Roamer's column

It looks set to be a bestseller. Inservi: Ħidma Politika 1969-2009 was launched last Sunday con brio. I have not read it, yet, but from what I have heard and from what I have experienced as a commentator on the political scene for more than 30 years, Inservi is an apt title and admirably sums up Eddie Fenech Adami's life in politics.

Those who did not live through the 70s and the 80s until 1987 will never quite grasp the significance of his contribution to a period that threatened our democracy by virtue of a leader whose followers revered him as a Saviour - until 1998, when he was branded by Alfred Sant, no less, as a traitor to the party. It was Fenech Adami's signal achievement, from the time he was elected leader of the Nationalist Party in 1976 up to 1987, to slowly but determinedly, wrest Mr Mintoff's hold from the institutions of power over a period of time when many thought Malta's very democracy was at stake.

He could never have known that this would be his political mission when he first stepped into the political arena in the 1960s; first-hand experience after 1976 taught him the hard way. From that year on, it was uphill all the way for a man who was probably more at home in the comfortable hurly-burly of the law courts than in the political tsunami that followed 1971.

Slowly, his personal convictions and his courage, moral and physical; his public commitment to serve; his unwavering determination to whittle down Mintoff's domination of the political landscape, a domination helped by taps of violence turned on and off as the situation required or did not require - the burning of Allied Newspapers, the attack on Fenech Adami's home that same black day, to take but two examples; his values, that he attributed to his Malteseness and all that Malta then stood for; his belief that truth and right would overcome; his introduction of words like solidarity and dialogue to the political lexicon; the turning point provided by the 1981 elections at around the same time as Solidarnosc started to make headway in Poland and itself acted as a beacon in Fenech Adami's struggle to bring Malta back from the brink; slowly, these and other factors finally persuaded the majority of voters in 1987 that here was the man Malta needed.

Then, as he took on the task of pulling the island up by its bootstraps, mending badly broken fences with the West, introducing institutions and freeing the country of its socialist experience, liberalising an economy warped by that experience, creating an entire infrastructure from scratch for all intents and purposes, raising Malta's sights towards what was not yet a European Union and offering the vision of membership with a divided continent soon to be a united one - all this while, he served.

Then the shock of 1996 when his government was turned out - and the elation of being returned in 1998, giving him the chance to serve again, this time fulfil his vision of taking Malta into Europe. He served all right.

Manhattan redeemed?

More than 80 years ago, Chesterton wrote in G.K.'s Weekly, "For the next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on morality; and especially on sexual morality...The madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan."

Perhaps it is from Manhattan that the new sanity may yet emerge; for it was there that a declaration was recently drawn-up by top-level leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion and Evangelical communities in the United States.

Have you heard about the 'Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience'? No? Thank the European mainstream media, including Malta's, for that; no space, you see.

The no-nonsense, combative document, an appeal in defence of life, of marriage, of religious freedom and objection of conscience, asserts that, "the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is at risk of being redefined and subverted" - and remarks a propos that 'Where marriage erodes, social pathologies rise; The impulse to redefine marriage... reflects a loss of the understanding of marriage as embodied in our civil law as well as our religious traditions... critical that the impulse be resisted."

The signatories fear "that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardised by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel people of faith to compromise their deepest convictions". And on the matter of unjust laws, "As Christians, we believe in law and we respect the authority of earthy rulers (and) count it as a special privilege to live in a democratic society...Yet even in a democratic regime, laws can be unjust..."

The finale comes with a ringing statement: "Therefore let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide or euthanasia... let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth as we know it about morality, marriage and the family... let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."

In most European countries, this combative stand for the vulnerable and for vital institutions of civil society would seem to be unthinkable.

Help!

I have been reading about Linda Gibbons, a Canadian pro-lifer. She has been in and out of Ontario prisons many times because she is a side-walk, quiet, prayerful witness in front of abortion clinics in violation of an unjust 'bubble zone' law. A grandmother, she has been in gaol for an accumulated period of seven years. She is behind bars - again.

Why not help her endure by sending her a letter or a Christmas card - perhaps parish priests can help, too, by placing a message on their notice boards with her address? Which is: Attention: Linda Gibbons, Vanier Centre for Women, 655, Martin Street, Box 1040, Milton, Ontario, L9T 5E6, Canada.

Do not use stickers (address, return address or pro-life) on envelope or card, I have been advised, or the card may not get to her); no pro-life pamphlets, prayer cards, bookmarks or laminated cards; Christian reading materials are OK but stick to one or two pages; put your address directly in the card or letter; any money gift must be a money order made out to 'Linda Gibbons' - she uses any money, which the detention centre deposits into her account, for envelopes and stamps.

Make Christmas more of a Christmas for this extraordinary woman.

Now read this

If my source is correct, and much of what follows comes from it, Ireland's Constitution was on trial in the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, last week. A, B and C were claiming that they were 'forced' to go abroad for abortions and this placed their health in danger. Due to fatal, surgical intervention the unborn kids could not attend.

The outcome of this case, amid growing doubts about the Court's "ability to be impartial" on the matter of "abortion rights", has to be seen in a context that could test the integrity of pre-referendum negotiations between the EU and the Irish Government. The Catholic Family and Human Rights (CFHR) institute insists that Ireland had received "guarantees that its pro-life Constitution would remain unaffected".

Pro-life people from Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Rumania paraded outside the court with placards - 'Europe needs children not abortion'; 'Hands off Ireland's pro-life laws'. They were protesting against the "profoundly undemocratic push by the abortion industry to seek the imposition of abortion on Ireland by a foreign court". Should the case go against Ireland it will be interesting to learn whether its ruling will affect all countries in the EU. I wait for somebody to assure us this will not be the case.

In the Tysiac v Poland case (2007), the court ruled that Poland must guarantee access to abortion. Tysiac claimed that she lost her eyesight because she had been unable to terminate her pregnancy. According to CFHR, the court based its ruling on the testimony of one doctor who supported Tysiac's claim - against that of eight other specialists who testified that the "ongoing deterioration in eyesight was unrelated to her pregnancy".

Now let's see; in Canada a defender of life goes to gaol for being a prayerful witness against abortion. In Strasbourg a killer of life attracts the wrath of the ECHR (on Poland) for losing her eyesight due to causes "unrelated to her pregnancy". Crazy? Criminal.