Has TV killed the unions?

Our culture is described in so many different ways and means; but the majority of the appellatives used point to one direction. This is the get-it-over-quickly culture.

This culture is called the three minute culture presumably because it is assumed (or is it proven?) that people cannot pay attention for more than three minutes … or there about. Like a butterfly or a bee we wonder from one flower to the other or, better still, from one mediocre TV programme (or video game or chat room or social network) to another. Keeping still is the perennial problem. TV programme’ producers know this and have learned to work around it.

Deferred gratification is not one of our strong points. If you can’t do it here and now it is probably not worth doing anyway. Get sex quick. Get rich quick, Turn it quick. That is the prevalent wisdom of many in our culture.

We watch TV and use the modern media to get an instant buzz. We get deeply emotionally involved for a few seconds in one thing and within seconds we are deeply involved for another few seconds in something completely different. At one moment we cry with the starving boy and next second we are asked to indulge in the real thing – which in fact is nothing but the most artificial thing.

We are an impatient culture. We want things here and now. We send an SMS and pretend that we are answered within a couple of minutes. We phone someone on his or her mobile and cannot understand why he or she does not answer us immediately. If we phone for a number of times and there is still no answer we are tempted to phone the emergency at Mater Dei or better still the mortuary. If one is at the emergency department one is expected to answer immediately even if he or she is hooked to a life giving machine. (Ok. I exaggerate a little. But believe me I am not exaggerating a lot.)

When Peppi Azzopardi, on Xarabank, impatiently urges people to be “fil-qosor” he is not being unnecessarily difficult. He knows that people can take arguments only in small doses and so does not want his audience to turn to another channel. He has been quite successful since Xarabank has been the number one programme for so many years.

The attitude does not only concern length of interventions during programme. This attitude also characterises for how long a time people will concentrate or give importance to a particular issue. It can be the famine in Somalia or the genocide in Rwanda. Everything has a very short life span. Every thing has a use-by date and the time window will never be very long. Even the financial crisis will soon be considered as a bore and no one would want to hear about it.

Let’s get the argument nearer home.

The same thing applies for the utility bills. I think that the issue has passed its use by date as a credible and popular media item. The discussion has been around for far too long. In my opinion the biggest obstacle to the unions who are dragging on the debate is not the Prime Minister who decided to give them a cold shoulder. The biggest enemy is the TV culture which is telling them issa daqshekk. People want something new to gossip, agonise, joke or talk about. The unions have to think up of some jazzy gimmick to get people interested once more in the subject. I think that ten or eleven mainly middle aged men on the steps of Castille are a yawn and not a jazzy gimmick.

When the issue was at its apex these unions and the others who now are satisfied with their deal with Government – 20 in all - managed to marshal under 2000 members for a stroll down Republic Street and up Merchant Street. Now that the issue has done its full course – and more – and that the number of protesting unions has been cut by half I don’t think that their directive to the people (not just their members) will have much effect.

I am not saying that the core argument of the Unions is right or wrong. I am just saying that our TV culture has made it irrelevant as a rallying point. No more no less.