More politics please!

"The moral consensus of a free state is not something mysteriously prior to or above politics: it is the acivity of politics itself." These words, taken from Bernard Crick`s `In Defence of Politics`, should be antidote enough to the idea currently being peddled in Malta that we should seek a consensus outside of political division. Be that as it may, I wish to add my thoughts as a further dose.

It is not surprising that the proposal to wrap up and join hands is coming from the Church. Logically, a consensus which does not develop in and of political activity must derive from other sources - dogmatic ones, for instance.

In the case of the Church, even in matters such as bioethics, where it encourages within its structures a lively debate, it can ultimately draw upon the Bible as an outside source of consensus. For Christians this consensus must be sound because it is the word of God as mediated through Church authority.

Unfortunately or not, however, in matters of the state there is no such possibility. In this case `consensus` must reside within politics itself and must therefore be shifting, changing and, paradoxically, contested.

There is no reference point other than the conflicting opinions of the people and politicians. Unless of course a tyrant decides to play God and impose his word, in which case a consensus is achieved at the expense of democracy. History teaches us that the consequences are generally unsavoury.

The debate about Malta`s application to join the EU is a case in point. It is easy enough to recommend that Maltese people forget their differences and unite behind a common cause. But, and there`s the rub, who will decide which cause is best for us?

We have no outside source, no word of God to refer to (although each of us thinks that if we did, it would be similar to their own!).

We can only plant the issue family in the ground of politics and hope for the best.

The `best` would be a mature debate which moots as many ideas as possible. Indeed in my view, the problem with Malta is not that issues are `politicised` (yawn). On the contrary, we need more politics and politicians.

It seems, alas, that we believe in consensus and rally behind our parties in whatever they say. So, in the case of the EU debate, politics has been hijacked by two monoliths which threaten to absorb us all.

So far as I know, we have no dissenting back-benchers outside of triviality, and all the politicians in each party seem to hold exactly the same views on exactly everything.

In the case of the EU, all Labour MPs think that membership would be bleak, all Nationalist MPs that it would be merry. Duality rather than plurality/politics - the same duality, incidentally, which defines our society in matters as diverse as saints and football.

As a professional anthropologist, I constantly find myself labouring to rid my mind of some of the dichotomies imposed on our discipline by our forebears.

One of these equates consensus with `primitive` societies and difference/contestation with `modern` ones.

Thankfully, such ideas which classify societies along an evolutionary spectrum are now discarded. Even so, there is some sense in saying that the hallmark of a mature society is that it embraces political divergence even as it suspects its obverse consensus, of sabotaging democracy.

I can only conclude that the more politicised the EU membership debate is, the better. Ah - and no, foreigners will not look down upon us as a shamefully-divided people.