Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1487299
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 DECEMBER 2022 OPINION 10 Raphael Vassallo OPINION 'Bernard the Barbarian' YOU'VE got to hand it to him, though: Bernard Grech may yet go down as the single most ret- rograde and (to quote Moviment Graffiti's epic takedown this week) 'barbaric' leader the Ne- anderthal Party has ever had, in its entire 175,000-year history… But, by Kromm! He is also, without a doubt, the single FUN- NIEST one of the lot, by far! Take his speech in parliament last Wednesday, for instance. Why did everyone have to take it so seriously, damn it? Why all the outrage? Why so many irate calls for 'apologies', or for his in- stant resignation as Opposition leader (or even, for that matter, from the entire human race)? Come on, guys! Lighten up, will you? It was just a bit of (mostly) harmless fun, that's all. Yeah, so the Opposition leader cracked a couple of utterly tasteless jokes, at the expense of a pregnant woman whose unborn child had literally just DIED, as a result of a spontaneous miscarriage. And yeah: so he did that deliberately to whip up a storm of public ha- tred, all aimed only at one single, solitary woman (But of course: there's nothing even remotely 'misogynistic' about any of that. Oh, no; not in the slightest…) But then again… what the heck? Isn't that what classic comedy has always been about, to begin with? Hasn't it always been a case of: 'laughing hyster- ically, from a safe distance, at all the tragic misfortunes experi- enced by others'? Just look at Fantozzi, for cry- ing out loud: what do we find so very 'funny' about those classic Italian comedies… if not the fact that they appeal to precisely the same sense of 'schadenfreude', that made 'public torture and humiliation' so very popular back in the Ancient World? No, indeed. It would, after all, be totally hypocritical of us, to laugh so heartily at the (let's face it: utterly horrible) misfortunes suffered by fictious characters such as 'Il ragionier Fantozzi'… but then, not to laugh out equal- ly loud, at the ghastly ordeal suf- fered by a very real mother, who so recently lost a very real child, in such tragic circumstances… And besides: if Bernard Grech himself has consciously chosen – without any external prod- ding, that I can see - to project the image of a 'clown'; then why not simply roll along with it, and… well, laugh at him (like the clown he truly is)? Because let's be honest, folks: Bernard Grech has so far prov- en himself to be infinitely more talented as a clown, than as a 'serious Opposition leader'. Not only does he possess the innate ability to instantly 'see the funny side', in even the most depress- ing instances of human misery imaginable – an indispensable talent, as I'm sure you'll agree, for any budding 'stand-up com- ic' - but he also possesses what is generally known, in show-biz, as the 'gift of the gab'. In fact, his constant play-on- words regarding the name 'An- drea Prudente' (who, he chuck- led, "turned out to be a whole less 'prudent', than the doctors who treated her". Geddit?) are not only 'brilliantly witty', in and of themselves… but they're right up there with all the most demeaning insults we have ever associated with 'political clown- ery', right at its most 'classic'. Some, for instance, were re- minded of Donald Trump: and the way he once famously 'mocked a disabled journalist at a press conference'. I, however, found Bernard Grech's puns to be altogether more reminiscent of the ones Norman Lowell used to come up with: back in the good old days, of course… i.e., before the leader of Imperium Europa was recently overtak- en, as the single most 'far-right' political leader this country has ever seen. Remember, for instance, that time when Norman Lowell had famously dismissed the late Fr Pierre Grech Marguerat – for- mer director of the Jesuit Refu- gee Centre – as… 'Fr Pizza Mar- gherita'? There, admit it. You found that 'funny', too, didn't you? (Even if – like me – you would probably find it a whole lot less amusing, if Norman Lowell was actually Malta's Opposition leader when said that). So, um… why do we treat Bernard Grech so very differently, from the political role-model he has now clearly chosen to emulate? Reason I ask is that – unlike the case with Norman Lowell – with Bernard Grech, there is actual- ly a heck of a lot more to laugh at, than just the groan-inducing nature of his puns. Never mind, for a moment, that a politician who separately prides himself on being 'Pro-Life' – and who claims that his party 'believes in always putting the individual at the heart of all its policies'– also showed not a hint of compassion whatsoever, towards a mother who had only just lost her un- born child (because let's face it: it would be naïve to expect otherwise, from someone who is proposing to actively deny medi- cal treatment: not just to Andrea Prudente herself… but to ALL pregnant women whose health is ever in 'grave jeopardy'.) No, the truly funny thing about Bernard Grech's speech last Wednesday is that: he showed no trace of human compassion whatsoever, even towards the unborn child itself! On the con- trary: he held up the death of that poor, aborted, 16-week-old foetus – whose parents actually WANTED the child; and who only had to be aborted, because of an unforeseen pregnan- cy-complication (more of which later) – as… well, a 'gimmick', with which to elicit a few ran- dom chuckles from his audience. In other words: 'pro-life' Ber- nard Grech managed to turn an unborn child, no less, (and remember, folks: we're not just talking about a 'bunch of cells' here, you know)... into nothing more than a 'punchline', to one of his own 'dad-jokes'... I mean, honestly: how much more hilarious can it possibly get? (Just think, for instance, how we'd all react… if a well-known, respected animal-rights activist