Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/199842
25 Opinion maltatoday, SUNDAY, 27 OCTOBER 2013 dies' for yourselves. But, oh look: 15 years later, the same people who interpreted my anti-hunting stance as an act of treachery against 'The Party', are now banging on and on about the same issue themselves. With the Labour Party in power, it is now fashionable to criticise government's hunting policies: in fact I now get criticised for not bashing hunters enough, in an age when hunter-bashing is deemed a legitimate proPN exercise. Honestly, if the situation wasn't also vaguely amusing in its own right, the hypocrisy would make me physically sick. But there you go: but a small sample of the illogical inconsistencies of a little group of mostly intellectually challenged people who – believe it or not – considered (and still consider) themselves some kind of elite intelligentsia in this country, which they are entitled to lord over by right divine. That, I admit, is another thing I've been meaning to get off my chest for years. But back to the Booted eagle massacre. What strikes me now, all these years later, is how very little the same hunting situation has changed. You can admittedly discern a small improvement over the situation in the early to mid1980s… when a visit to Buskett was like riding into Tombstone, Arizona, on a horse with no name… but from the early 1990s onwards the situation has not only failed to improve: it has actually deteriorated. Hunters now act with total impunity and undisguised disdain for the law. Not exactly hard to figure out why, either: regardless of who gets to call the shots (ahem) in parliament – and believe me, on this issue there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER between the two sides – the law has consistently been tweaked in favour of the hunting lobby, by legislators who quite frankly couldn't give a toss about anything other than securing a few extra votes here and there. So the hunters get one concession after another: first they're told they can shoot next to secondary roads; then that they can carry more ammo, shoot at more species (not that this matters, seeing as they shoot anything that flies anyway), that their hunting licence fees have been lowered, as has the age at which one can apply for a licence, etc., etc., et-bloody-cetera. And when we eventually join a European Union that supposedly bans hunting in spring… why, of course our political representatives choose to represent only the hunters – and no one else, not even their own constituents – during negotiations: you know, just to make sure this spoilt and pampered lot keep getting everything they want, when and how they want it, and screw the rest of the frigging country. And sure enough this persists all the way down to this day. They even got Malta's Attorney General to fight their own case for them in the European Court… and where Malta's Attorney General has traditionally cocked up each and every single case before the same court (Malta has lost around a dozen ECJ cases since we joined the EU), lo and behold! On this The real thrill of killing birds lies in rubbing our collective noses in the sheer helplessness of the ordinary law-abiding citizen when faced with this wanton disregard for the most basic norms of civility occasion he actually pulls his socks up, puts up a legal battle worthy of Perry Mason…. and sure enough, secures the hunters the right to carry on getting away with murder even in spring. Honestly, on this issue alone we were better off before joining the EU. At least there wasn't a European court verdict giving a blanket semblance of legality to the ongoing massacre. And the upshot of all this hunter-worshipping by our spineless politicians? Every migration season it's the same story. Protected birds massacred, year in, year out. If it's not eagles, it's spoonbills; if not spoonbills, it's storks; if not storks, it's flamingoes; and if not flamingoes, it's swans. And those are just the ones that get reported. OK, I know what you're probably thinking. But this time round there's been a small difference, hasn't there? Government did respond… it doubled the penalties for illegal hunting. Surely that's an improvement over the previous way of doing politics? To which the short answer is: NO. A slightly longer answer would be this. Reacting to a crime by raising penalties is just another way of simply saying: we have no clue how to actually address this problem… so we'll do something snappy to give the impression that we are responding, even though we secretly know our action will have no real impact on the actual situation in the countryside. How can raising the penalties possibly make any difference… if you never catch the culprits? And how can you catch the culprits, if the ratio of ALE officers to hunters has hardly changed one iota since 1995 or thereabouts? Do, da, dum. Naturally, the proper response would have been to double the number of law enforcement officers assigned to monitor the countryside during hunting season. But that would piss off the hunters, and… well… No government, be it Labour or PN, will ever deliberately do that. In fact it is debatable which of these two superficial, mercenary political institutions have fared worse over the years. The PN spent 25 years in power, and all it ever did was give in to the hunters' every demand. And oh look: among the first policy decisions the 'new' PN took after a change in leadership was to reconfirm itself as a party of hunters, for hunters… despite a golden opportunity to shed that image by supporting a petition to end spring hunting once and for all. And the saddest part of all this is that in a sense, you can't even blame the political parties for acting this way. The real responsibility lies with the ordinary voter, for persisting in mindlessly supporting their tribal political leaders, regardless what they say or do. I for one refuse to play that game. It matters little to me if the people wrecking this country happen to rally around a blue or a red flag. In fact it makes no difference at all. Henceforth my vote will only go to parties which actually make an effort to address all the issues what I want to see enacted by a local government. One of these is an end to spring hunting… and believe me: spring hunting is an aberration which will end sooner or later, with or without any Maltese government's say in the matter. So a small word of advice for aspiring parliamentarians – be they general or European election candidates. Unless an end to spring hunting and a radical overhaul of hunting laws is firmly etched onto your agenda, don't even think of knocking on my door come election time. There are plenty of others who will vote for you… from my end, the days of reluctantly supporting one out of two 'equal evils' are now OVER. CHECK OUT RAPHAEL VASSALLO'S LATEST COLUMNS ON http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/blogs Ingram , Valletta Republic Street e Courts next to th