There are at least two stressors afflicting any political organisation in the world. The interpersonal stressor and the ideological stressor. Labour’s current narrative regarding the Nationalist Party points at factionalism within its ranks.

Conceivably, it is a bit of panem et circenses to deflect attention away from its own kettle, pot, or both. A predictable strategy. Every group, from a family unit to a large corporation,  has interpersonal differences and conflict. This is part of the human condition. While the interpersonal stressors can never be completely eradicated, they can be managed.

However, allow me to focus on the second type of stressor existing within the PN. The ideological stressor. The new statute defines the beliefs of the party. While these principles are general, they are not exhaustive. They essentially set the guiding philosophy of the party. Still, there is ample room for manoeuvre. That is where the conflict inevitably arises.

The swiftest way to solve such a conflict is what Labour would want the PN to do: one bloc to dispose of the other. Labour strategists think that the PN’s heterogeneity is its greatest ideological weakness. They are right. Labour may astutely create an issue that will trigger the different currents within the PN to start a cascading internal strife. The principles in the statute may help in containing that conflict. However, they are not meant to prevent it or heal it.

One way of dealing with this is to ignore this stressor. Yet, the damage done with every fundamental conflict may deepen the already existing ideological fissures. If this happens too often, it might reach a point-of-no-return. Disintegration. Wouldn’t it be wiser to transmute this weakness into a formidable asset?

Convention PN would be an exercise of ideas and ideals

We are accustomed to think that once something is broken it has to be thrown away since its state of wholeness would have been compromised. Accordingly, we toil to make things and organisations as robust as possible. Nevertheless, everything has a breaking point. I feel that it is wiser to invest one’s energies in creating a mechanism that is somehow benefitting from these stressors. So, the more heterogeneous the organisation gets the better it becomes.

The Japanese have embraced this philosophy a long time ago, through the art of Kintsugi. The broken object is revived with gold patches not just anywhere but exactly at the rupture point(s). The broken part is truly accepted and cherished as a part of the object’s history. Kintsugi is, indeed, the physical synthesis in the whole-broken cycle. Through Kintsugi, the broken object is transformed into a beautiful piece of art. With this Kintsugi mindset, in every conflict, one would see a brilliant opportunity to transform into something greater. The broken part would never be diminished, disguised or swept under the rug. It stays as a distinguishing beautiful golden scar.

In practical terms, then, political Kintsugi would translate into a grand platform for those political thinkers interested in having a stronger PN. I picture dubbing this platform: convention PN. This would be on a different level – not the party level. It would make use of something common, accessible to everyone – the statute principles themselves. Allegorically, if the principles in article 2 of the PN statute were the commandments, the convention PN’s outcome would be the scriptures.

The convention PN would be a politically-charged process but it would be independent and the participants would represent themselves and not the organisations to which they belong. It would be a meeting of well-thought-out and serious perspectives. It would be a thought-distillation process. Liberals, conservatives, Christian-democrats, left-leaning, right-leaning… all present giving their unfettered visions.

The convention PN I am thinking of would create bridges among all thinkers taking part and, eventually, with society. This convention would be an exercise of ideas and ideals, not of political hierarchy. It could serve to skilfully bring together seemingly conflicting ideas. Bind them with the golden glue of dialogue.

A concrete first step towards national political education for the common good. Furthermore, no one could ever claim that she or he had no possibility to influence or play a part in this restorative, rejuvenating and transformational process because successful transformation is the result of sustainable change and sustained growth. This is when dialogue becomes Kintsugi.

Alan Xuereb, lawyer linguist and a political philosophy author