Updated/GUEST POST: ‘Barely out of the gates and the No campaign already looks like a ruddy mess’
UPDATE: Mark Micallef of Times Talk, the TVM talk show produced by Times of Malta, has sent this in response to the post beneath. “I quite agree with Matthew S’s distinction; the referendum has little to do with animal welfare. It’s about conservation. In fact, we’re not discussing spring hunting tonight (Tuesday, 20th). We’ll have a separate show/shows when spring hunting will be discussed on its own, in the run-up to the referendum.”
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Matthew S sent in this piece below the line as a comment, but I am using it as a guest post. Matthew S will be voting No. So will I. He writes this from a standpoint of concern. I am concerned too. When I saw the first publicity about the Shout campaign yesterday, I froze. I could see what was coming: an emotive, all-over-the-place campaign about loving animals and how bad it is to shoot those poor birds because they are living things.
Missing the point altogether: there is one reason only for a ban on spring hunting, and it is conservation of the species. Shoot birds during the breeding season, or when they are en route to breeding, and every year you have fewer until they reach the point of extinction. “Oh but there are so many of them!” Indeed there are, but nobody is making them in a factory. They are making themselves. Every one of those birds shot is another one that won’t be breeding. And because it won’t be breeding, the many generations of birds that it would have produced, and they in turn producing other birds down the line, will just not happen, until there are no more where they came from.
WILD BIRDS ARE NOT MADE IN A FACTORY FARM LIKE PIGS AND CHICKENS. Never underestimate how many people in our factory-driven society fail to understand this. They might be vaguely aware of it, but ask them to explain it and they can’t. These things are not taught in school. The sort of people who read this website take that information/knowledge for granted and don’t stop to work out how they know it. They learned it in the home. They acquired it while growing up, for themselves, because they read and take an interest. Thousands of others have not had that advantage.
This is not about Star the shot dog or Tilly the fluffy cat. This is about conservation. Anybody who confuses that with loving animals had better step out of the way and let somebody else do the job. The ‘love animals’ argument is not only fallacious and entirely out of context in this debate, it is also terribly pointless in a campaign that aims to convince people. It won’t work. No amount of campaigning will make people LOVE animals (or anyone or anything else) if they don’t. But people can be made to understand why conservation of species is important, and dispassionate, logical arguments work better.
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Posted by Matthew S:
Barely out of the gates and the No campaign already looks like a ruddy mess.
Times of Malta, a prominent member of the Coalition Against Spring Hunting, is going to use its television show to have a discussion about the subject. The discussion title is: Are we really an animal loving nation?
What on earth does love have to do with it?
The reason why we restrict fishing for blue fin tuna is not because we love them but because fishing patterns are not sustainable.
The reason why it’s perfectly fine to kill cows, hens, pigs and rabbits any day of the week is because they are so plentiful and easy to breed.
The reason why it’s illegal to kill an elephant is because elephants are endangered and killing a huge animal just to take its tusks is really wasteful.
The reason why it’s perfectly fine to kill rats and mosquitoes is because they carry diseases.
The reason why we don’t kill tigers is because there are so few of them.
The reason why we all kill flies is because there are plenty more.
The reason why we worry so much when bee colonies start disappearing from the countryside is because pollination is a very important role which only bees can fulfil.
The reason why it’s fine to kill any animal which happens to be attacking a human is because we value human life over that of other species.
Now we need to know why it’s not okay to hunt for quail and turtle doves in spring. It’s because the more we kill, the fewer there are to breed in spring, and because of that, they are fewer every year, year after year. Other bird species have been rendered extinct over the last century because human beings shot them all.
These are the lines on which this battle should be fought, not love. Love is emotional, complex and, very often, completely irrational. It is problematic enough having to deal with loving other people. We don’t need to make our lives even more complicated by loving animals as well.
It is children, especially city-dwelling ones who have never seen any other animal apart from their pet dog, cat or hamster, and who think that sausages originate in supermarkets, who generally speak about loving animals. A pet dog or cat is an anthropomorphised animal. That’s why you ‘love’ it.
Love, in this context, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. If the No campaign is going to use love as its main argument, it’s going to be producing enough rope to hang itself. The pro hunting campaign is going to ask why animal lovers are not picketing the slaughterhouse or protesting against fishing, and they would be right.
It is imperative that the campaign be scientific rather than emotive. Otherwise, we’re going to be just like two rams fighting over a mate.
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You would have expected this kind of excellent discourse from authority. Well pointed out Mr. Matthew S.
The FKNK clip which is part of their campaign tries to imply that only a few quails and turtle doves are shot because so very little are seen.
If that is really the case than this scarcity is all the more reason for conservation of the species.
FKNK should do what is responsible and stop spring hunting to give these birds a chance to reach their breeding grounds on mainland Europe.
Wrong ….quails and turtle doves are shot in thousands in Italy, Spain, France and Cyprus simply because these areas coincide with their flight lines when migrating from cooler areas in northern Europe towards the south in early autumn/late summer.
It is scientifically proven that migrating birds prefer to travel over land than over stretches of sea explaining the very low numbers that fly over Malta.
Luckily for the birds if I may add.
[Daphne – Not quite. The numbers of birds flying over Malta have indeed shrunk considerably since the 1970s, and it’s not because they’ve changed their flight pattern. The big thing about migratory patterns is that they haven’t changed for thousands of years.]
I’m not sure I agree with the statements in this post. Rational discourse doesn’t win votes on this island. And clearly the Maltese don’t give a hoot in general about conservation issues. This is the nation of Xarabank after all.
Marketing (and this is nothing but marketing now) is all about emotion and branding. What sort of person do you want to be? One who shoots beautiful little creatures, a champion of brutes? Or do you want to be a hero of the defenseless.
Logical arguments about conservation will definitely get us nowhere.
Of course this still makes the actual people leafing the campaign inappropriate. Saviour Balzan will be awful at passing on this sort of message.
The pro-spring hunting lobby have already shot down the ‘love’ argument and indeed any non-vegetarian using the ‘love’ argument will not have a leg to stand on.
See what they had to say about Moira Delia:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204413981083130&set=a.2506729781112.2130652.1039057512&type=1&theater
I am not against hunting where this is in the spirit of animal/ bird population control or game/ birds bred for the purpose and meat provision outside of nature’s reproductive season with strict laws governing such hunts.
There IS enough land in Malta, even that owned by government to create game reserves. You could also put the onus on the Government to make such land/ reserves available for sale or rent. The argument that there isn’t enough land is not valid.
Allowing and creating hunt activity around artificial populations of reserves (deer, grouse, pheasant) could be an option:
The “health” or status of a hunter could effect the number of “braclets” he is given. Normally this would be solely reliant on the game population numbers. Each piece of game killed would need to have been accounted for and a bracelet allocated at the start of the season. Meat with the proper tracking bracelets could be, through the system, sold to butchers thereby increasing the meat offer on the market.
Deer, for example sells for between 500 and 700 euro a piece and the price of the number of pieces of game for a hunt is shared between hunters. If Maltese hunters go abroad for this they would be familiar with the system.
Each animal killed must have one of the bracelets handed out by the Hunting Federation attached to it.
The Hunting Federation sets a licence fee and strict exams for hunters to pass, defining seasons.
Each Hunting ground needs to be registered and pays a fee.
Each reserve would have its population supervised by the Hunting Federation.
A herd of deer does not need that much space: 2 hectares would be fine for 45 – 60. (Young trees would need protection since the bark would be in danger.)
Pheasant/ Grouse/ golden pheasant etc are successfully bred for hunting on the continent and this is a perfectly feasible and more elegant sport than the way the hunters are going about shooting anything that moves, in Malta.
Further reserves could be built according to what the Hunting Federation permits in line with EU policies?
Wild hog reserves would be fast breeding and popular for release within specific areas.
They are also easy to set up.
It is also a more professional approach.
The issue CAN be looked at responsibly.
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I am aware of most of the arguments against this reasoning.
Grouse is very hard to breed, and no one bothers. This is what makes it such an exclusive game bird.
There are so many other game birds one could choose from..
True, re grouse.. but there are those that go for the challenge:
http://www.greatnorthern.net/~dye/grouse_ideas.htm
I do not consider shooting animals as a sport. I do not see any fun about hunting for pleasure.
Do not mix up fishing (fish not mammals living in the sea) with hunting birds/mammals with guns; even , fish nervous system is not as complicated as birds’ , warm blooded animals just like mammals. Their intelligent is second to mammals. The common people ( with average intelligence , the majority) find or rather remain open mouthed when one tries to bring in the enviroument in this picture. Sure it is there and how but I believe the people (most) see hunting as boom boom, a bird stops flying because it has been killed, thus depriving the nature lovers of watching birds fly ,not necessary watching as a hobby, but mainly as passers by in the country. Many enjoy seeing a bird fly , the hunters take up the gun, aim and destroy a beautiful life.
At Attard I used to wake up hearing the shoots and feel for the poor birds ( few stopped living after falling in my garden). At Sliema I wake up to the chirps/songs of common birds– what a difference. So No to hunting especially in Spring
Tabatha, do you really think Saviour Balzan has the flair to get these over to SHout down the FKNK?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI_4g3IC098
I’d have them at the end of every rally organised by the NGOs.
Up yours, you so-called ‘traditionalists’.
He should, but he’s been eaten away at, so no, unfortunately.
Quite besides conservationism, the no campaign should be about taking our public spaces back. I for one have been threatened for taking a walk or pitching a tent in public spaces “because I might scare the birds”.
If people do not give a hoot about birds maybe they might give a hoot about being prevented from enjoying fresh air without a rifle-toting idiot in the background.
Exactly. It’s about the essence of politics, which to organise some sort of framework within which any number of people can share some common territory.
Malta is half a million people sharing 300 square kilometres of space, bounded by the sea. There is no space for hunting. And this isn’t about loving animals. It’s the reason why there is no space for more golf courses, for more airports, for a Formula One racing track, for more private beach clubs, and, alas, for wind farms (or have we forgotten that?).
“Love is emotional, complex and, very often, completely irrational.”
If the last general election taught us anything, it is that the Maltese public is also emotional, complex and, very often, completely irrational. I get the conservation argument, of course, and agree that it is the sound one. But I’m not confident at all of the ability of voters to grasp that and let it sway them, let alone in such a short time.
Catalonia didn’t ban their centuries-old tradition of bullfighting in 2011 because bulls are an endangered species. Fighting bulls are bred and treated like royalty all their lives. They are fed the best food and well exercised. But what put an end to the practice was the gruesome minutes of their death. Remember that this was not just a ‘delizju’, but a whole industry that was wiped out.
Or look at ‘Blackfish’, the documentary about a single orca called Tilikum that focused on the suffering of orcas held in captivity. It drove people away from SeaWorld, got the CEO fired and crashed the company’s share price. If we could only get that level of response to the bluefin tuna cause, they would not be endangered anymore.
Conservation is a very difficult point to get across to the masses. You just have to go for a drive through our littered countryside to realise that.
On the other hand, the argument that animals are not toys for us to enjoy at their expense is a powerful one indeed. A photo of an injured bird has more impact than all the endangered species studies we could produce.
Children get that, and I think we ought to turn to them for support with this campaign. Get them to mobilise their parents to go out and vote NO. Get them to make their parents promise to do so. A nagging child can be a powerful force to be reckoned with.
[Daphne – I’m afraid I can’t agree with you. The comparison to bullfighting is fallacious because the main argument against it was the public spectacle of savagery. It wasn’t killing the bulls that upset people; it was the display of sadism which made people really uncomfortable as to what it said about themselves. That does not apply with shooting birds. Bulls are mammals and people relate to them in a way they don’t to birds. Secondly, a shot is not the same thing as prolonged torture with darts and knives. So if you expect people to get upset at the shooting of birds in the same way they got upset seeing a bull tortured to death, it is not going to happen.
Secondly, the main weakness of the argument you outline above is manifesting itself already in responses on the internet which are logically sound. If it is wrong to kill a turtle dove on the basis that it is a living bird, then it is also wrong to kill a chicken. ‘But we kill chickens for food’. That, too, is fallacious. If the argument against killing birds is premised on ‘killing is wrong’, then whether you kill them for food or not, it’s still wrong.
This is not about the rightness and wrongness of killing, or of being nice to animals. This is about preservation of species. No other argument will withstand the test of debate; all other arguments will fail, and then the No vote is fried.
The divorce referendum was won not on emotive arguments but on logical ones. Each time a representative of the No lobby raised an emotive argument (because there are no logical ones against divorce), he or she was defeated by the inevitable logical response. It was no contest.]
I know what you’re saying, though I don’t agree that killing animals for food can be considered on the same level as other reasons for killing. Killing for food is our natural state of being, as it is for the tiger.
The debate on that issue should be rather about the way farmed animals are kept and treated before they are killed.
In any case, my main point was that human behaviour all too often completely defies logic. In the parts of Spain where bullfighting is permitted public spectacle or not, dog fights and cock fights are banned, even in private. And that’s interesting because dogs and cocks are at the opposite scale of animals we humans relate to emotionally, with bulls presumably somewhere in between.
The NO arguments have to be two-pronged at the least. It’s too risky to rely on logic alone.
A bird when shot or hit by pellets does not necessary die instantly.
It may suffer especially if tries hard to fly with an injured wing and worse if it tries to shelter, say in a bush.
Dogs come to its ‘rescue’ by snatching it then its neck might be wrung by the hunter.
This referendum is above all to stop hunting at least in spring for now, to preserve the species, the environment ( and so all hunting) and let us people enjoy the countryside in peace.
Hunting originated to mainly provide food but now that purpose is defunct.
A chicken is bred for food. In Spain there are (were) other types of cruelty inflicted on animals. Cock fights, dog fights should stop worldwide likewise.
Also I do not agree that the divorce referendum was either won on logical arguments or lost on emotive ones but because many failed to turn up to vote and because many argued that if one is against it still one had to allow others to ask for one if they wanted to because, they held the fact that it did not affect them the least.
[Daphne – That last one you mention actually is a logical argument. That is exactly why it was the winning argument. It couldn’t be countered.]
This is besides the point when it comes to a spring hunting argument specifically, but has anyone stopped to wonder what happens to the hundreds of thousands of lead pellets left in the sea and countryside, and in the shot bird itself?
How many pellets have been ingested by hunters over the years?
On this little island, I would have thought someone would speak out against lead poisoning.
Lead poisoning is partly why the Roman civilisation went into decline. Lead poisoning turns people mad.
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The reality that hunters can hunt just about anywhere during the rest of the hunting seasons is as much of an inconvenience and danger as spring hunting a conservation issue.
There is no regulation in Malta. What the Maltese hunters want is an absolute carte blanche, or – not in any way different – a status quo.
Every sport is regulated and where the controls are firmly in place, it works.
Hunting, in Malta, is a farce. Trapping is no better.
The bullfighting analogy is flawed for another reason. The Catalans saw bullfighting as an alien, Castillian/Spanish custom that had been imposed upon them by hated politically powerful elites in Madrid and primarily enjoyed by Castillian-speaking migrants from the south of Spain.
Banning it was a statement about nationalism and identity rather than animal welfare.
First of all, it is difficult to love something which will never love you back.
Secondly, many people rarely, if ever, get to see wild birds, apart from maybe feral pigeons around Valletta, and most can’t tell one bird species from another. It is almost impossible to love something which you never encounter.
I have never felt any particular love for whales, and I’m pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. That said, I fully support the international ban on whaling because I know that the number of whales is limited and that, with today’s technology, they can easily be hunted to extinction.
I also know that people who eat whale don’t do so for survival but only eat it as an exotic and unnecessary delicacy.
The concept of conservation is not as complicated as you make it out to be. If you have ten birds and you kill five of them before giving them time to mate, only five will reproduce, assuming they all manage to breed successfully. By doing that, you have halved the population. If you repeat the process, you will eventually end up with none.
What’s so hard to understand about that?
Matthew, I’m not saying the concept of conservation is complicated. I, for one, understood it well as an 8-year-old cub scout.
That zodiac signs and horoscopes are bunk is not a complicated concept.
That the Bible and Quran with all their errors and internal contradictions are not the true words of an infallible sky god is not a complicated concept either.
That gay people don’t choose to be so should be obvious when you think about how hard their life is by comparison.
But there you go.
My whole point is that it is generally almost impossible to reason people out of positions that they have not reasoned themselves into. You might convince a few, but most probably not enough. That’s why the appeal to emotion is also important and necessary. By and large, we humans are not rational beings, no matter how much we’d like to think the opposite.
These creatures are being killed supposedly for “sport.” One might just about say that there is little option as yet to killing animals that are bred for food, though I’m sure we will have an alternative in the future – but killing for sport can never be acceptable.
I’ve often discussed the subject with hunters and have suggested they take a camera instead of a gun.
They can still wake up early, picnic in the countryside and “shoot” birds through a lens.
However, they all say that is not the same. It’s obvious it is the killing part that is so satisfying to them and THAT is what worries me.
It’s not hunting per se which is the problem, pat. In fact, it might be argued that being hunted is more humane than being led to a slaughterhouse and knifed. A hunted animal always has a fighting chance, no matter how small, of escaping the bullet, arrow or whatever implement is used. An animal bred for food doesn’t stand a chance.
The main problem is hunting an animal whose population has been dwindling during its mating season, thereby not giving it time to reproduce. THAT is the argument which can withstand each and every debate.
Oh, and hunting is considered a sport because hunters traditionally compete to catch the biggest, best or most exotic animal possible. Indeed, the Olympics are still full of shooting events, and back in 1900, they actually had pheasant hunting as one of the events.
Hunting was also considered as good training for war.
“Now we need to know why it’s not okay to hunt for quail and turtle doves in spring.”
Please do not forget the cuckoo – one of the species endangered directly due to spring hunting.
This is part of the ecological fabric of the European countryside.
It is also part of the European heritage.
In the last 10 years – taking into consideration the minimum time since the derogation was negotiated – even trees not necessarily that old but linked to a family’s tradition and history, now fall under heritage conservation.
Time should give us the advantage of become more aware and sensitive to the totality of our heritage, not less.
This European heritage is not ours to destroy.
The crux of the matter is the loss not only of bird species but of the right to roam around and enjoy what remains of the countryside; the right of future generations to learn to appreciate nature, and the Maltese landscape as it is, or once was.
The right to enjoy our land without fear of harassment, bullying, and threats of “keep out this is our country lane” – which it isn’t, but on account of two politicians’ stance soon will be.
It’s the notion of land being usurped by hunters that worries me most.
Now that even the coast and foreshore are being (actually have been for some time, but now even more so) handed out as freebies to people tal-bizness I thank God I was born at a time when we could enjoy public land…which was well and truly public.
At least we’ve got low cost airlines which allow us to escape at regular intervals.
Yes and no. Your argument is correct. Nonetheless, it implicitly admits that people have all sorts of misguided concepts about this issue and will, therefore, vote for all sorts of incorrect reasons.
Therefore, purely from the point of view of garnering as many votes as possible, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to allow the public debate, however fatheaded it may be, to run its course (and, let’s face it, there’s nothing anyone can do about that, in any case) and cast as wide a net as possible.
Diehard Labour voters are a lost cause – they’ll vote with Muscat, whatever the circumstances.
The thousands of kaccaturi and their are families are obvious ‘Yes’ votes.
If this vote is reduced to a straight fight between fanatical Muscat supporters + kaccaturi on one side and people who understand the real issues involved on the other, the ‘No’ vote doesn’t stand an earthly. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who ticks the ‘No’ box because they think birds are cute, is fine by me.
Scientific? You mean like the scientific correlation between remarriage and domestic violence? Or the scientific evidence for migrating Sicilian barbers?
My dear Matthew S, really.
This piece is just brilliant. The thought of this referendum becoming another ‘miskin Star the lovely dog’ charade is sickening.
Many bird species are already banned for spring hunting. Only turtle doves and quails are permitted. Many of them pass over Malta without making a stop here.
Is there someone taking register?
Whilst animals are shot towards extinction, with fewer children, or even their parents, having seen any bird other than their pet budgie, politicians are concerned with consistency.
When has a politician ever been consistent about anything other than to reposition themselves to capture votes?
The referendum is all about the people’s vote, so just for once, WE the electorate are not particularly interested in Simon B’s or Joseph M’s opinion.
I voted for EU membership to enjoy the quality of life enjoyed by the civil world.
When you voted for EU membership you endorsed the hunting derogation. Do you know that?
[Daphne – Please don’t be foolish. No sane person would vote for or against EU membership on the basis of spring hunting. The negotiation of that derogation on spring hunting was at the time an indirect admission that the government considered hunters to be sufficiently mentally unbalanced to put spring hunting before EU membership and the future of their children and the country itself. Hunters should not have been flattered.]
True, but exactly that is Simon Busuttil’s position.
A. Attard may be foolish, but Simon Busuttil is arguing on pretty much the same lines.
There is absolutely no way that a logical argument can win anything on that island. Turnout will also likely be very low.
Because many people do not know much about hunting and bird migration most will not understand the conservation concept.
In this referendum debate it is going to be very important that the public is given a lot of information in this regard.
Whenever I spoke with a hunter about autumn hunting I was told that in autumn there are no birds to hunt so the hunting season is not really an option for them.
Yesterday I spoke with an ex hunter who said this is untrue and that the same birds that fly north in spring fly south in autumn but of course if you decimate the population in spring then in autumn you get a lower yield especially because most birds will breed in doing and summer.
Unfortunately a lot of people do not see what there is underwater and so have no clue what is happening to our wildlife (because this is the only wildlife we have in Malta apart from the flying variety since we have nothing on land).
In my lifetime (37 years) I have witnessed the almost complete decimation of underwater creatures. Whilst it is a fact that there are extreme pressures on our waters due to our population density, tourism etc, I think the situation we are in is mainly due to ignorance and selfishness which lead to unsustainable hunting and fishing.
When I was a kid my mum would tell my father that she felt like fish and the next day he would go and bring a nice large one for the whole family. Today one would need much more skill to catch a similar fish and chances are the size will be a fraction.
It is well known that you should not catch small octopus or grouper to allow them to breed but nowadays anything goes and we regularly see fishermen catching and selling small fish.
As consumers we must also play our part. If we buy small octopus then the fisherman will continue to catch them. If we refuse he will not have a market.
So my point is that information is crucial for this referendum. I for one will be voting NO and mainly because I think that even with limited spring hunting there is too much abuse so it’s best to stop it completely. Autumn hunting will improve if we give the birds time to breed.
Fishing licences don’t even exist in Malta.
Perhaps, yes, they’d be a bother, but they’d make people aware of the conservation angle.
And then there is Azzopardi. Probably a no-go zone by local standards: he provides the three level freezers the size of Tokyo with a three-year fish/tuna reserve. Pretty impressive, from the conservation angle.
Given the mentality of the electorate, if the NO campaigners stress the fact that hunters are squatters who turned public land into their own playground, they will be more successful.
What a bloody disaster.
Claudette Buttigieg, quite possibly the most keen-eyed politician sitting on the Opposition benches, has also come out in favour of retaining spring hunting.
Do Simon Busuttil and Claudette Buttigieg realise how much this decision jars with their public persona? At least Jason Azzoppardi has a bit of a more traditional right wing streak to him so him backing hunting fits with his image, but Claudette Buttigieg? Really? If I had bet on one Nationalist member of parliament who I thought would support the No vote, I would have chosen her.
Is everyone trying to make it easier for Joseph Muscat the next time round? Has everyone gone mad?
I think I’m losing my f*****g mind.
Let me try spoon my brains back into my skull (mine have exploded) and formulate a question.
Are any of the Nationalist MPs voting NO? Because I think it’s time to reach for our trusty cyanide tablets.
It’s as if Simon Busuttil is happy to let Joseph Muscat f*ck Malta for the next ten years.
PN advisors are really a flop. Have been since Gonzi took office.
Busuttil’s stance might be good for the NO vote in this referendum and a NO vote in the elections that follow.
The Sunday Times mentioned 3 PN and 1 Labour out of 20 they spoke with.
Marlene Farrugia allowed her name to be used, but the Nationalists did not.
Those Nationalists should be ashamed of themselves.
What is it with this omerta’?
Jozef, #occupyPN has never been more necessary. Do it now, because we’re at the point of no return here.
Nationalist MPs have little option but to appear to be in favour of spring hunting. That way, if spring hunting is banned the hunters can’t take it out on the Party in the next election.
Sometimes you opt to lose a battle to win a war.
I desperately hope that spring hunting is banned, but the Nationalist Party coming out against spring hunting would have meant the loss of the next election.
[Daphne – My considered view is that the reverse is true: that the Nationalist Party leader taking a stand in favour of spring hunting has caused further damage to the party’s electoral chances. The Nationalist Party has not attracted hunters by doing this, and it has alienated civilised people and environmentalists.]
I know a lot of people who are thoroughly upset with Simon Busuttil’s stand, but the very fact that they can understand that spring hunting should not be allowed means that they can think logically.
This in turn leads me to believe that they will not let that influence their vote.
Having said I suppose we will just have to wait and see. The average Maltese voter always manages to score lower than I expect, no matter how low I set the threshold.
Stop critisizing P.N. M.P.’s for declaring a YES vote and use your heads not your heart. If this had to be a contest between the YES PL and NO PN the YES would have a sure win, as things stand at the moment.
http://maltarightnow.com/news/2015/01/18/l-fknk-ghadha-bla-posizzjoni-dwar-ir-referendum/
They are still sounding the ground. Are they considering to abstain and chance to invalidate the referendum ??
Also I think that the anti hunting coalition should target the campaign more objetivly. The campaign slogan is already a flop in my opinion. The campaign should look and feel Maltese !
Here’s the thing, jd. I’m sick of voting for the lesser evil. Stop criticizing the PN MPs? I’ll do that when they dust off the cobwebs from their empty space they call a brain.
My argument is about spring hunting voting YES or NO.
Hell broke loose because Dr. Simon Busuttil pronounced himself in favour of a YES vote. Had he opted for a NO vote, it wold have been a race between parties with a sure win for the YES. Being liberal, in this case, does not mean a sure win for the NO.
So according to you both leaders must have cobwebs in place of their brain because they both are voting YES.
I will be voting PN in the next general election (the lesser level) and NO in this coming referendum, because I want something to hunt for in the future. Get my point?
I’m sure Liberal gets your point. I do too.
But how many times do we have to vote for the lesser evil before it’s too much? Sooner or later, we will crack. And that’s how votes are lost.
“So according to you both leaders must have cobwebs in place of their brain because they both are voting YES”.
It’s not just that, jd.
First it was the divorce issue, now it’s spring hunting. What’s next? I’ve lost all hope in Maltese politics.
We would have been better had we not gotten independence. It must be in our genes. We are not European at all.
Technically I would agree with Matthew S but unfortunately nothing is rational in this country. Matthew himself is aware of this when he writes.
“These are the lines on which this battle should be fought, not love. Love is emotional, complex and, very often, completely irrational. It is problematic enough having to deal with loving other people. We don’t need to make our lives even more complicated by loving animals as well.”
The last election has been won on a huge dose of emotion campaigning. The only thing the PL can use given it has lost its raison d’etre.
On the contrary, I am going to vote NO because conservation or not, I pity any bird, however common, being shot out of the sky. This is useless cruelty for me. I do not care about numbers, migratory flows, breeding etc. etc. etc. Someone may bring the issue of killing for eating. But I do not care neither. This is like legalising drugs because alcohol is also legal. A useless animal kill one too many remains one too many.
So do not generalise or take for granted why people vote the way they do, even with some emotion. While the scientific aspect cannot be discarded, you cannot completely take out emotions from an issue, either way. I venture to say that the more the conservation card will be played and the more complex it will become, the more the ‘No’ vote will be alienated, perhaps even sympathising with the hunter’s hobby cause.
The simple unacademic issue is the ‘hunter which is here’ vs ‘the bird which is here’. Once the bird left our airspace, it does not remain our problem. It becomes an “il-boghod mil-ghajn il-boghod mil-qalb” issue.
‘Ma noqtluwomx ahna, joqtluwom it-taljani’, is the saying doing the rounds. The Yes campaign will not go academic for sure.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-01-18/local-news/After-traffic-accidents-involving-horses-Horse-handler-s-licence-and-insurance-proposed-6736128973
The chaos ensues.
‘..Others disagreed, claiming it is the drivers who should be responsible of being cautious of horses on roads, in the same manner as one should be of cyclists or pedestrians..’
It’s so wrong even from a campaign communications point of view – ever seen a strong campaign using baby blue as the signature colour?
What happened to the yellow/black Birdlife Stop-Spring-hunting-Campaign? Now that was strong.
Well said, Matthew S, and thank you Daphne for uploading this as a post. I hope that the self-satisfied idiot heading the NO campaign reads it and learns.
http://www.outsideonline.com/featured-videos/adventure-videos/nature/This-Will-Change-Your-Mind-About-Hunting.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebookpost
Unfortunately science can’t even get into the Maltese mentality, since the only argument most people understand is the silly, retarded “ghax tradizzjoni” argument.
Which is why emotion needs to play a part in this campaign.
I think what needs to be done is to stop criticising the No campaign (at least there is one) and to go out and convince others to vote No.
It’s only way this whole thing will work. It’s bad enough we lack politicians with the balls to say No in public for fear of losing votes.
Even worse, we lack politicians who don’t have the acumen or know-how to simply not comment on their voting because the only thing they see is politics, in everything, and their voting eligibility. On both sides.
All very valid arguments, Mathew and Daphne. I would also play on the fact that wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy our lovely countryside with our children in springtime without fear of being shot, blinded or killed.
I have an inkling that if we are going to convince the demographic group who can swing this vote, namely the better educated Labour voter, then pulling the emotional strings of their beloved children might just do the trick.