Archive for July, 2008

As readers may or may not have by now noticed, by steps I actually refer to micro-steps. I have long since concluded it both unnecessary and risky to condense too much information into too little space as it is clarity, rather than wordiness, that is of importance when conveying ideas. This being said, this particular micro-step refers to the importance of prioritization in crisis.

In any hazardous emergency situation the first thing that any survival manual recommends is to first and foremost ensure the survival of your own life. You have to save yourself before you can save the life of another. This advice makes a lot of sense. If a would-be rescuer were to squander time with other persons then it is more than possible that he or she would become too weak to complete the task, collapsing and becoming yet another victim in need of rescue. In such an event the would-be rescuer not only fails but worsens the chance of survival as resources have to be attributed to the rescue of more individuals, complicating matters.

Similarly if an individual is an electric-shock victim or has collapsed within a burning house then treatment in both scenarios is extremely difficult and hazardous not only to the victim but to the rescuer. In such situations the main is switched off or the victim relocated to a place outside the burning building before any first aid treatment begins. It is common sense.

So too also should this legacy of common sense apply to the Maltese context for as far as our handling of the illegal immigration issue is concerned. Before serious consideration of how to properly deal with immigrants already within the islands can begin we need to look at ways to prevent further immigrants from entering the country illegally and hence causing the problem to grow.

In this regards the European Union is proposing the return directive, which is a step in the right direction, although it does not actually address the problem with the same brand of common sense present within crisis-management materials. Locally it was only Norman Lowell who offered a compatible proposal which could be succinctly summed up as “14 miles out”. Unlike all other politicians he actually proposed prevention from entry, which does bear resemblance to shutting off the electricity in the event of an electrical hazard. Sure he may not have expressed his ideas on the matter in a fashion that was palatable to many people’s ears, but he remained consistent enough in his proposed solution. Of course he received both grudged respect and thinly-veiled vilification, and still receives both to this day… but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter, that turning immigrants around at the border would be a method compatible with crisis-management practice. Reasoning supporting this upon the conceptual level shall be expanded upon in another micro-step.

With the recent public transport strike concluded and the prominence of the event rapidly on its way to becoming little more than just a hazy memory to the forgetful populace, the general flow of things has mostly returned to normal. However the underlying malady that plagues the islands still yet endures.

No, I do not speak of dishonest political entities that dispense eleventh-hour electoral promises that they either have little idea how to fulfil or have little intention of fulfilling to begin with. Neither do I directly speak of the general inefficiency, inadequacy or pricey nature in the service offered by the public transport sector (particularly with certain taxis with the last of these), although both of the aforementioned problems do require address by competent authorities.

The malady that I speak of is ongoing and is fully integrated into our daily lifestyles. It leeches upon our limited resources to an ever-increasing degree… and by this I do not directly refer to wither out fuel-guzzling power stations or the government’s doubling of the very same surcharge that the nationalists succeeded in making the people forget this last election.

I speak of the 280,000-odd registered vehicles that circulate within the second-rate infrastructure of our islands, a catastrophically sad figure if one were to consider it unlikely that the overall population of Maltese individuals capable of or willing to drive exceeds 320,000. Yet upon all levels we fail to realize that more is less. The roads are growing more congested and travel times are growing more lengthy. Seeking parking space is becoming more of a problem and one can occasionally note a faint haze that looks suspiciously like smog hanging over well-traversed low-lying areas such as Regional road in the vicinity of St. Venera.

And in the meantime the government is now speaking of plans to introduce a tram service. In all truth the idea is a good one, in principle, but this greatly depends upon the competence with which it is implemented. Furthermore a tram service is no solution in and of itself, although it is respectable enough as part of any solution, which is why I anticipate this year’s 2nd Valletta conference for sustainable urban transport “towards a new culture” in urban mobility.

While I do not consider myself an expert in the field of transportation I do possess some understanding. Put very simply I am of the belief that I have in my possession the key to Malta’s transportation woes. The problem with my key is that it actually solves the core problem of the issue at hand – dependency – and would entail a degree of economic restructuring that some would not appreciate… but it would solve the issue. In the run-up to the previous election I stated that my goal was to gradually slash the number of registered vehicles in Malta by over 90%.

I do realize that this contribution has been more of both a lament and a tease than a true contribution. It is unfortunate that suspicion should rule within a situation of such great need. I do however take this opportunity to appeal to interested entities to make themselves known as with a collective effort I have reason to believe that we could take over the transportation sector and simultaneously make the islands a much better place to live in.

For many pregnancy is a joy. It is a climatic point within almost any stable and lasting relationship. It represents a continuation of the self, the ultimate union of the partners and the prospect of forming a new branch of the family. For such individuals the news is not only welcome but cause for celebration, neatly fitting in with their imagined prerequisites for their ‘happily ever after’.

However there exist others for whom the news or prospect of pregnancy is not a joy but a fear or a nightmare scenario come to life. For these the prospect of missing a period cycle is a heart-stopping moment, a harbinger of foreboding times ahead and an end even more cataclysmal than the prospect of being seriously gored in an accident. Of course the latter category of persons tend to be young or at the height of their careers, dancing upon the knife’s edge in the game of presumed love.

For such individuals a pregnancy could spell disaster. The loss of one’s job, career and livelihood for the working woman, being abandoned by a deserting boyfriend to face a mountain of responsibility on her own, and I am not even going to get into the psychological anguish in the scenario of the impregnation having been involuntary. For all of these scenarios and more, the pregnancy is akin to a single card within a house of cards suddenly collapsing and bringing the rest down with it.

In the Maltese Islands one of the more prominent support groups goes by the identifier of Gift of Life with Paul Vincenti a lead spokesperson for the group. They strive to socially and psychologically support single mothers, rape victims and other persons who have been less than joyous about having fallen pregnant. Their priority has been the protection and preservation of all new forms of life from conception.

Prominent on the choice front, on the other hand, has been Dr. Emmy Bezzina whose stance from the outset has been the permitting of would-be mothers the choice to abort a pregnancy in order to release themselves of the shackles of circumstance and to regain control of their lives. Of liberal persuasion, he has steadfastly argued in favour of the sanctity of choice for the would-be mother in situations where there exists a conflict of interest.

While these two individuals may regard each other as opponents and perhaps also a threat to their own outlook, it is interesting to note that both individuals genuinely feel that they maintain the moral high-ground over the other, that their rival is unable to or unwilling to understand their own respective viewpoints, and that their opponent’s respective outlooks are in fact a recipe for disaster. However neither individual possesses a monopoly on common sense and it is to be expected that their on-going struggle will be superseded by revelations that neither individual may fully concur with. Both individuals’ contributions are necessary but for as long as they work to each others’ exclusion, life after pregnancy will continue to seem like a grim scenario to the unexpectant.

I sometimes wonder why individuals would seek to lead one or more lives in addition to and mostly seperated from their primary social one. One sees it happen all around ourselves and all the time. It can also be seen illustrated on daily television shows and the mass media. Some are innocuous or pleasant while others seem surprising or even sinister in nature.

Different persons may want to lead multiple separate lives for any of a number of reasons. Some are based in egotism while others are a necessity for continued survival within a highly nosy and very unforgiving society. As they say, one person’s heaven could be another person’s hell, and in the context of a society where the conventional values are agreed upon only by a general majority it is inevitable that some minorities will consequently feel the need to lead multiple lives.

It is actually much more penetrative than one might think. Basically if a person has a secret – any secret – then it is possible that that person may consciously or unconsciously be living a double life of sorts. This includes the classic examples – the individual who has an affair, the homosexual priest, the man who dresses like a woman by night – but it can also extend to less obvious examples. A woman could be a strong negotiator in the public sphere while grappling to come to terms with a terminal ailment behind closed doors. A jolly mild-mannered baker could be a serial killer with blood on his hands. An anointed war veteran could talk tough by day but cry in his sleep. A girl could be truly outgoing and yet curl up with a diary before bed. A factory worker could get lost in a private day dream.

The list goes on and on with the commonality centring around the fact that there are some things that individuals do not feel safe enough to trust with the public sphere. It is likely that the vast majority of those who form the general public, whether or not considering themselves mainstream, hold several aspects of themselves as far out of reach of everybody else as they can reasonably manage, and it is likely that they do so in fear of reprisals. I wouldn’t blame them or yourself for doing so. Many learn to do so from a tender young age when trial and error teaches them that children and adults alike are capable of making a person regret the words that they utter. While on this topic one could also point to this as a reason why so few people are outspoken in the world and why it is only a child who would dare to point and declare that the King wears no clothes within the famous fairytale. I guess it all comes down to keeping life simple and to this end the strategy seems to have served its purpose, in spite of the added difficulty in doing so upon an Island such as ours where everybody seems to know everybody and the vast majority of us are likely related to the 4th degree in some fashion or other.

I would like readers to pause and reflect upon their individual selves. Do you hold part of your life separate from another? Do you hold secrets that you feel are simpler kept than shared? It is fine to do so as many secrets are everyday matters. I hold secrets of my own and the chances are that so do you. Its ultimately a part of what makes ourselves social beings and moreover human.

Not too long ago there existed muted controversy over the pipes that dispel semi-treated human sewage into the sea. As with all such controversies, once the shores were officially declared safe enough for swimming the simmering outrage subsided and today the issue is practically all but forgotten, buried beneath other more contemporary issues. However the pipes continue to spew sewage and while the quality of treatment of the sewage may have improved it remains sewage.

Of course even such treated slurry has its effects upon the environment. Certain kinds of sea vegetation, upon which both desirable and undesirable fish may feed, thrive upon any opportunity for a ‘nutrient-rich’ zone, and certain bays make for perfect examples. The full effects of such artificial enrichment of sectors of sub-aquatic Malta are unlikely to be fully appreciated by the public for many years to come. After all, being a small set of islands we have the blessing of having our poor environmental choices shunted wherever the winds and the waves dictate.

However upon a different level the choice of the Maltese Islands to literally waste tonnes of sewage every day is a choice of incredible stupidity. While a Swiss city with one quarter the population of Malta worries about producing enough cow excrement to generate alternative fuel, we of the Maltese Islands appear to feel that we are wealthy enough to toss our excrement into the sea, not only soiling our chances of using it as an energy source but also soiling the “Sun and Sea” tourism life-line that the Malta Tourism Authority seems stuck on (which is every bit as reductionist in nature as some males’ demeaning perspectives of the female).

In Malta we have a population of 400,000-odd persons. That represents 400,000 individuals each using the sewage system several times a day. We currently throw the vast majority of it all into our seas.

Why do we do it? Biomass is by no means a new energy and has been used successfully in much cooler countries, just as solar panels have and, unlike the use of crops to directly make fuel, this is not nearly so great a threat to world food supplies. Why does the Nationalist government persist in dogging every effort to introduce alternative energy sources? Not only do ministers state that it is more expensive than exponentially pricey fossil-fuels but when a foreign company expresses interest to open an alternative energy laboratory in Malta the initiative goes up in smoke! Also, why is the Nationalist government hedging its bets with a highly expensive form of alternative energy (an offshore wind farm) which I honestly doubt they are capable of maintaining in good repair?

Could it be possible that spending a bomb upon another inadequate white elephant would pave the way to future excuses not to introduce further alternative energy? In other words could it be a case of yielding a foot to save a yard for as far as oil interests are concerned? Is it possible that the oil gurus have dipped their fingers into the pockets of Maltese politicians? Would this have anything at all to do with the redoubled efforts in “oil-exploration”? Sometimes I seriously do wonder whose interests the politicians, the supposed servants (‘not’ masters) of the people, are safeguarding…

As the boats continue to land upon our shores and the tally of individuals illegally entering the country surpasses a thousand-strong, eyes are increasingly cast towards the Nationalist government for some kind of a solution.

On the part of the Maltese authorities we have seen an incredible degree of reticent passivity in terms of the measures that they put into motion in the past half-decade. Even Nautilus has been admitted to ‘not be a solution’ for the Maltese situation. Not only have we seen immigrants’ boats brought to our shores from dozens-to-hundreds of miles away, and immigrants themselves detained for lengthy periods of time, but we have also heard much talk of integrating such immigrants into Maltese society.

As such I feel that it is important to point out the differences that there exist between a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant, especially as it appears that some do not seem to be sufficiently aware that any appreciable difference exists.

The first difference to make note of, and probably the most crucial, is that it is reasonably possible to regulate and to demographically plan for a sustainable society where legal immigration is concerned while it is not possible to do likewise where illegal immigration is concerned. This may initially seem unimportant but if one were to consider the economic sphere of any given economy is only able to provide a specific standard of living for a specific number of individuals then it stands to reason that any increase or decrease in population will inversely effect the overall average standard of living. Any significant unplanned influx of a net-benefactor population would consequently also vie for the resources of the present economic sphere and therefore result in significant detraction to the existing population in terms of their standard of living. So important is this first difference that all others fall to the levels of trivia.

While there is no hard rule to suggest that an illegal immigrant necessarily fits within the category of net-benefactor, there is no denying that the pool of illegal immigrants within the Maltese Islands do, siphoning tens-to-hundreds of thousands of Euros towards their upkeep. The reverse is more or less true of legal immigrants. True, a legal immigrant could end up on welfare, just as any local individual could, but this is about as significant an exception as a net-contributory illegal immigrant is within their respective contexts.

While it would be politically correct to state that there is no racial connection between legal immigration and illegal immigration, the reality of the situation demands otherwise. African blacks and African Arabs almost exclusively makes up boat immigration while Asians and Eastern-Europeans make up the bulk of individuals who arrive on a valid temporary visa and allow it to expire, remaining here and hence becoming illegal immigrants of a sort about which too little information exists to be certain of. Beyond the racial realities lie geopolitical realities, where disparities within the reality of the grand scheme of things lead to mass illegal migratory trends. One of the factors that cannot be too lightly stated is the fact that freedom of movement is not uniform from around the Mediterranean basin. It is also clear that even if legal avenues were easily accessible from the southern rim, it is highly unlikely that Malta would have approved even 5% of those who arrived via illegal means.

Does this make all the talk of legality and illegality null and void? I would think not. If anything it further highlights that there is a need for inadequacies in present policies to be recognized and for alterations to be made in the name of improving our survival chances through adaptation to our circumstances.

It is that time of year again. When dozens of students look upon their university result report with dilated eyes upon the spot where an ‘F’ or two offensively blotches the computer screen. The rest of the results, even the ‘A’ s seem to shrink in their presence as hope is sapped from within the student’s very core. A few other students look upon a half-dozen failed units with tear-stained cheeks, contemplating their next job application for chambermaid.

An exaggeration, you might say, but results mean a lot within the university grinder, much more so than the academic levels preceding it. For, as is the case with a number of other universities world-wide (to which this contribution applies equally or more so), the regulations pertaining to resits state that, short of absence for a proven health reason or for some other reason arbitrarily decided to be good enough to justify absence, a student resitting several months later would be able to achieve a mark no greater than 45% of the mark, or a ‘D’ grade respectively. This when it is very clear that the paper being sat for is every bit as challenging as the first sitting session.

In other words it does not matter how good a student ultimately is within a given subject unit, if for any reason whatsoever short of the above reasons that student should fail, be excessively late for or even absent for the first sitting, that student would not only deservingly get an ‘F’ for that sitting but would then effectively be asked to swim with a brick chained to his or her ankles, the resit process severely weighted against success at a stage far more delicate than the  first sitting had been.

This is supposedly done to cut down upon abuse of the system. Yes, a student ‘might’ well decide to shun the final examination in order to brush up his or her grades within other study units but then why not implement a system similar to that of the Matriculation certificate? In other words why not charge a fee for every resit examination sat for? In that way the true abusers would pay without scuttling the chances of those genuinely unable to make the grade for whatever reason.

In case readers are wondering why it would be at all important to allow students to gain a fair grade, kindly reflect upon the following. The difference between a ‘C’ and a ‘D’ can make the difference between a distinction and a merit. The difference can also make the difference between being able to progress to the next academic year or repeating the present one… and it can also make the difference between a student remaining within the game and that student failing the course entirely, effectively meaning that several years of that person’s life have effectively gone to waste.

In the run up to the election the Nationalists lambasted the Labour party’s suggestion of a repeater class and yet they persist in failing to realize that they have been presiding over a repeater system for many years now. For how is one to ‘pass’ through one’s resits if the system sets the student at a disadvantage before they have even sat at the table? Just because other places have such a backwards system in place does not necessitate that the university of Malta is justified in persisting in this folly. The student organizations should take note and make their voices heard because this is every bit as serious a situation as any delay in the release of results.

It is not such a difficult issue to decide upon. What I am calling for, and I believe that other students and representatives should be calling for, is the right of a student to be assessed upon the basis of one’s own performance within a resit session and not upon some medieval dumbed-down mockery of a session intended to see if the quality of that student’s writing is sufficient to make a pass. Dolores Cristina please take note. This issue will come back to haunt you if it is not promptly rectified. The election is no longer at stake but the futures of thousands of students are.