians celebrating too. Stop being churlish and accept that this was a great step forward for many people. By mistakenly trying to make this out to be a Labour victory you are just reinforcing the idea that the PN essentially does not care much about LGBT issues, which is how it’s perceived right now.
Sorry but this has to be in Maltese: Meta l-marmalja vvutat lil Joseph Muscat, kienet qed tivvota lil dak li ried izommhom barra mill-Ewropa, u minflok, izommhom fuq din il-bicca blata jdawruh ghal xulxin.