From darkness to light

One lives and learns, and Robert Abela’s Malta is one huge educational opportunity for personal development. I only realised the other day just how obtuse I’ve been.

Take the question of Palestine. It is only thanks to Abela, who has declared an end to the 45-year debate on whether Malta should recognise Palestinian statehood, that I even realised there was a debate going on for that long.

Since 1980, our media have been aflame with arguments pro and contra. Readers and audiences were agog as to how it would be decided. Eras came and went. EU membership was debated alongside Palestine. Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat weaved and ducked as journalists insisted on an answer.

Reader, I confess: I missed it all. I’m not even capable of naming who was against recognition of statehood. Except, of course, our current foreign minister, Ian Borg, who, just under a year ago, declared that the Palestinians still had not sorted out their problems of governance. Since then, the flattening of Gaza has, presumably, made good governance simpler.

But as for the debate, all I noticed was that, off the record, Maltese diplomats were aghast that Borg was refusing to recognise the state of Palestine. Malta was uncharacteristically silent on an issue all previous governments had been vocal on.

Or so I thought. Thanks to Abela, I now know better.

My understanding of what ‘debate’ means is getting deeper. Take the ‘mature debate’ the government has requested on its consultation paper on voluntary assisted euthanasia.

Naively, I believed ‘debate’ means an invitation to air disagreement. I honestly thought ‘mature’ meant being prepared to listen to someone you disagree with and respond to the arguments made, rather than attack the person making them.

Imagine my surprise when the archbishop was described, by ONE news, as extremist and heartless for expressing his opposition to the proposed legislation and describing it as assisted suicide.

I used to think ‘extremist’ meant being outside of mainstream thinking, and I had observed that the term ‘physician-assisted suicide’ is the conventional term used, elsewhere in the world, to describe what the government is proposing.

But I had neglected to pay attention to the fact that the term is favoured by foreigners, who are susceptible of using words like ‘corruption’ and ‘rule of law’ with the specific aim of harming Malta.

I was also using the wrong criterion to judge. I thought ‘mainstream opinion’ simply described commonly-held views. When it comes to assisted euthanasia, much of the world remains against. Within the EU, only five member states currently permit it.

I was also reckless enough to allow the archbishop some latitude for his capricious inclination to be aligned with his Church’s teaching. I thought you couldn’t be extreme if you expressed a view (right or wrong) widely shared by religions such as Islam and Christianity, with billions of followers between them.

I allowed myself to be willingly bamboozled by dubious authorities- Ranier Fsadni

I regret my mistakes. Extremism should be measured by the gold standard established by our enlightened political masters. Deaths on unsafe construction sites are accidents; repeated deaths are coincidences. It is extremist and heartless to call them ‘system-assisted’.

A suicide in prison is just a death, requiring little or no action; many prison deaths under the same regime are simply unfortunate. It is extremist and heartless to call them ‘director-assisted’.

And describing assisted voluntary euthanasia as assisted suicide is the last thing a dying person needs. It might make them, or their families, think again. Whatever next?

Getting your head straightened out is so important. Our government is doing its best, but there’s only so much it can do, given the extremism and heartlessness worldwide.

Take the scandalous case of poor Edward Zammit Lewis. He was turned down as a judge on the EU’s general court. Abela is outraged. Who, he asks, would question the integrity of the former Labour minister, bosom buddy of Joseph Muscat and Yorgen Fenech’s WhatsApp pal?

The hacks interviewing Zammit Lewis focused on his judgement, which, apparently, they think relevant for a judge. And they couldn’t get past Zammit Lewis saying there was nothing wrong with him sending friendly messages to Fenech even after the latter had been identified as the owner of 17 Black, a secret company allegedly linked to a corruption scandal.

Well, Luxembourg’s loss is our gain. We look forward to Abela promoting

Zammit Lewis to cabinet rank soon and to Zammit Lewis sharing his thoughts about the Ġaħan Ewropew.

Under Abela’s guidance, the scales are falling off my eyes. I realise that what I missed was due to more than mere ignorance and distractedness. It was a moral failing.

All these years, I allowed myself to be willingly bamboozled by dubious authorities, like standards commissioners and auditor generals, that successive Labour governments cared little for invoices and paper trails, and employing people on merit.

I was brainwashed. It has been eye-opening to watch ONE news criticise, with civic-minded spirit, Jeremy Harbinson, the central witness in a case against the former prime minister, Muscat.

Labour accuses Harbinson of not invoicing properly, employing family and friends, and breaching Council of Europe guidelines. You can feel the seething outrage through the TV screen. You just know Abela’s government would never commit any of these sins and would take immediate remedial action if, in the unlikely case, they were.

Such is my journey, under Abela’s guidance, from darkness to light. And, should light and air-conditioners fail this summer, I know it will be only a pedagogical strategy to make me love the light even more.