Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1457526
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 MARCH 2022 OPINION 11 "Kemm ghandek n*jk!" ing enforcement capabilities (just this month, Environment Min- ister Aaron Farrugia proposed lessening the fines for developers guilty of multiple infringements. 'Nuff said.) • 'A more efficient, transpar- ent Planning Authority' Well: to be fair, they did de- liver on the first part of that promise. The PA has undenia- bly become 'more efficient', in recent years… when it comes to approving an endless stream of (mostly monstrous) develop- ment applications, in even the most sensitive and supposed- ly 'protected' areas: and even against all objections by resi- dents, and negative recommen- dations by case officers. But… 'transparency'? Really? • 'A national policy to curb Noise Pollution' (I kid you not: it's there, at number 34). I'll just leave it to anyone who has the misfortune of residing next to a construction site – in other words, around 90% of the entire island (rising to 100%, in Gozo) - to answer that one. But unless you count the cessation of all 'festa' activities for two years – which was the result of COV- ID-19; and certainly not any con- cern with 'noise pollution' – we can all hear, with our own two ears, just how less noisy the coun- try has become, since 2017… Right: I can more or less stop there, because the rest of the 44 environmental promises all fol- low the same identical pattern. There is, however, another small one that is, quite frankly, too out- rageous to actually be left out. Ready? Here comes 'Broken Electoral Promise Number 28'… • 'More trees and gardens' (!!!!!!!) By which point, the question of how long the PL will take to publish its electoral manifesto becomes more or less academic, really. Right from now, I can very easily predict at least 44 of those '1,000 new ideas'…. they will be rehashed versions of the same old 44 promises that the Labour government broke after the last election: only with a few minor modifications, here and there, to make them less immediately… well… 'recognisable'. Simple as that, really. WITH words like "ħaqalanqas" making it in- to our vernacular after having been bandied about on Labour's TV station (One, not TVM) by one of our ministers, and part-time lectur- ers/full-time conspiracy theorists dedicating entire blog posts to the segment of Jon Mallia's podcast where he specifically asked the leader of the Nationalist Party to say "tal-ost*a" – I thought it only apt to add an asterix to the title, ma jmurx xi ħadd jieħu xi skandlu. I would like to make it clear that I have run this campaign on the premise that I will be do- ing things differently – not pandering to the electorate, not pretending I'm someone I am not, and vehemently refusing to adhere to any pre-written norms insofar as how a campaign is run – basically, what you see is what you get. The title of this week's column has been prof- fered by a multitude of people I've met in passing along the years. When people who don't know a thing about me meet me for the first time, the first things that they notice are the double-barrelled surname and the job ti- tle. This is usually fol- lowed by a conversation of some kind, where the unmistakably brought- u p - e n g l i s h - s p e a k i n g , probably-went-to-one- of-those-schools-in-the- North, tal-pepe drawl that everyone loves to hate makes its first ap- pearance. The first question levied is inevitably "jaqaw, int min tas-Sliema?" with a standard-issue raised eyebrow and a not so subtle undertone of mock- ery. My parents both worked very hard to invest in my education. We spoke English at home, and at my grandparents' house. By the time I got to university and realised that case law was a never-ending stream of Maltese (mostly with- out proper spelling, formatting or punctuation, might I add) I immediately regretted not paying more attention to my Maltese teachers through- out the years (sorry Mr Clint). Conversationally it improved – especially with my involvement in student organisations – but I would be lying if I said it wasn't something that I felt still holds me back sometimes. I have a double-barrel surname because my mother stood outside Castille in 1993 with a newborn (spoiler alert: it was me), and her best friend and her newborn son, to petition the gov- ernment to allow them to revert back to their maiden surnames which they had been forced to change upon marriage – as that was the law. Stemming from a long line of very persistent women, my mum got her way, and was allowed to change her surname back to Bonnici. As a child, I could never understand why children only had their fathers' surnames – let's chalk that up to naïveté to the effects of a deeply patri- archal society – and when my parents separated in 1999 this nonsensical disparity became even more prominent in my mind. In 2006, at age 14, I applied for my first ID card. I remember being dropped off by my dad and walking into that badly-lit building. I queued up and asked the woman behind the desk whether I could have both parents' surnames on my ID card. She told me I could (the law has since been amended) and that's how the Bonnici was add- ed on. Contrary to common perception, it was not done to seem 'cool', to get a leg up, or to be perceived as anyone but the person I was when I had only one surname – but it was my right, and so I exercised it. The idea that in 2022 you can determine who someone is by the lan- guage or the accent with which they speak is about as 'antiquated' a notion as the etymology of the Maltese language itself. To judge a person's char- acter or principles based solely on how many surnames they have, is equally farcical. People are wonderfully diverse, and this goes beyond what we look like and it is also what we sound like, how we prefer to speak, what subjects we excel at, what subjects we haven't quite grasped (maths), whether we have tattoos, piercings or facial hair and where we live. It would also be apt to remind ourselves that Malta relies heavily on foreign workers who are not fluent in Mal- tese, to function (or we did, until COVID hit, jobs were lost, and they were told to "go back to [your] county" in no less heinous wording). If you hold any level of privilege (a good educa- tion, a loving family, a wage that pays for a roof over your head, not being subjected to discrimi- nation, etc.) it does not automatically make you incapable of empathy, but it does require an ac- tive effort to ensure that you are writing policy for all, and not for the few. In summation, let us all start judging people on their actions and capabilities (meritocracy – Robert Abela, you may want to look this one up), and stop getting distracted by the shiny, superficial and fake – especially when deciding who we want representing our interests on the 26th March. It seems that every political party on the island – with a single, rather large exception – clearly understands at least one fundamental principle of democracy: i.e., that voters need to know in advance what the heck they're actually voting for, come Election Day The idea that in 2022 you can determine who someone is by the language or the accent with which they speak is about as 'antiquated' a notion as the etymology of the Maltese language itself Emma Portelli Bonnici is a lawyer and PN candidate on the 9th and 10th districts emma@emmaportellibonnici.com Emma Portelli Bonnici