His Third Excellency

The minute people in Malta start having a bit of fun, they tend to run into someone who deems it their business to murder the joy. As a nation we're as dour and staid as Sicilian peasants during a siccita`, with little ever happening to break the spell.

Feasts are one such exception. In recent decades, we have seen them change from tall faces and all-male confraternities to merrymaking and beer-fuelled flirting. I honestly fail to see the evil of people having more rather than less fun, but some beg to differ. Among them is President George Abela, who looks set to launch a personal mission against the 'excesses' and 'pique' of feasts.

That will probably make us the nation with the highest number of bishops per capita, but the real issue lies elsewhere. As I see it, the President is at best treading on marshy ground, at worst putting his foot in it. His move shows: first, a meddlesome and prudish attitude to popular culture; second, an insensitivity to the dynamics of feasts; third, a lack of understanding of the established boundaries of the Presidency. I should emphasise that I write this with full respect to both Abela personally and especially his office.

Even as the rival band clubs and street parties mushroom, one notes an official obsession with the prevention of feast rivalry. Feasts, the morality experts tell us, should serve to 'unite local communities'. That's their ideal nature, and any diversion is also a perversion.

Wrong. To say that the proper rationale of feasts is unity is a bit like saying that hobby fishing is really a means of procuring protein. The reason dilettanti spend so much time and money on brass and bunting is, quite simply, that they enjoy it. Rivalry is the natural outcome of the passion that drives them. To try to ram otherwise down their throats is to seek legitimacy for the unpardonable sin of ...er... pleasure. The President, it seems, has unwittingly taken on board a sociologistic (not sociological), instrumentalist, and prudish model of festa.

Second, as reported in The Times, he has "indicated" that he will not be attending feasts he deems too rivalry-ridden. There are two difficulties here. The first and minor one is that, even going by the warped ideal of unity, such a move must be counterproductive. Surely, the presence of the President is more urgently called in such cases.

More importantly, his plan as reported shows a lack of judgment which could have serious consequences for the office. First, it would lend itself to much negotiation and artful manipulation by dilettanti, who are not as naïve as some might think. The President should attend or not irrespective of his personal judgments, as head of state. There is no objective 'rivalry gauge', and any assessment would be caught up in local politics. 'Get His Excellency' would become the new local sport.

Second, it would move dangerously close to partisan politics of the national sort - which is also the sort Maltese presidents have so far largely managed to stay aloof of. I find it quite incredible that Abela should seem so casual about the obvious link between festa and party politics.

The slippage in the discourse of partiti and każini of both types is telling, and in most towns and villages people will tell you that the Eagle Party is bluer than the Lion, the Upper Club redder than the Lower, and such. In other words, the President would unwittingly be putting his foot in party politics.

There is a third problem. When Abela accepted the presidency, he must have known that it is a role that most of the time calls for absence rather than presence. We have come to expect the President to sit happily in his gilded cage, emerging only to do the handshakes and all-smiles rounds. Some will argue that it is high time we change that, and that the President should have a more active role. I disagree. It makes perfect sense to have a head of state with a largely ceremonial role, who is self-consciously and obviously 'above it all'. Reason being that in serious cases of national crisis, their word will have an unmatched weight and gravitas.

It pays to have a silent President. Party politicians never stop talking, and most of the time their words are full of sound and fury but signify essentially nothing. In other words rhetoric, water off a duck's back. (No one takes Lawrence Gonzi's "strong pair of hands", or Muscat's "earthquake", seriously - I hope.) A head of state who breaks the silence, on the other hand, is an exception to contend with, that goes beyond partisanship towards the national interest.

When Paul Xuereb broke the rule following the death of Raymond Caruana, he probably contributed much to the return of sanity. There were similar examples in the 1980s with Sandro Pertini and the Queen, and one might argue that Giorgio Napolitano is all but openly criticising the xenophobic antics of the present Italian government, to much effect. It cannot be easy for Abela to be absent; the man's a doer, a socialist who presumably wants to change the world rather than simply understand it.

In this case, however, the role calls for restraint. His charm and near-universal appeal place him excellently, and it would be a shame if he were to muck it up for a tiff between the Eagle and the Lion.

mafalzon@hotmail.com