TWO MINDS

I’m in something of two minds about Joseph Muscat and his approach to his job.

On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see a Labour leader appearing to be constructive and pro-active, on the other, it’s a bit disturbing to dig a tad deeper, below the shiny clean surface, as it were. I’ve no doubt that all the lil’elves will, on reading this, draw themselves up to their full height and start spluttering again, with varying degrees of coherence, but that’s what makes this blog interesting I suppose.

Let me elucidate.

On a broad brush basis, it’s positive – or seems to be – that Muscat has this fervent desire to strengthen democracy, given the Malta Labour Party’s not-so-remote pedigree in the arena of upholding democratic principles in Malta. Statements of old such as “jobs before human rights” (to mention just one such gem) and the behaviour of the institutions of State when Labour ruled the roost are blots on our democratic landscape of too recent vintage to be forgotten, for all that Muscat and his generation were still in their school uniforms when they happened.

The up-and-coming generations, at this point, will ask me, with more or less politeness, to stuff my memories and stop harking back to the past, but a glance at the comments that succeed this and other blog will confirm that many lil’elves themselves are living in the past. We might all be too old to rock and roll but it seems we’re too young, yet, to allow the past to die, especially bearing in mind that if we ignore our history, we are doomed to repeat it.

But in Malta in 2008 are slogans like “strengthening democracy” relevant any longer? Is Muscat’s use of the buzz-phrase not, then, a slightly cynical manipulation of the emotions of the two groups to which he’s trying to appeal?

The first group, his own core of supporters, is feeling hard done by and how by the fact that the Labour Party lost yet another election. People like Anglu Farrugia, now elevated to form part of the leadership troika, have been fanning the flames of their (perfectly understandable) resentment with what many see as inane remarks about vote buying and reporting Malta to the OSCE and whatever. Alfred Sant, on the few occasions he makes a return to the arena, mouths off about the power of incumbency and the heinous crimes of spin perpetrated during the campaign, for all the world as if he wasn’t a spinmeister of awesome proportions himself.

So as soon as Muscat starts talking about strengthening democracy, this lot, the first group, starts to feel all heroic and militant, muttering to itself, aloud or not, that it’s time to stand up and be counted, to show that they’re not going to be trampled over and all that good stuff.

And then there’s the second group, the one at which Muscat’s charm offensive is really aimed.

The main components of this band of brothers and sisters are members of the chattering classes. They vaguely remember when we faced real threats to democracy in this country. For some reason or another, reasons that may for instance be connected with intellectual difficulties in understanding that things don’t change that quickly, or to an undefined irritation with the Nationalists, these people choose, almost but not quite, to bury these memories.

In psycho-babble, they sublimate them but still have them.

For these people, then, Muscat’s “strengthening democracy” pose is just the trigger they need to snap closed the trap-door of their memory, burying even further, hopefully forever, the spectre of the MLP and the truck-loads of the aristocracy of the workers rampaging around the streets.

Truth be told, I’d like to see these memories buried, too, but for the right reasons. Wrapping one’s self in a democratic flag is all well and good if one is living in Zimbabwe or some other part of the world where democracy hasn’t quite taken hold, but doing it here, frankly, smacks of a foray into political opportunism and nothing more, and a pretty amateurish one at that.

Just to continue on the theme of amateurishness, some of the proposals made by Muscat as a pre-condition to discussing something that most political parties, in systems such as ours, don’t even need to discuss (pairing) were somewhat peculiar. Given that the rate of excise tax charged on fuel is fixed, what was he on about wanting to discuss capping it? Is he saying that the Government should only collect so much fuel tax, regardless of how much was consumed? Why not say the same thing about income tax or VAT? And is it ingrained in the MLP mind-frame that it insists on proposing concepts, such as Whistle Blower or Freedom of Information legislation, which are already part and parcel of Government policy? It’s lucky there’s no such thing as copyright on these things.

So there you have it: on one side of the brain, Muscat comes across as a reasonable type, making all the right noises, on the other side, questions pop up, almost unbidden, as to the real import of all this. Is this the result of youthful enthusiasm and insouciance, attributes which he has in plenty and which add to the general richness of the political tapestry or are we to conclude that there’s less to him (or more, for that matter) than meets the eye?