Roamer's column

A fortnight ago The Times carried an interview which I failed to read at the time. In it, a German Socialist MEP made an astonishing assertion. In her reaction to the opt-out clause Malta is seeking on the Commission's proposal to regularise the jurisdiction of EU courts on matters of cross-border divorce, Evelyne Gebhardt said: "Foreign couples who are living in other member states have a right to choose to divorce even if they are not living in their countries... (an opt-out) will mean these EU citizens would be deprived of their rights." Mrs Gebhardt is working on a draft document to present to the European Parliament.

The swiftest answer to this is that foreign couples choosing to settle in this European backwater we inhabit, wallowing in darkness while the rest of the world shone with false illuminations, must surely tot up the island's advantages and disadvantages before taking their decision to set up residence here. Those who go through this exercise surely know that divorce is not available in this miserable geographical expression of ours. And yet, foreigners have for decades chosen to live in Malta. The absence of divorce laws has not prevented them from happily doing so.

But the bizarreness of Mrs Gebhardt's comment is thrown into its sharpest relief if it were to be applied in the matter of abortion. "Foreign couples who are living in member states have a right to choose abortion for their unborn child if they are not living in their countries" (where abortion is supplied on request and makes those countries that supply it - well, you know, progressive, enlightened, a cut and a half above the likes of those who cannot see their way out of the stunted, intellectual morass they inhabit).

Three days later, Dr Harry Vassallo reacted to an opinion posted by Dr Klaus Vella Bardon to The Times that once it obtained representation in Parliament, Dr Vassallo's party would only enter into a coalition with the party that looks favourably on the introduction of divorce. Not so, wrote Dr Vassallo. Neither he nor his party had ever made the issue of divorce "a sine qua non of any coalition negotiations should our support be sought to form a government". There were other factors that would come into play, such as funding of political parties, the introduction to a Freedom of Information Act and the need for a Whistleblower Act. This was elisive at best, not the whole truth at worst.

Last Thursday, Dr Vella Bardon quoted verbatim what Dr Vassallo was reported to have said on January 23 this year: "It (divorce) will be a major issue in any negotiations. The party which finally becomes reasonable (about divorce) will become more attractive than the other... If the other parties ever need to form a government with AD, they would have to decide on this matter." Note, not one 'these' matters.

Now it may indeed be the case that other issues would be taken into account should the situation posited by Dr Vassallo ever arise, but this is hardly the point. Dr Vella Bardon's observation, to which such exception was taken, was clearly correct. Just in case there is anybody in any doubt, let's try to rephrase the whole thing in nursery rhyme fashion.

Assume a government that stands or falls on the vote of Dr Vassallo's party. Assume, also, that in order to carry out its programme it agrees with every factor raised by Dr Vassallo's party less the item to do with divorce, is it safe to say that if his party were represented and its support were necessary to form a working government, it would withhold support on this single issue even if it meant fresh elections and so on and so forth ad catastrophitum? If the answer to that is yes, we cannot say we have not been warned. It reinforces my conviction that a third party acting in a manner that could hold a government to ransom is nothing less than a potential political disaster.

In the same article by Dr Vassallo we find this: "Our combined ignorance and arrogance has been eloquently condemned by Ranier Fsadni in view of the lack of reliable statistics on which to base an opinion of the social harm/benefit of any change to relevant legislation. Everybody, including the Church and Dr Vella Bardon, who has presumed to mention social harm/benefits deriving from any amendment to the law suffers equally from the rebuke."

Mr Fsadni said more than that, but let it pass. Statistical data will certainly add to any intelligent debate on the matter, but in the meantime there are statistics aplenty abroad to show just how harmful the introduction of divorce and its consequences have been over the past 30 years in the UK, for instance.

It has weakened the structure of the family, created a cohabiting class and contributed to a social atmosphere where more than a third of children in Britain are born out of wedlock. To ignore this evidence, to pooh-pooh it as some are doing, or to assume that Malta's experience will be different to that of any other country that has introduced divorce is, quite plainly, dishonest.

In a contribution to Il-Mument last Sunday, Fr Paul Camilleri demonstrated just how problematic divorce, as a panacea, has been in the UK by quoting extensively from a detailed report that appeared last January in The Sunday Times (of London). In its editorial the newspaper informed its readers that "4.5 million children are being brought up outside marriage... and more than 40 per cent of births are out of deadlock" (four times the figure for 1975, when divorce was starting to take off).

The love that dare not speak its name

A report drawn up by Ian Duncan Smith showed that the children of broken marriages are more likely to fail at school, break the law or to turn to drink or drugs. One prepared for the UK Parliament by the Child Protection Group found that family break-ups were costing the taxpayer in welfare and housing alone, £15 billion.

I fail to see what is so imitable in all this, still less do I conclude, as others have done with such ease, how backward we are by warning against the social implications of divorce. If the question of divorce is to be intelligently debated, let it be, among other things, in the knowledge of social realities that have emerged as a result of its introduction in other countries, not as a self-styled sign of enlightenment, which it patently is not.

To go back to that report, the good news is that in an otherwise gloomy picture the newspaper's YouGov poll indicates that "divorce rates have stabilised and there is a chance they will now start to fall. Something may be stirring. One possibility is that children of divorced parents are determined not to subject their own children to the unhappiness that goes with divorce. It is a welcome shift. Marriage may be making a comeback and, if the research is to be believed, more people will be happier as a result".

I write all this because it is being noised in Malta that the breakdown of a marriage and the break-up of a family, cohabitation and divorce do not have a social impact on society. The evidence in the UK, as we have seen, shows otherwise. I imagine it repeats itself in other countries. We may assume the effects in Malta will be similar. Should the human experience in other countries be ignored in any discussion on divorce?

The primary answer to divorce, as I have already argued here, must be marriage - recently described as "the M-word, or the love that dare not speak its name" - and the family, which, contrary to what is being argued by some, is the basic unit of society. Break down the family and ultimately the tendency will be to destroy society or, if not that, make society less humane. Some local commentators are making light of this. They are attempting to redefine marriage as though cohabitation were an alternative equivalent. It is not.

"Marriage has been battered by changes in social attitudes and by government neglect" - thus the leader-writer in the London Sunday Times. "Not only are there no longer rewards in the tax system for marriage but, particularly at the bottom of the income scale, there are real gains from not getting married. The single mother with a boyfriend who occasionally stays the night is better off than her marital counterpart."

But if the answer to divorce is marriage then it is clear that the culture of marriage has to receive help - from married people, quite obviously, and from the State, which has a vested interest in the stability of the married state in which society has a self-evident stake. And not only from the State, of course. The Church, which raised marriage to a sacrament and preaches its indissolubility, has an even greater stake in marriages that are successful, in families that are stable.

Apart from preaching the truth of marriage, there is an obligation placed upon her to further that truth by providing every bit of help to those who embark upon it and sometimes, or often, find it painfully burdensome for one reason or another, or for no good reason at all. As there is an obligation, among those seeking to get married, to deepen their awareness of the commitment into which they are entering.

One would like to hear more from organisations like Cana, not merely about its work but what it does to promote itself to society in the sense of making its operations, its facilities, its embrace of those who are preparing for marriage as well as of those whose marriage has come to a sticking point and who need help.

It could start by running a professional survey to discover how many people, by classification, know it even exists, how many parish priests have ever visited its offices to learn for themselves just what this excellent organisation can offer those of their parishioners whose marriage is in some form of difficulty; to learn how the society in which it operates, regards its work if at all.

It could go further by discussing ways and means to insert relevant aspects of marriage preparation into the curriculum of religious instruction in schools. If Cana does this it may discover that it needs to reinvent itself, not in what it teaches and advises, but as an organisation that is badly needed in the community. I suspect, I hope I am wrong, that large numbers in that community do not know enough, or, indeed, know nothing at all about the services at their disposal.

Cana deserves better than the impression I may have given, not least because it must move into the vanguard of the struggle for stable marriages.

Two things at a time

It is clear that Malta cannot cope at one go with all the law-breaking that goes on. The first priority has to be given to serious crime, murder, violence, drugs. The first is, on the whole, minimal but, pun not intended, deadly. If the third is more widespread, there has been a success rate in bringing traffickers and some suppliers, to justice.

In other areas, things are not so hot, particularly in a host of minor but irritating activities that are carried on with a total disregard for the law. These range from owners, whose vehicles still belch out exhaust fumes and who see this as a civic duty on their part to building contractors who openly 'chase' stone on site; in between a hundred and one other infractions.

It is humanly impossible to deal with all the wrongdoings. Why not, then, adopt the narrow front approach to infractions of the law? For example, why not have a month when law enforcers, including local council wardens, concentrate, but really concentrate, on vehicle owners and development site discipline? This will mean coming down like a ton of steel and with the same rigidity on fumers and chasers and on so many infractions site developers indulge in. (There's money to be made, too). It will mean establishing a call centre to which law-abiding citizens report these forms of lawlessness. And it must mean suspension of licences if the deviant are happy to pay a fine (on the spot) and to carry on doing what they were doing as if a fine meant nothing to them.

Then it will be the turn of litterbugs and so on. The thing is to apply zero-tolerance to a particular misdemeanour over a short, sharp period (30 days of aggressive pouncing will be enough) until you squeeze the 'mis' out of the word.  And then start again. The point is to mean business, of course. That will require the entire body of law enforcers to act and act again.

Quote...

"I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now; I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord".

An excerpt from Dr Martin Luther King's last speech. He was assassinated the following day.