Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1491702
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 FEBRUARY 2023 OPINION 5 Saviour Balzan UNDERSTANDABLY, many on this fair island right now feel that construction mogul Joe Portelli has been quite the buffoon. And that's putting it mildly. (Oh, hold on... last time I compared some- one to Inspector Clouseau, I was fined €3,000... I wonder if the great and good of this country have now won the courts' favour in being protected against un- seemly labels.) But to stick to Portelli. Be- cause the story here is that our dear Gozitan developer thinks he has a licence, a golden pass- port, to do anything he wishes. He thinks he is unstoppable, backed by big-name investors, well known in the business community, embraced by the political class, splashing out his money to sponsor so many community teams and events to sing his praises... he's got the game all sussed out. Now he promises good returns for his investors, at the cost of perma- nent scars to our landscape, and brags about his political con- nections. So what if he wants to get off his boardroom chair to play football for Ħamrun Spartans in the Premier League at the venerable age of 43, right? To a guy like him, everything's a game – president of Nadur FC one day, the next day delegate it to his son, president of Ħamrun a week later, score a champion- ship goal for Nadur the next, and now step down from pres- ident of Ħamrun to secure a place on the footballers' bench! What a farce: no sooner was he shown the door at the MFA (thankfully), Portelli was with- drawing his resignation from Ħamrun president to return to the top job. So no prizes for guessing that, his intended 'resignation' was all a ruse for him to 'delegate' that office to a trusted person while he pulls both the strings at the club while playing at Ta' Qali! What. A. Laughing. Stock. For once, the world of sports – the kind that is gaining a spine and a strong personality in Mal- ta – could not bear to see foot- ball being bent to the whims of Portelli. Maybe in the world of permits and construction where only money talks, all Portelli sees is the green light. This time he got the red card. * * * Not every journalist comes freshly baked out of a journal- ism school or with a degree to boot, and then again, a good part of the trade that uses its nose to sniff out stories does not really follow some handbook. True, the amount of truth-pro- fessing bloggers seems to have multiplied of late, all claiming a sacrosanct right to say what they want in the name of free- dom of expression. But the real- ity of doing journalism tends to be a tad more prosaic, especial- ly when it is burdened by long hours and a less-than-impres- sive salary. But having spent decades now in the trade, when I see the lat- est issue of the Associated Press handbook, I can sense how the shockwaves of language are harbingers of a deeper under- current of change and expecta- tions. You may not read about it here first, but apparently, it is now no longer expected to say that someone is homeless, but "houseless". Forget breatsfeed- ing, it is now "chest feeding". The Lancet, the reputable sci- entific medical journal carried a front page about "bodies with uteruses", not women with uteruses. And the American Cancer society refers to "bodies that menstruate". The neologisms of this new world of gender identity that refuse to conform to the bina- ry norms of yesteryear sure- ly come from the right place, but there is no doubt that in certain respects the so-called 'liberals' espousing them can sound somewhat deranged. I have no problem in saying that I will never be enamoured with such a radicalisation of lan- guage – I can leave that kind of mental acrobatics to others to deal with. I don't need to be arm-twisted by linguists into respecting those who feel they do not identify with male or fe- male, or who feel sexual organs can no longer be attributed to 'traditional' genders. But if such concepts suddenly turn into purist values for a new generation of voters, I fear that we are missing the wood for the trees here. All this navel-gaz- ing on identity seems to weak- en communitarian bonds that are necessary to face existential challenges that concern, say the climate and jobs, real phenome- na that are life-and-death mat- ters for some. Does it matter to a 'homeless' person that they are now 'houseless' and still unable to access mental health care or a job? Does any mother need to be reassured that it is "bodies" that host uteruses be- fore we make sure that we are ensuring equality on parental leave, for example? Let's get real: if this is what young voters are concerned about, without having a proper understanding of facts and his- tory (Maltese in our case), then they will simply misunderstand their present. Parents should be rightly con- cerned for example about our serious lack of reading habits, and the lack of a critical un- derstanding of recent Maltese political history that could help us understand the roots of our modern national identity. In- stead we get to be entrenched in stereotypes about historical aberrations where everything is either black or white. Knowl- edge of our history is crucial to building citizens that are will- ing to take a stand, offer some altruism. Making history com- pulsory would give us citizens who could understand why our natural and cultural heritage is in peril when it is besieged by ill-thought-out planning laws and greedy development. But we are burdened by our smallness, and a party system that is petrified of shaking the system. And it is that system that has to be rocked. Not rocked by privilege, self-entitlement, or contenders for power. Malta hosts so many civil society actors whose pas- sion for change is disinterested in the trappings of power – take Graffitti for one, which cam- paigns relentlessly against the wrongs in society and the ruth- less business psyche and polit- ical lethargy of those in power. * * * And while on that subject, and Graffitti's latest campaign on the Comino Hotel project, it should be noted that the on- ly reason that the Hili Group gets to move ahead with this project is because the govern- ment of the day is sanctioning it. Oh yes: if Robert Abela had to wake up tomorrow, and an- nounce that any such develop- ment on Comino would be oh so sacrilegious for Malta... well nobody in the Planning Au- thority would dare contradict the boss. Because there is no way that a company like Hili would have undertaken such a multi-million investment without a friendly nod from the powers that be – that is the truth. Which goes to show, that the planning process, when it comes to the big projects... nudge, nudge, wink, wink... is only pre-determined by the pol- iticians who run this country. Enough of the green light and more red cards please Joseph Portelli