Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1399957
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 8 AUGUST 2021 OPINION I still wouldn't be too quick to dismiss Robert Abela's apology as a mere token gesture, or meaningless formality… if nothing else because – and quite frankly, this took me by surprise, too – the Caruana Galizia actually accepted the apology. And as far as I can see: that really does put a whole new perspective onto proceedings Thank you... for having bought this newspaper mt The good news is that we're not raising the price of our newspaper We know times are still hard, but we have pledged to keep giving our readers quality news they deserve, without making you pay more for it. So thank you, for making it your MaltaToday Support your favourite newspaper with a special offer on online subscriptions. Visit bit.ly/2X9csmr or scan the QR code Same-day delivery by Miller Distributors is at €1 for orders up to 5 news- papers per address. Email your order, name, address and contact number to production@millermalta.com, and forward cheques payable to Miller Distributors Ltd on address Miller House, Airport Way, Tarxien Road, Luqa LQA1914 Subscribe from €1.15 a week Same-day delivery from Miller Distributors Sorry, folks, but… it just doesn't work that way. And to be fair to all the people concerned – men, women, Nationalist, Labour, etc. – who have ever occupied that role, since it was first founded in 1972 (all of whom, with the exception of only the first, Sir Anthony Mamo, came from positions of high political of- fice)… it's not exactly because the Pres- idents themselves have somehow 'failed the country', in any personal capacity of their own. On this level, at least, there even be a small grain of truth to that old leg- end: for it is demonstrably true that – in their own ways; and some perhaps more effectively than others – all Mal- tese Presidents, past and present, have at least tried to rise above the quagmire of party-political trench-warfare… even if, until just the day before, they would all have all been bitterly engaged in that same war themselves. This is arguably just as true of George Vella, as it was of Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca; George Abela (Malta's only Presi- dent to have ever been selected from 'the other side'); Eddie Fenech Adami, Guido Demarco… probably all the way back to Mamo himself. But it doesn't change the fact that it is, at the end of the day, merely an illusion: and an illusion that is, I fear, altogether too easy to shatter. Which brings me back to that Marlene Mizzi quote I started off with. It is one thing, I suppose, for Mizzi herself to say 'HANDS OFF OUR PRESIDENT' (and probably to even mean it, too). But… would Simon Busuttil say the same thing? Would Repubblika, Occupy Jus- tice, and everyone else repeating those resignation calls – a category which, for the present, does not seem to include Opposition leader Bernard Grech – like- wise identify George Vella as 'OUR', and therefore, also 'THEIR', President, too? I somewhat slightly doubt it. And much the same, incidentally, could be said for most, if not all, of the people (238, at the time of writing) who 'liked', or 'loved', Marlene Mizzi's post, or expressed their approval in the comments below. Do they, too, really consider George Vella to be 'OUR' President, in the same way as implied by the rest of Mizzi's comment, quoted above? Or do they simply mean: 'Hand off George Vella, because… he's OUR Presi- dent, damn it! Not YOURS…"? No prizes for guessing the correct answer, of course. And if it's any con- solation to George Vella himself… it's not exactly his own fault, that he has so manifestly failed to 'unify the country' (just as he had earlier failed to 'foresee future events'; and probably quite a few other impossible things beside). It is, quite frankly, a task far, far beyond his own capabilities, as a mere mortal… and it will remain so, too: for as long as the Office of the Presidency itself re- mains what it has clearly been reduced to, in the 50-odd years since Malta be- came a Republic. A retirement home for former politi- cians… in a country where 'being in pol- itics', also automatically means 'being permanently at war'. Honestly, though. How the heck did we even manage to mistake such a thing for a 'unifying force'…?