Archive for the “Local Affairs” Category

For those of a slightly nervous disposition I advise to give this particular post a miss. For those of an inclination towards depression, epileptic seizures, cardiac instability, those in need of hope and more, they may also wish to give this post a miss. It is not due to any particularly graphic content but rather due to the high concentration of bitterness and disdain heavily interlaced throughout.

While I would very much like to fill these pages with more positive yet outlandish concepts, I recognize that not only are you as my readership likely unprepared to digest what I might put to your screen with sufficient effectiveness or enjoyment, but we sadly live within a world of plagiarists – and they exist upon all levels and within all fields, both locally and abroad. In this regard I would suggest that we have not come a long way since the early days of old communist Russia where the mere suggestion of doing old things in new ways could potentially lead to one’s downfall. Today we have political parties that would have the people believe that they themselves actually come up with the ideas that they present to us. After all, the electric city taxis came from the blue party’s mystical palm like a rabbit out of a hat. I’ve yet to forget the utter disappointment and anxiety on the face of the person who in quiet desperation claimed to be the true designer. I remain unaware whether he ever got the credit that he deserved but he is a prime refutation to the old adage that the meek shall inherit the earth. No… like ex-communist Russia we have our own ways of dealing with trivialities such as merit. If it floats the party gets the credit (or worse, the party mascot) and if it sinks then the creator is left to carry the can, whether or not it was implemented properly by the master plagiarists to begin with.

It is little wonder that the people fear the parties; vote for all the reds out of fear of the blues and vote for all the blues out of fear of the reds. It is little wonder that the people have been likened to sheep in the past and within this simile one may very well compare the media to the dogs that use energetic or threatening movements and barking to usher the people into the desired pen. The people bleat in protest but not only are they herded every consecutive election but they keep their head ducked low, retaining as low a profile as possible. And of course the Shepherd, with one red glove and one blue, is quite happy to get out the shears and trim the sheep down ever further until there is little left to speak of or until enough sheep bleat in protest. Nothing that a reduction in feed cannot fix, turning the herd against the protesting sheep until they too learn to bleat in a way that the Shepherd likes.

The servants have the masters by the nose. The winter is here and the selfish shepherd is shearing, ensuring a profit for the coming 5 years before releasing them and forgetting them. After all, five years is more than enough for the people to regain their fleece, the people will adapt and look after themselves, and they will forget the suffering that they went through in previous years. They are content that their wool has grown back and so the world is again painted in tints of red and blue. This is exactly what happened with the surcharge in recent years, the “rounding off” of the development zones, the increase in VAT, the departure tax, illegal immigration and a lot lot more, much of which that I probably remain unaware of. The people will again forget and they will be shepherded back into the bi-partisan enclosure come 2013. The sheep will vote for all the nationalists candidates and all the labour candidates alternately, mostly unaware of whom they gave their number 3 to, let alone their number 26. The sheep will choose the glove by which they will be sheared and the shears will be waiting. The shepherd is gloating.

Mobile telephony is a phenomenon that exploded within Malta within the past decade. It rocketed to popularity and, as with any service that is considered of essence to ourselves, we have been moaning about it ever since. First it was the failings in the mobile telephony network infrastructure, then it was the expensive rates – having at one time been relatively amongst the most pricey in Europe, and then there were the pricey roaming rates for calls across boundaries.

Today I would like to add another one to the list – forced consumption. No, no telephony representatives are looming over your shoulder to dial a number or have you dial a number without your consent. I do however speak of the window system that mobile telephony companies use.

A time window is a set period of time. In mobile telephony, such as with GO, for every top-up card you purchase and consume your window is extended by a number of days relative to the value purchased, such as 90 days for a € 5.00 (less VAT) top up card. Should you have a single Euro cent or a thousand Euros stashed within your mobile phone at the end of your window, you lose your right to use your money until you purchase more call value and the consequent time window extension attached to it.

I personally consider it a highly questionable practice for a person to sell a usable product and impose a time-limit for consumption. The effect of the imposition of time-windows is effectively forced consumption as the mobile telephony companies set an invisible line in the sand representing a sales quota. The best way to make a sales quota in the absence of a truly open market is to impose restrictions that require a repeated purchase, which is a little like a car dealer selling you a synthetic fuel that becomes unusable if not topped up by a particular fuel station every few weeks (it is the concept, not the realism, that is important here).

Needless to say any such time window system is an imposition upon any and all individuals who watch the pennies when using a mobile phone, those who avoid using it for anything but emergencies or those who believe that less is more. Certain portions of the elderly could very well be amongst this population of conservative telephony users but any individual who does not feel wealthy enough to splash out on telephony is a candidate to hit this wall straight-on. And then, in the dead of night, when the vehicle sputters out and they reach for the dusty old mobile that they had invested some € 50.00 (less VAT) over the previous years and used very little, when they try to dial a family number to get some assistance the voice on the other side of the line odiously informs them that they either have no credit or their time window has expired. Such individuals are denied access to their own funds within the situations for which that they specifically invested money in it.

Needless to say I urge the telephony companies, both GO and Vodafone, to discard this insidious practice and to, for just once, place the consumers before the profit margin. Ironing out such ethical deficiencies is a lot more important than spamming the SMS in-box with all these special offers of how to save money spending more within one’s window. The responsible penny-savers will thank you for it.

The boats continue to land upon Maltese shores. Whether the vessels be made from wood, steel or inflated rubber, and whether the vessels are ultimately seaworthy or not, the nature of their cargo remains the same – African individuals making their way into our territories illegally in the hope of a better life. The sum of these individuals encapsulate both a significant as well as a major crisis facing the Maltese Islands today.

In a previous micro-step I had stated that in the context of any crisis the first thing to do is to ensure that the crisis cannot become worse, entailing either the removal of the victim from the vicinity of the problem or to shut down or prevent the source from further contributing to the problem. Such therefore suggests that preventing the entry of further shipments of illegal immigrants is the logical initial step in any serious attempt to tackle the crisis at hand.

In order to illustrate the importance of this revelation, let us take a brief look at the situation of the coast of the United States of America where they too have a problem with illegal immigration. In particular I would like to home in upon Cuba. In other words, unlike the situation of Malta, facing immigration from a vast continent, I’d like to look at a vast country facing immigration from a very small country.

The Americans have their own way of tackling illegal immigration. They deploy patrols and survey the separating sea in an effort to intercept any would-be immigrants. Any individuals successfully intercepted are sent back to Cuba. In this much the American example does reflect effective crisis management. However in spite of these efforts many Cubans still attempt the hazardous crossing in the hope of making it to shore. You see, while American policy is to return those individuals caught in the sea, any and all individuals that actually make it to shore are automatically granted asylum status and become naturalized American citizens, which would explain why there is a prominent Cuban minority community in Florida.

In other words in spite of the apparent efforts by America to keep illegal immigrants out of the country, they still suspend a juicy carrot of citizenship. As a result of this contradiction tens of thousands of Cubans have attempted the crossing and still attempt the crossing to this day, in-spite of the thousands who drown and the many more who are intercepted. The carrot remains suspended and so the tragedy is perpetuated year after year.

In the case of the Maltese Islands we too suspend a carrot. While it may be less certain than the one suspended by America, our carrot is potentially every bit as tempting and, without even a solid return policy in place, African numbers are rising on a yearly basis. To persist in our folly would be akin to a small boat rowing into the vast crowd of survivors following the sinking of the Titanic. A few more souls would be saved only to be swamped by the crowd, not caring about little things as capacity. Malta does have a capacity and whether it has been surpassed depends entirely upon whether the observer holds the welfare of the Maltese people at heart or not. I say that we are excessively low in the water and need to act fast, but those who should feel responsible for the welfare of the Maltese Islands are not acting. Remove the carrot and not only should the in-flow ebb away but the consequent loss in human life should similarly diminish.

The news carried by the Times of Malta would be interesting if it weren’t so grim. Apparently, after having turned an election around partially on the premise that a vote for Gonzi is a vote for not only stable finances and peace of mind it turns out that our deficit has since swelled to a heart-stopping € 3.4688 billion, which amounts to approximately € 15,000 per working individual, give or take a few thousand depending on how optimistic your view of employment figures is. The Times of Malta also reported that in all of this government spending relative to revenues continues to rise.

OK so it is nothing new. Malta has been running on a deficit for years. This is not what primarily concerns me about the news, though I would like to see the deficit disappear. What I cannot understand is how all this fits into Lawrence Gonzi’s pre-election vision to reduce the deficit to within European Union standards? How does this fit with his campaigning on the ticket of financial stability and peace of mind? Is it possible that he does not have a clue, even as recent finance minister, about what is going on for as far as the economy of the country he is leading is concerned?

Either way it is clear that the Maltese Islands are slowly but surely becoming further mired within a swamp of debt. It is also just another example of the dishonesty of Nationalist campaigning during the election. Why is it that roses always wither into ashes after the outcome of any election is decided and known?

Actually, let me take this opportunity to tell you why. But first a few more questions. Why is it that the electricity surcharge was all but forgotten in the last election? Why is it that the number of illegal immigrants entering the Maltese Islands decreased sharply in 2007? Why is it that the privatization drive slowed prior to the election and now we seem to be back on the privatization track (with the recent strike being a direct result of it – cause and effect)?

What if it was all tied in with an electoral effort? What if our political elite are intentionally placing the Islands through a 3-year lean period so as to cover their tracks in the run-up to the election? What if the population is gullible enough to fall for it? Would this not explain the roller-coaster ride that is the Maltese economy, so intricately tied in with the political calender?

The question on my mind is, why should the Maltese people, so clearly deceived, put up with such a government? Why should the people not take a stand and tell the Nationalist government where to shove their new-found post-electoral deficit and surcharge and demand their right to reconsider their votes cast in a fog of lies? Are the people afraid of their servant, the government?

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.

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.