You’d think the brouhaha was done and settled. I’d say it was overdone – and yet hardly settled. It’s not because there’s more to add. On the contrary, there are a few things we need to subtract, at least if we’re to minimise the chances of a repeat of a serving ambassador publicly slurring a foreign leader.
You’re probably sick of hearing the bare facts. But the reason the facts keep being repeated is that they’re being transformed, by sleight of hand, into a cause of the incident. Michael Zammit Tabona? Labour Party donor, PL booster on his Facebook page, and political appointee to non-resident ambassador to Finland? Of course he’s bound to compare Angela Merkel to Hitler!
Let’s be clear. This incident was not caused by the international practice of appointing party donors or campaigners to ambassadorships. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, other things being equal (although, granted, that’s a lot of other things, some of which we’ll come to).
Of course you can have major slip-ups. You have those with professional diplomats, too.
The countries with the greatest foreign services are not immune to either. Here in Malta we should know.
Plus, there’s a good reason why political appointments persist. The right person in the right country can add a valuable dimension.
One of Malta’s greatest ambassadors, respected everywhere he served, was a political appointee. If we really want to make an embarrassing situation worse, let’s use this incident to argue for getting rid of a useful practice.
At this point the critics will want to burst out in chorus: “It’s all very well to defend the practice in principle. But this case is about an ambassador whose FB page shows his sympathies for the far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, and who gets his European analysis from the UK’s Daily Mail.” (The Mail is a right-wing tabloid that doesn’t so much explain the world as ex-spleens it).
The critics could go on to say: “The writing was on the wall. In the run-up to the 75th anniversary of VE day, Zammit Tabona drew attention to a couple of articles which were, shall we say, German-sceptic. How could no one notice?”
Precisely. No one did. The foreign minister could reasonably reply that Zammit Tabona’s Hitler comparison was a bolt from the blue exactly because, having gone to the brink many times, the ambassador always pulled back just in time. He had always shown himself to be sure-footed. Only this time he wasn’t.
In fact, no one has mentioned what else is on the FB page – and that is the clue to where the discussion has gone wrong, on all sides.
An ambassador is Malta’s voice 24/7. Unless it’s Malta’s policy, he or she cannot express any political preferences or predilections- Ranier Fsadni
If the discussion is restricted to one FB post that went over the line, then we’re left with an event that could not have been foreseen. And the best remedy remains that mild cough syrup prescribed by the minister to diplomats: be prudent about what you upload on social media.
Yet what was wrong began a lot earlier than the slanderous post.
No matter how personal one’s social media platform is, no diplomat should be uploading personal political opinions.
In no sane diplomatic service does anyone complain about loss of freedom of expression.
If you want to be a diplomat, then you’re choosing to speak only in your country’s name. You don’t get diplomatic immunity only during working hours.
You’re treated as ‘your excellency’ and to every diplomatic courtesy at all hours of the day. You must publicly live up to the honour of speaking for your country all the time.
So, no publicly expressed sympathy for Salvini, for that means taking sides in Italy’s domestic politics. No sympathy for Brexiter analysis. But also no sympathy for Remainers or favourable comparisons of Merkel with Margaret Thatcher, either.
An ambassador is Malta’s voice 24/7. Unless it’s Malta’s policy, he or she cannot express any political preferences or predilections. They might not cause a furore but they’re still damaging.
The cause behind this embarrassment, therefore, is indeed institutional. But it’s not the method of appointment. It’s the standard that political appointees are being held to.
Nothing that the foreign minister has said so far points to this being corrected. So the chances of a repeat are higher than they might be.
Evarist Bartolo, the minister, has also been criticised for the mealy-mouthed way he described the post as ‘insensitive’. It’s true that this actually adds to the insult, even if Germany is unlikely to quibble over it.
To be insensitive is to lack tact. It’s to compliment Merkel on her current hairstyle by saying that it’s better than the one that looked like a Wehrmacht helmet. (An assiduous Mail reader will doubtless remember how the tabloid celebrated Merkel’s 60th birthday with a full-colour spread of her hairstyles over the years.)
To be insensitive is to say something essentially true but at the wrong time, in the wrong place or to the wrong person. By calling the Hitler comparison ‘insensitive’, our foreign minister endorsed it as true-but-undiplomatic.
I doubt he believes that. I suspect it’s more likely that he didn’t want to say something that was ‘insensitive’ to a party donor’s feelings.
And that, of course, highlights yet another irony of the whole affair. A post smelling of the rankest nationalism is not dealt with robustly – as it should be if the national interest really mattered.
We just get a load of gobble, gobble, gobble. Or, if I may be a mite insensitive: Goebbels, Goebbels, Goebbels.