Over the last two decades, something peculiar has happened to our political vocabulary. A lexicon of political values, like socialism or solidarity, has been replaced by a vocabulary of feeling, like ‘hurt’, ‘betrayal’ and ‘pain’.
Where the old vocabulary is still used, its meaning has changed. Take solidarity. It used to mean a public call to take action on behalf of a disadvantaged individual or group. Today it means little more than an expression of sympathy, a substitute for public action.
The shift has happened gradually. Maybe that’s why we hardly notice it, even though politicians keep gushing in the new language.
In March, Robert Abela was asked for his reaction to the collapse of a building and the death of a woman, Miriam Pace, trapped inside. “I feel angry and hurt,” said the prime minister.
That’s an oddly personal, self-centred way to speak of an outrage caused by multiple institutional failures.
“I understand the pain of some people,” said Abela in an interview in early August, “and I feel it too.”
He was talking about the resentment of many Maltese towards irregular immigrants and for the lack of European solidarity.
This manner of speaking predates Abela and is used by the media organisations of both major political parties. It comes naturally to other politicians, activists and operatives.
Here is André Grech, a supporter of Adrian Delia in the upcoming leadership election, speaking to this newspaper:
“No one understands Delia better than our grassroots because he has proven himself to be so close to the grassroots’ aches and pains...”
Only a few days before, Delia had addressed PN councillors: “I sacrificed everything and suffered on a personal level. [...] There were times when I cried alone, because I am human too.”
It’s impossible to imagine Dom Mintoff or Eddie Fenech Adami speaking this way. Or, for that matter, Alfred Sant and Lawrence Gonzi (even if the latter sometimes spoke of ‘exciting’ visits to factories).
Evidently, times have changed. Remember how Labour politicians and media reacted in the tumultuous days last November, after the arrest of Yorgen Fenech and the news of his communications with Keith Schembri, chief of staff to the now disgraced Joseph Muscat.
Owen Bonnici, our then minister of justice, said he felt ‘betrayed’ by Schembri. Miriam Dalli MEP, seen as a possible
future party leader, also said she felt angry and betrayed. Everyone was angry, with the unfortunate consequence of being speechless about what mattered.
In all the collective haze of anger and hurt, not one word was spoken of principled condemnation or leadership. On the contrary. The politicians mirrored the rank and file they’re supposed to lead. They signalled that they were at one with ordinary people: victims too.
What does it all mean? Many think Lawrence Cutajar was a clueless police chief but, on this point, he offers a vital clue.
In June, on having his contract as government consultant on public safety terminated by Abela, he told this newspaper how he felt: “hurt” (and, no surprise, “surprised”).
To be hurt is to feel wounded and betrayed. It’s the language of family and personal relations. It employs the yardstick of private loyalty, not public service.
We should be astounded that a former police commissioner should speak like this about his relationship to the prime minister. He even expects us to pick up the implied criticism.
Cutajar’s words passed without public comment. It suggests that many of us take for granted what he does: politics is personal.
To be hurt is to feel wounded and betrayed. It’s the language of family and personal relations. It employs the yardstick of private loyalty, not public service- Ranier Fsadni
The politicians have picked up on this general attitude, and perhaps they share it too. They use the language of empathy, feeling, hurt, betrayal and anger and, in this way, recast politics as personal relations.
Do not confuse this with feminism’s slogan to recast the personal as political: that means that we should never forget that personal relationships, particularly of gender inequality, have a public dimension.
What we have here is the opposite: the dissolution of the public interest in a sea of private interests.
When Labour politicians spoke of being angered and betrayed, they deflected attention from their public responsibilities. They copped out of saying what they thought by telling us how they felt. They repressed treason by recasting betrayal in personal terms.
The rhetoric may come naturally but it’s also convenient. It gave cover to the Panama gang’s chief enabler, Muscat, who was portrayed as having been betrayed as well.
This politics of emotion is not innocent rhetoric, something that merely allows politicians to show that despite elevation to high office they have not lost touch with ordinary concerns.
When Delia pronounces himself hurt and betrayed by his party’s internal critics, he does it to portray as treacherous the very act of democratic action, within the structures legitimised by the party statute.
These are perverse consequences. Democracies are not families. They are societies of people with constitutional bonds, not family ties. Private virtues are sometimes public vices.
In private life it is legitimate to show predilection for family members; in public life all must be treated equally under the law. One should not wash the family’s dirty linen in public; but it is a democratic virtue to insist on public transparency and to report national abuses to international monitoring agencies.
When we cast our politics in terms of purely personal relationships, we open the way for political discrimination. We make it easier for calls for legitimate debate to be dismissed. We allow politicians to simulate deep feelings in order to cover up their lack of convictions.
The malaise has a cure. We can refuse to play along. When a politician says he knows just how we feel, because we are all one family, let us insist that he sticks to the issues. He’s not our father or our spouse or our sibling. He works for us, and we want to know what he thinks should be done in the public interest, and why.