The Empty Vessel makes yet another sound
Gibtu r-ruzarju, Mich? Jekk le, Sharon ghandha wiehed tal-Burberry, imma Marlene qalet li huwa fake.
The Archbishop visited Labour HQ this morning and some political aide tapped the Labour leader with a wooden spoon, so that he emitted the usual hollow sounds.
When he is prime minister, he said, he will ensure that there is separation between church and state, having failed to notice that we’ve long had that already.
The Empty Vessel has, however, not failed to notice that the reason Malta doesn’t have divorce legislation is not because the Catholic Church rules the government but because The People do.
No government can legislate for divorce without having first put forward the proposal in its electoral programme. And neither one of the two parties able to form a government has been willing thus far to put divorce legislation in its electoral programme because they fear that the number of votes lost will outstrip the number of votes gained.
The Empty Vessel is so very much aware of this that he has said – categorically – that divorce legislation will not be in the Labour Party’s 2013 electoral programme and that even when he is prime minister, he will not legislate for divorce but will instead make the token and completely ineffectual gesture of putting forward a private member’s bill, leaving it up to his MPs whether they wish to vote for it or not, which means it will fail.
He doesn’t have to wait until he is prime minister to do this, but if he does it now, then he will lose out on the image he is trying to create for himself as a progressive liberal who wishes to introduce divorce but must give in to the demands of his many MPs and electors who are conservative and traditional and will object to any such move.
If the Labour Party is “in favour of a wide spread of legislation to cater for the whole of society”, as Joseph Muscat was reported by timesofmalta.com as having said to the archbishop, then he should put his money where his mouth is, propose divorce legislation, stick it in his electoral programme, and then use the party whip to make sure his MPs – and that includes Marlene ‘cake and eat it’ Pullicino – vote for rather than against.
And if he thinks a private member’s bill is such a frigging great idea, then he should put it forward now, instead of waiting until he is prime minister and can legislate instead of faffing around with member’s bills. After all, he’s a member now and can do it, thanks to that poor ass Joseph Cuschieri.
The Labour Party, Muscat was quoted as telling the archbishop is “not aspiring to be a party against the church” (a weird way of putting it) but believes that the Catholic religion is a fundamental part of our national identity (read Ranier Fsadni on why religion should NOT be part of national identity – in The Times last week, I believe).
I would expect nothing less from a man married to a woman whose view of religion is so very backward that she goes to Sunday mass with a set of rosary beads wrapped round her hand, like the illiterate peasants of yore who couldn’t follow the mass and recited the rosary instead while the mass was said around them.
How do I know about this? Joseph-and-Michelle fan Marie Benoit – she sucked them quickly into her fawning affection as imposed successors to Alfred-and-Mary – rang Mrs Leader to discover the truth about her beads and found that she was happy to discuss them, just as Marie was thrilled to admire her in print for vast collection of rosaries.
Life in Malta – it’s like being forced to take part in some prolonged circus populated by clowns, jesters, fools and…..elephants.
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Yes – a circus where only the clowns change but not the show.
“He insisted that there should be a reciprocal respect between the two parts.” (Maltastar)
Yes, equal parts of wine and water, I suppose.
At least clowns make one laugh, but this lot – if and when in government – will definitely make us cry.
Since when have the Labour party favoured the church?
Joseph Muscat and his cohorts are a pack of bare-faced liars whose only interest is to gather votes to get to government.
You haven’t seen the free-standing crucifix they put on the leader’s desk then. Try and catch the leader’s message for workers’ day which he gives sitting at his desk, and you will see it.
He stops short of telling the faithful not to wear jeans on Saturday’s workers’ day rally though. I am told that Marisa issued a circular telling all the PL hierarchy: administration, MPs, councillors, committee members etc., that the dress code is ‘smart casual’ and no jeans, please. Unbelievable. Not even Jason’s white jeans? This is the 1st of May for Christ’s sake, when even a boiler suit would do.
Have you noticed how Muscat sticks his chin up and forward a` la Duce when he is addressing the faithful. All he needs is to put his hands on his hips and he’ll be a shoe-in!
[Daphne – That’s because he’s ‘faqmi’ (brilliant word; English doesn’t have an equivalent) so he has trouble speaking normally by moving his lips. Instead, he works his lower jaw. This always strikes me when I see him on television. Rachel of Tista Tkun Int had the same problem.]
Prognathous in English.
Hmm. Daphne – the simple term ‘Lantern Jaw’ comes to mind. Or in text-book terms; prognathia or prognathism which I believe is the same thing.
So with such a condition one would be ‘prognathic’ I’d imagine.
Give me ‘faqmi’ any day! It’s so much more descriptive as are many other Maltese words. ‘Paxxejtni’ is another good’un.
Dental surgeons refer to faqmi as Class 3.
U overbite tigi Cusp?
Cusp is the grinding (cutting) edge of a molar or premolar.
Overbite is referred to as class 1.
I just have one thing to say… when the bloody hell is Joseph Muscat going to shave that goatie beard? I mean, come on, are there any political leaders (or ‘leaders in waiting’) with a goatie in the west? He just looks like a joker in a pack of cards……
Joseph is a bit undershot, the goatie hides it.
A pack of cards without aces.
He’d look even fatter without the goatee.
He once told me, (I promise you, he did) that as he has such a young face he was once advised a goatie would give him the mature look. I think all it does is make him look like a real prat.
A moustache or full beard then, but never a goatee. The only living person ever to have carried a goatee with success is Sylvester Stallone in his “Expendables” incarnation. But then, that’s Sly.
When a PM puts forward a private member’s bill in parliament he is admitting publicly that he does not have the full trust and support of his parliamentary party on the issue in question. That is why such a move is unheard of.
No PM worth his salt would even dream of doing something so stupid. If anything, just to test the waters, he would ask one of his backbenchers to do it for him while denying his involvement.
Quality jeans are hardly considered to belong to the ”worker” because of their cost.
I’m not so sure that in Malta the church is really separate from the state.
This is an excerpt from our constitution:
2. (1) The religion of Malta is the Roman Catholic Apostolic
Religion.
(2) The authorities of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church
have the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and
which are wrong.
(3) Religious teaching of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith
shall be provided in all State schools as part of compulsory
education.
I am not implying that Malta is a theocracy, because we are not, but I think we are still far from being a proper secular state.
I am also not suggesting that JM will make Malta a secular state. His voter base is probably more fervently “catholic” than the PNs.
[Daphne – The United Kingdom’s head of state is also head of the official religion, the Church of England. Does that make the United Kingdom less secular than it could be? No. Now the reverse: there was no religion at all in the Soviet Union. The secular state was all. Did that make the Soviet Union a superior place to live? The mistake we make is to talk about the division of church and state, which is a false objective. What we should be talking about instead is true freedom of worship: any religion or no religion, as long as basic human rights are upheld.]
“What we should be talking about instead is true freedom of worship: any religion or no religion, as long as basic human rights are upheld.”
Daphne; What you describe above is part of the Canadian constitution. I don’t believe we will see that in Malta in our lifetime. However, if I am proven wrong in my belief, I will most certainly be elated.
[Daphne – Do you have a sister called Jeanette?]
Bingo! Daphne. That’s me.
Back in 2007, when Mons Paul Cremona was ordained, Joseph Muscat was still an MEP. Muscat was invited to the ordination mass but he attended without his wife. Also instead of his wife’s rosary beads, he brought a reading book, which he did not put down for the entire mass. Oblivious to him, this irritated to the people around him.
Sovietism was one whole religion – literally. You had the trinity of Lenin, Marx and Engels, whose portraits hung even in schools and public canteens.
At seven you became a Communist Young Pioneer (Holy Communion) and by around 14 you were confirmed a member of Komsomol – the young communist league. As a good Komsomolets you had a chance to join the priesthood – by becoming a KPSS secretary at the factory where you work, for instance, and then working your way up the very, very high, egalitarian ladder. The religion’s pyramid was topped by a pope, of course, who held the keys to Lenin’s Church. They called him Generalniy Segretar.
This religion was also taught in schools and universities in the form of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was their bible – The Soviet Bible. Classes in ‘Istoriya KaPeEssEss’ were highly regarded by the authorities – just like religion classes in Church schools.
You had the Soviet ‘parishes’, their ‘saints’, even blasphemous behaviour… one could go on. The Soviet Union was only nominally secular. In truth, although it had banned traditional religions, it installed a non-secular belief system.
And yes, they DID have a god. His name was Vladimir Lenin and he performed industrial and social miracles, as did his disciple Saint Stalin. And although Lenin was not born of a virgin, his mother was a venerated Soviet saint.
I don’t see what the Soviet Union has with any of this.
Daphne above wrote “When he is prime minister, he said, he will ensure that there is separation between church and state, having failed to notice that we’ve long had that already.”
I am simply stating that when chapter 1 of the Constitution grants the power to the Roman Catholic Church to teach (and hence decide) what is wrong and what is right, one cannot state that there is a true separation of church and state.
Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is another debate.
[Daphne – It is compulsory for Maltese schools – state, independent and RC – to teach the Roman Catholic religion (unless, obviously, they are schools set up under another religion, like Islam). But attendance at RE classes is not compulsory. It is merely the default position. Parents are free to specify that their children need not attend those classes. I went to an RC boarding school. It was the only boarding-school for girls in Malta, so the sisters of all the non-Maltese boarders at St Edward’s and De La Salle were there. They were excused from mass and from RE classes – none of them were Catholic.]