Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/776046
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 22 JANUARY 2017 Opinion 'Fight the good fight', indeed... Raphael Vassallo I mean, the selfishness of some people just takes the biscuit. Look at Mario de Marco, now. The deputy leader of a party that represents the 'good' side in an all-out battle against the forces of Evil: and just when his party needs him the most... what does he do? Why, he buggers off abroad for some purely private and personal chemotherapy, that's what. Ignoring even the tearful supplications of Jesus Christ, St John the Baptist, Mahatma Gandhi, Che Guevara and Gandalf the Grey... as though his own health problems are of more importance in the greater scheme of things, than a call to arms against a malevolent empire that threatens to engulf the entire Universe in a Second Darkness... Come on, Mario: get your priorities right, for Goodness' sake (literally)! You can worry about your personal health issues later... you know, in the imminent future that beckons, when the Forces of Evil have duly been vanquished, and all suffering and injustice have been banished from this vale of tears forever. Now is not the time to mope about and worry about private, petty matters. Now is the time to let slip the blogs of war, to cry 'God for Simon, Malta and St Salvu!', and to valiantly hurl yourself once more unto the breach, and all that. And besides: it's not as though those health problems of yours are anything serious, anyway. It's only cancer. Nothing a little fresh air and exercise can't take care of. Certainly no excuse to be absent from your post on the battlements, just as the Forces of Evil prepare for their global onslaught against Democracy... Well, no wonder the Nationalist Party would be so sick of Mario de Marco that it didn't even respond to public calls for his resignation. No wonder it would just hang him out to dry, while small armies of Nationalist commentators denounced his egocentric detachment on the blog of the PN's most vociferous propagandist. But hey, let's look at the bright side for a change. At least the rest of the PN have their priorities straight. They understand that 20+ years of faithful service to the Nationalist Party – a party that de Marco's father helped to build, though many seem to have forgotten that now – are actually worth jack-shit, compared to the boisterous, incoherent rants of the PN's newest (and much more valuable) acquisition. No place for sentimentality in a battle against Evil, you know. What the party needs are robust, healthy individuals who can shout insults at the top of their voices... not invalids who go running off for treatment at the first signs of a tumour. It's like Sparta in Ancient Greece: if you make perpetual warfare the sole raison d'etre for your entire civilisation's existence, it follows that you would discard all your vulnerable and your meek, and retain only your strongest and most aggressive. It follows that you would value belligerence over moderation, provocation over tact, health over sickness, etc. It follows, too, that your civilisation will not actually last very long. As far as I can see, Sparta's military ethic did not survive as a successful, widely-emulated means of organising society in the modern world. The ideals of Athenian democracy, on the other hand, did... even if the mechanics of today's system are hardly the same anymore. I wonder why that is? Hmmm... But let us overlook such trivial considerations as whether a chosen political system actually works or not. That's not the important thing. The important thing is that we have a system in place, and that we cling to it doggedly no matter what: even if all present indications are that it will backfire spectacularly. (Don't worry, when that happens we can always fall back on the other time-honoured Maltese political method we love so much: blaming everyone but ourselves). Let's face it, that has always been the dominant political modus operandi in this country. It explains why Labour languished in the doldrums for so long under Alfred Sant: who simply refused to jettison a losing anti-EU platform, and held onto the leadership even after losing the entire EU battle. It explains why Gonzi held onto power for over two years after losing his parliamentary majority: thus setting himself up for a defeat that proved much more devastating than it would otherwise have been. By extension, it answers the question of why the PN seems to have learnt so little from that experience. Like Labour after 2004, it now clings to a failed model... already planning whom to blame when the full extent of that failure becomes inescapable. But it also explains why today's party aficionados feel that their true loyalty should be to 'The Leader' (or 'Il-Kap', or 'Il-Mexxej', or 'Padrino'... or whatever 'Grand Mufti' variation of the 'Rais' theme you care to pick). Loyalty to the party itself amounts to nothing, as I suspect Mario de Marco discovered to his cost this week. Loyalty to the Grande Capo, on the other hand, is the only value left that's worth defending. Until the Grande Capo is deposed, and another takes his place. Then the cycle starts all over again. Did I say earlier that Spartan civilisation has vanished? Nay, it lingers: alive and kicking in the only political strategy Malta has ever known or experienced. And it is needed, too... because, in case I forgot to mention this earlier: there's a 'War on Evil' going on here, you know. This is why the 'Forces of Good' are now rounding on their own faithful, loyal servants and tearing them to pieces in public... for the simple reason that they're too sick to fight as hard as some self-appointed party strategists think they should be fighting. That's what 'good people' do, you see. They hit you when you're at your lowest ebb; when you're least able to defend yourself. In fact, you can always tell the 'Forces of Good' from the 'Forces of Evil', by the way the former always throw their own trusted lieutenants to the vultures when they are of no further use to the cause. That is the definition of 'Goodness' right there, staring us all in the face. Another tell-tale sign is the way 'good people' always respond to criticism. As a rule, it goes something like this: 'Because I am Good, and you are disagreeing with me... then you must be part of the Axis of Evil. Q.E.D.' So there you have it: not only do the 'Forces of Good' bespeak their own goodness through the sheer cruelty of their actions... they also very generously help you understand that you yourself are a symptom of the Evil that must be eradicated, for merely questioning their innate goodness. How could anyone possibly go wrong with such a straightforward, black-and- white choice between Good and Evil? Who wouldn't willingly join a Holy Crusade – cancer or no cancer – to ensure that the people representing such unimpeachable values get to rule over this country for the next five years? And yet, and yet... there are still those unreasonable fools among us – those 'ignorant assholes', to quote someone who compares himself to Jesus without a trace of irony – who think that this is actually a losing strategy. That a party which eviscerates itself over an internal power struggle a year from an election, is setting itself on a trajectory that can only ever lead to abysmal defeat. Well, what can we say to these morons... these corrupt bastards, each of whom is clearly in league with the Great Satan himself? The answer is simple. Just look at the long global history of internally divided parties that went on to win landslide majorities in elections all over the world. You can start with... wait, hang on while I browse through my history books... let's see, there's... no... how about...? OK, OK, just because I can't (for the moment) find a single solitary example of a party that went to war with itself, and somehow also managed to defeat its external adversaries... it doesn't mean it never happened. I'm sure I'd find a million examples, if I only had more space on the page. So there you have it, people. No more excuses now. Private health issues, be damned. For the sake of the Greater Good, hatred must be allowed to take the upper hand. Just remember: 'Is-Sewwa Jirbah Zgur!' What the party needs are healthy individuals who can shout insults... not invalids who run off for treatment at the first signs of a tumour Loyalty to the party itself amounts to nothing, as I suspect Mario de Marco discovered to his cost this week