You know how every now and then the Musketeers and D’Artagnan would draw their swords, point them at the sky, shout “All for one and one for all” and then set off into the sunset to redress a wrong? Inevitably, their mission would succeed because, you know, they were united.
This unity issue keeps rearing its head on this island of ours. Only it’s nothing like the genuine, brotherly-like bond we read about in Dumas.
We saw such an example of this penchant for bogus unity, recently, when the wives of the prime minister and the opposition leader featured together in the Sunday Circle magazine as a show of ‘togetherness’. I suppose, as readers, we were meant to say “Golly! If they can do it, then I can do a photoshoot with my staunch PL/PN neighbour and we can all be united”. However, it certainly did not look like the two ladies were having a laugh a minute and, somehow, it all came across as, well, forced. For the semblance of ‘unity’, we’re happy to go to fake lengths.
The latest attempt at this comes from the president of Malta. George Vella announced that everyone is fed up with constant society infighting and, therefore, he’s holding a conference on national unity at the end of this month. “We deserve better,” he said, “why, even our towns and villages are split on the smallest issues.”
Perhaps it’s wisdom of old age or, perhaps, it’s the fact that now he no longer needs to pander for votes but, eureka, after decades of forming part of a political party that set fire to national division, the president has been enlightened about the real Malta. Now he wants us all to understand what is causing the division and that is what his panel will be discussing come conference day.
I noticed, however, that his panel lacks a key representative: a victim of division, that is, a victim of the hate and dehumanisation spewed day in day out by the Labour Party’s Super One. The conference cannot possibly discuss unity without talking about the horrific repercussions of the lack of it. I’d be very happy to send a list of these victims to the president: top of the list would be Daphne’s sons.
It needs one brave president to do that for he would need to put the nation’s unity ahead of his amoral familism: his son-in-law, Cuschieri and his political son, Muscat- Kristina Chetcuti
Times of Malta was quick off the mark and asked how could the country unite while political parties were blaring their propaganda on their media machines. “Oh, I won’t be condemning anyone,” he replied. Dum dee dum. But he appealed for “balanced” reporting, even though there is no such thing as balanced reporting but only factual reporting.
The truth is that all the president needs to do to understand the root of the problem is read Edward Banfield’s The Moral Basis of a Backward Society.
The divisions on the Maltese islands stem from innate amoral familism.
Banfield, an anthropologist, explains how in Mediterranean societies, there is no concept of common good but only a sense of short-term advantages for the nuclear family. In other words, everyone expects everyone else to do whatever benefits them and their family, irrespective of whether it’s legal or ethical or beneficial to the community.
By way of example, think of Gozitan Joseph-monstrosities-contractor-Portelli, the epitome of amoral familism. He does not give a toss about the country or about the long-term sustainability of his projects for future generations. All he thinks about is himself and his family swimming in money.
Perhaps, another example closer to the president’s home would be his very own son-in-law, Joseph Cuschieri, former CEO of the Malta Financial Services Authority, who is very familiar with the crooks who ruined Malta’s reputation. Incidentally, the chieftain of the crooks was none other than the president’s own mentee, Joseph Muscat.
So, really, if the president truly wants to understand what is causing the infighting, he can simply lift his head up and see the pressing truth staring at this face: there can be no unity without justice. Please read that in bold, italics as well as underlined.
Top people in government are closely linked with those accused not only of rotten corruption but also of trying to hide it by assassinating the person who was unearthing it. There’s no harsher blow to democratic society – or to unity – than that.
The Boston Globe recently interviewed Martha Minow, an expert on political and legal forgiveness and a professor at Harvard Law School. She was quite succinct: societies pay the price for allowing harm to go unaddressed and unaccounted for. Neglected wounds and injustice beget more wounds and more injustice. Unity without accountability “is a perpetuation of the original wrong”.
The first step towards unity, therefore, is unflinching action against people who inflict damage on the country. Criminals are criminals are criminals – we can only ‘unite’ once they’ve paid their dues. Otherwise, victims are left unprotected and democratic institutions in peril.
Rather than holding conferences on unity, the president would do better to get society to agree that harm was done and that the wrongdoers must be held accountable as soon as possible by institutions which function properly (and quit with this game of arrest and release).
Admittedly, it needs one brave president to do that for he would need to put the nation’s unity ahead of his amoral familism: his son-in-law, Cuschieri and his political son, Muscat.
Only then can there be unity and only then will he truly be able to shout out the call, with the nation behind him, “All for one and one for all”.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti