The Maltese Body Politic Should Go Boating Instead of Writing
But alas here we are, dealing with driving license scandals and whatnot
Last week the editorial board behind The Maltese Body Politic left the island for a spot of messing around on boats and, let me tell you, it was well worth it. So we gotta give the prime minister his due - of course it's better to get the fuck off the island on your boat of choice than standing around here on this dump, dealing with the animals that call it home. That said, maybe you shouldn't take on the responsibility of prime minister during these interesting times if you want to take all your leave during the summer; maybe stick to being a mediocre lawyer coasting around on daddy's name, at least that kind of occupation does not force you to scratch your head whenever, I don't know, a pandemic hits or inflation threatens to wreck the economy. Not that I believe Bobby even cares about such a thing as rising prices - as the scion of a political dynasty he strikes me as having the kind of hugely privileged upbringing that leads to one thinking a banana costs 10 euros. Anyway, if only I had the kind of money that allowed me to not give a shit about this fuck of an island. That must be nice!
The main story for this week is surely the one with the driving theory test corruption case involving three Transport Malta officials and "at least" one unnamed government minister. Wait, the case involves corruption around the driving theory test? That easy-peasy multiple choice nonsense? When I first read about this I thought it was about the driving test proper - you know, the one that has you actually drive a car around, examiner breathing on your damn neck, and not the theory test! How stupid is this story, and the people involved in it? Apparently this whole shambles has been taking place since 2020, when a Transport Malta translator basically helped foreign candidates incapable of reading neither English nor Maltese pass the test by indicating the correct answers. Said foreign candidates, a Pakistani and an Albanian, were reportedly working at "a villa belonging to a government minister," which means it's impossible to lock down who the minister was in this case. After all, it's not as if someone who made it that far in politics would live in anything other than a goddamn villa, right? So whoever made the calls goes scot-free - and all of nine ministers approached by The Times were quick to deny any knowledge of the case - while three Transport Malta officials got the short end of the doing il-ministru's bidding stick. And let's face it, it's hard to deny such orders when they come from far above, lest you want lose your job or, even worse, have it turned into a living hell. Now the police might be puffing their chests as they play detective and go through diaries believed to have served as corruption ledgers, but it'll be one chilly day deep in Satan’s thorny asshole should the name of the politician involved in this deal be revealed.
On the 28th of August, a young woman going under the handle "Mona60000" took to Tiktok1 to decry the state of the police in Malta. Judging from her command of the language she's clearly not local - I've heard someone say she's Saudi, but that's of no import - which explains her perhaps unfortunate choice of insult to direct towards the men and women making the force. You see, her insult of choice amounts to a homophobic slur, and we can all agree we've come well beyond using "gay" in order to be offensive, right? Plus we can all agree that the Maltese language is rich enough to allow the expression of a sentiment as pure and noble as FUCK THA POLICE in terms that are far more poetic than mere homophobia. Maybe Mona60000 is in need lessons in the fine art of Maltese insults? Now I wouldn't have even learned about this lady - I don't do tickytocks, thank you very much - if it weren't for the mayor of Marsa who went ahead and condemned the video on Facebook. He also insisted that the police are in no way deserving of such harsh language! Never mind that the mayor is a local man while Mona is a non-local brown woman so maybe, just maybe, their experiences with the coppers might differ ever so slightly. Then the Malta Police Union not only complained about the video, but also proceeded to file a criminal report against the poor woman. Because sure, that definitely does not prove Mona's points against the force! Another person picking up on the video was Labour propaganda ghoul Manuel Cuschieri, who also bleated that anyone saying bad words against the police should be locked the fuck up! By this point all that's left is PN deputy leader Joe Giglio popping up to insist that capital punishment should be reintroduced for the crime of insulting the police - never mind that, as per May 2018 amendments to the Media and Defamation Act, words published on social media that can be described as slanderous are no longer considered as a criminal offence. Still, maybe don't go doing any lip-syncing TikToks to the tune of NWA's finest, okay?
FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES ANY SENTIMENTS IN THE ABOVE SECTION OF THIS EDITION OF THE MALTESE BODY POLITIC THAT MIGHT BE CONSTRUED AS DISRESPECTFUL TOWARDS THE POLICE ARE IN FACT SATIRICAL, ALL OF US HERE AT THE MALTESE BODY POLITIC HAVE NOTHING BUT IMMENSE AND ABSOLUTE RESPECT FOR THE POLICE
Somewhat sad news from the capital, as household goods retailer N. Caruana & Sons announces its closure. Is this a simple case of capitalism working as intended, as a small, family-run business gets devoured by a larger monopoly-to-be? Not quite. Instead this is a case of the building getting "returned" to its landlord, who promptly went ahead and killed a business with an 80-year history following a three-year battle in the courts. Look, I have fond memories of the place - it's where from I bought a my first ever cheap home appliances when I first moved to a place I could claim as my own2, and fairly recently I got to buy a very nice kettle from the Caruana brothers. Well, I hope the free market likers who gargle about piss such as "fair rents" are happy about the economic equivalent of tapeworm is getting its due, and I'm sure they'll really love how the Merchant Street building will near-certainly be turned into yet another fucking boutique hotel. Good thing for such people that we'll never live a repeat of Mao Zedong's land reforms, huh? No, instead we'll see Valletta further transformed into a playground for tourists and the rich, an open-air museum with no place for those who want to live and work and play within its walls. I just pray those same fucking people insisting landlords deserve their fair rents do not even make a peep about all of this, because I swear I will get really fucking cross at all of them.
I've been told more than a few times that the appointment of former King of Tarmac Ian Borg as foreign affairs minister was a demotion, and taken at face value such a statement certainly makes sense. After all, the foreign affairs ministry is generally handed out to old parliamentary sods as a political equivalent of a retirement gold watch before they shuffle off the benches and sooner, not later, this mortal coil. However Ian is a young whippersnapper, with many a decade to serve in the hallowed halls of the Maltese Body Politic. So what gives? Well, Ian might have eaten extremely hearty during his tenure in the transport ministry, but a growing boy does not live on graft and EU funds alone. Oh no, a lad such as Ian, who in any other life would have remained an absolute nobody living the ass end of the ass end of the Mediterranean, needs at least some thrills - and what's more thrilling than international travel on the taxpayer's expense? So there goes Ian, feeling a big proper man instead of the nobody from the ass end of the ass end of the Mediterranean that he actually is as he hobnobs with all the foreign dignitaries forced to consider him as one of their own and just some deeply uninteresting nobody from the ass end of the ass end of the Mediterranean. And joining Ian is a full retinue of ghouls and cretins, all jetting on business class and spending more than a few nights in five-star hotels. And what about his nice car, hired from Gauci Automobiles at the cost of no less than €1,000 monthly? Then there's the fucking €26,000 purchase of "themed" ties, scarves and bags to be handed handed out as gifts to the UN following Malta's uncontested election in United Nations Security Councils. Money well spent, I'm sure you'll all agree, especially since these were bought from fashion designers Charles and Ron, a duo that happens to be favourites of the one and only Mrs Joseph Muscat herself, Michelle Muscat. To think potato headed finance minister Clyde Caruana has been mumbling on and on on about his government's supposed budget cuts and cost savings! I'm sure you all love to see it, don’t you you fucking hogs?
I don't think I've ever talked about anything in Maltese in The Maltese Body Politic, mainly due there being very little of note is published in the island's mother tongue. Sorry folks, that's them facts! Still, Malta Today sister paper Illum did get an opinion column worthy of note so hey, let's talk about it. Dwar Kemmuna, tliet noti (About Comino, three notes) has Graffiti activist Rachel Baldacchino3 take us back to Comino, and is a heartfelt and at times even beautiful piece of writing. Alas, as good as the prose might be, it still has one particular bugbear that sticks right up my craw - it deals with the very idea of construction in the abstract, as if it were some kind of inexplicable cosmic apparition that one day decided to invade the Maltese islands and cover them in concrete. But that's not the way it is, is it? Construction - or, as a loathsome exercise in innuendo, "development" - is a very real thing, one brought about by very real people with very real economic concerns. Joseph Portelli and the rest of his industry buddies did not force anyone to give up the properties in Siġġiewi, Imqabba, Żurrieq, Qrendi and Imsida Baldacchino writes so lyrically about - no, these houses were owned by people making part of your or your parents' generations who looked at the bottom line and decided it was more worth it to sell up, and it so happens that the only ones buying had plans to demolish and rebuild. Maybe the sellers were in need of money, maybe they just wanted more of the stuff. It doesn't matter. The industry decided that blocks of flats were the way to go, and the government was more than willing to let them proceed with such plans, for whichever reason. Baldacchino fails to mention this, instead sticking to distressingly vague and abstract language. Maybe she doesn't want to step on anyone's toes, or she refuses to point her fingers towards the greed of the property-owning middle and upper classes. I'm not in the position to tell. What I am in the position to do is point my own fingers at myself, as a member of these classes whose family regrets selling a particular chunk of real estate before the 2013 election, since everyone knew in which the wind was blowing and, they'd waited just a bit, they could a house in what used to be the Gargur green belt with all the permit trimmings4 for a far higher price. Now I could insist have not received a cent from that whole deal, but it doesn't matter. And that's why the upper and middle classes voted Labour in 2013, and if any of the well-meaning activists did so just because they believed some promise on a billboard, well, it sure sucks to be you as you wave your placards in a desperate attempt to save Comino. Maybe have the guts to mention that an actual company, the Hili Group, has been granted part of Comino for the construction of bungalows for the wealthy? Because Baldacchino does not mention that fact out in her piece, just as Graffiti have repeatedly failed to point it out. Are they that terrified to upset someone, anyone? Are they so willing to compromise through whimpering attempts at proposals? The men renting out deckchairs and manning the stalls in Comino happen to be close to the very real powers running the island, just as the Hili Group and others like it fund its election campaigns! Or is your activism little more than a hobby, something to do on the weekend in between getting in your button-up shirts for your respectable office job? Because that's all well and good, but you're not going to save anything that way, no matter how good you feel about yourself while doing so.
In more editorialising, oh, friend of the newsletter Wayne Flask and the massive chip that calls his shoulder home wrote some boring shite where he thumps his chest in the name of his supposed neutrality. Sure, the man is a born Labour supporter, but whatever. His once and forever king Joseph Muscat could have snapped his fingers and nuked the "infamous 2006 Local Plans" from orbit, but they proved handy for his real agenda and so this legacy of the PN stayed right in place. Not that Wayne ever made any noise about it until at least 2018, mind; Labour supporter gotta Labour support, after all. But it doesn't matter, does it? One can blame the party currently in opposition all they want, it will only serves to further strengthen the party in government. Then again, maybe that's what Wayne and his ilk want. After all, it's nice to be support the winning team, even if you don't vocally admit it.
Well that sure was bleak, so let's close this edition of The Maltese Body Politic with a return of the Animal Korner! It's an actual cute story, this one - a lost goose was found making its way around Golden Bay! The bird had its winged clipped, and as such could do little more than waddle around the beach and have a general good time, at least until it was found by a pair of farmers who promptly took it back home in Burmarrad. But that's not all bad! The goose now gets to hang out with the farmers' chickens, and will even get a pond to splash about it. Sounds like a happy ending to me!
Yeah, that's pretty much all I have to offer this week! I'm tired! Well, I've been reading Dai Dark, which is a comic that... well, actually I've no idea how to describe Dai Dark without sounding like an insane person, so... it's a comic about four goofy space who like to hang out while also committing monstrous acts of ultraviolence? Yeah, I'll go with that. It's a nice series about fun friends that you might enjoy!
Alas the original Tiktok video has been deleted so enjoy this link to the Lovin Malta writeup instead, you slobs.
It was, in fact, a parasite landlord's, but anyway.
A personal acquaintance, but I doubt one who’s reading this.
All courtesy of the regime change, of course.