‘Tis the season to be…what, exactly? The prelude to this festive season has been a roller coaster of revelations, a cataract of accusations and resignations, a collapse of confidence and trust by practically everyone, even if for very different reasons. And all the time, the rumblings of economic downturn are getting louder.

Some have said that celebrating the Christmas festivities in the ‘normal’ way would be a betrayal of the outrage and disgust many feel. Some have even said that L-Istrina should have been cancelled. I think President Vella struck the right note when he said that L-Istrina would be toned down this year, but that it was still necessary because people did not choose when to be sick or what to be struck down by.

Nor it is necessarily a bad thing that L-Istrina does get a general toning down anyway, or that it has harvested less cash than last year.

I am far from being the only one who complained in the past at the asphyxatory effect that L-Istrina has been having on other charities in Malta.

Nor should the lines between institutionalised charity and tax-paying citizens’ rights remain as blurred as they have been in the recent past. Was I the only one to bang my head on the TV in despair when the outgoing prime minister ‘gifted’ €15,000 of our taxes to L-Istrina to cover costs not covered by the tax-funded state health system? Is it even worth it trying to explain that the custodian of my cash has no business using my money to buy yet another round of applause for his farewell tour? 

L-Istrina, like this country, is in dire need of a makeover. It needs to have a much clearer focus that does not steal the light and air from other charities that have for decades addressed, rather more quietly and humbly, the needs of the forgotten and marginalised in our society. It needs to be less patronising, less in-your-face, less tasteless flashiness of questionable wealth, less stomach-turningly saccharine. It needs to be more respectful, more about generosity in all its forms, more about stories of hope and courage.

And it is to be hoped that President Vella will be less tempted than some of his predecessors who, to a lesser or greater degree, turned this charity juggernaut into their own personal triumphal chariot.

But to return to the original argument, nor does it make sense to maintain, as others have, that not to carry on with the business of festivities as usual would betray the ‘spirit of Christmas’. The true betrayal is to try to distract from your own previous hosannas to Joseph Muscat by singing the praises of Salvador Mundi, to hide the fact that for the last three years you were actually living in the world of Salvador Dalì.

The true obscenity is to drum out the beat of ‘unity at Christmas’ to provide cover for Muscat’s leisurely departure.

And to hope that the bleary alienation of festive cacophony followed by a new prime minister will stave off the long overdue accounting for the pillage of our county and the silencing-by-murder of a journalist.

The true obscenity is to drum out the beat of ‘unity at Christmas’ to provide cover for Joseph Muscat’s leisurely departure

So is there reason to celebrate Christmas 2019? Yes, for the same reason that the first Christmas belonged to the homeless and the poor in a forgotten corner of a minor province of the world’s greatest empire at the height of its power.

The peace of Christmas is not a mindless amnesia. Christmas time is not a time to forget, but a time to remember – what really counts.

Because Jesus has the knack of being born where he is most unexpected, and most needed.

Titbits from the Sewage

Here are a few choice titbits floating in the sewage that is splurging from the courts on the Daphne murder and related cases, that in the general nausea may have slipped by: 

Titbit no. 1 is about the note that Yorgen Fenech claimed to have received from Keith Schembri through their common doctor.

Now remember that although Schembri denied this, the doctor admitted to being the courier of this letter, even though this admission jeopardises his professional career let alone laying him open for criminal charges.

The note gave detailed instructions to Fenech to blame Daphne’s murder plot on Chris Cardona, of Acapulco strip-club fame. Cardona seems to believe that Schembri is the author, since he has come out publicly to force Schembri’s resignation from the Labour Party.

Titbit no. 2 So, why does Schembri seem to be untouchable? Why is it that he is not even under police bail? Why is it that he was allowed to go abroad, and was allowed to use the VIP lounge even though he is now a common man in the street? What hold does he have on the police and other apparata of the State? Could it just be that Schembri happens to have so many childhood friends placed strategically all over the place?

Why is it that Evarist Bartolo is sounding his typically cryptic alarm bells that a new prime minister, even if it is not vote-Abela-get-Muscat, will not eradicate the underlying problem?

What are the real links between Malta’s business world, Schembri and the Labour Party that worry Bartolo, and even Speaker Anġlu Farrugia six years ago?

Titbit no. 3 goes back to that note. The author bases the whole credibility of its attempted frameup of Chris Cardona as the mastermind of Daphne’s murder plot on the strength of the Acapulco strip-club allegation.

Would it have been credible that Cardona would be so murderously motivated if Daphne’s allegation was not true? Hardly.

The credibility of the frame-up rests on the assumption that Cardona’s horizontal acrobatics at Acapulco were an open secret, and that he would be willing to silence Daphne so as not to jeopardise his professional and political future. So where does this leave Cardona?

Apparently frisk daqs ħassa as we say in Maltese, nonchalant and enjoying his new-found victimhood status. 

Titbit no. 4 has already been mentioned by others, but bears repeating. In his court appearance Schembri commented in passing that he personally handled about 20 job requests a day, and this was only one third of the load. So by Schembri’s own admission, the OPM was at the time handling up to 60 job requests a day. Even a conservative extrapolation would mean that the various ministries were handling hundreds of job requests every day. Every day.

This at a time of what in practice is zero unemployment. So, one can safely assume that at least a fair proportion of these requests are not from desperate breadwinners begging for a lifeline, but from bottom feeders looking for a partisan-lubricated sinecure to fatten their profits.

Much like Melvin Theuma’s non-job. Incidentally, Theuma’s air of imbecilic innocence in court as he recounted how he was given a job he did not ask for and did not know what it was convinces me not at all.

What is mind-boggling is not so much the utter lack of self-respect of these thousands of servile supplicants. What really gets my goat is the casual affirmation of normalised criminality in the allocation of state jobs-for-favours. And this without any national outrage, because national outrage has become hoarse from roaring at the even more heinous acts that are coming out in the light of day.

Oh, and a happy New Year.