Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/573382
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2015 Opinion 25 encounter fuming at having been 'cheated' out of victory, by a decision that – even though perfectly correct – was somehow detrimental to their beloved team's chances of winning (and therefore clearly 'wrong'). How different is that from local politics? No different at all. And there is an underlying reason for the similarity… though I somehow suspect that neither football hooligan nor political supporter will ever be able to properly see it. Let's face it: the sort of unswerving, unthinking emotional attachment exhibited by both the football hooligan and the political party zealot can only be irrational, because it is itself the product of a phenomenon known as 'stupidity'. Any intelligent, thinking human being would immediately spot the logical impasse inherent in such childish thought-processes… the fact that so many people don't – and often willingly refuse to – merely indicates that these people do not actually 'think' about their convictions at all. If such people ever did actually ask pause to ask themselves the fatal question – but WHY do I support this or that team/party? – they would also find themselves justifying a sense of allegiance that is entirely independent of how either football team or political party actually performs. Let's stick to football for the time being. You will never hear a football fan saying: "I support Juventus (or Chelsea, or Inter, or Bayern Munich, or whatever) because I have enormous respect for the ethos of a club that is entirely honest and consistent in all its dealings..." The reality today is that football clubs can't be honest or ethical, because the rules of the game itself militate against honesty. How many times have you seen a player go down in the penalty area… only to writhe about in agony for all the world as though he'd just dislocated a hip or broken an ankle? Yet no sooner is the penalty awarded, than hey presto! Back to his feet the 'wounded' player instantly springs… in some cases, performing a cartwheel to celebrate the unfair advantage his dishonest tactics have earned for his team. That sort of blatant dishonesty has become so intrinsic to the game that players are sometimes berated for NOT resorting to such subterfuge. I myself have heard earnest football fans lambasting their own team's striker for exhibiting a rare moment of honesty and sportsmanship on the pitch: "He should have dived for the penalty!" they'd angrily cry… even though it was perfectly obvious that no foul had been committed, so the penalty (if given) would have been unfair. The bottom line is that to be a 'fan' of something as utterly dishonest as a football team requires a special ability to suspend one's own ethical and rational considerations indefinitely, where these conflict with one's emotive attachment. One must perforce blind oneself to the ugliness of the object of one's affections… otherwise, the sincerity of the emotion would be simply impossible to achieve in practice. Politics is exactly the same on all counts. And to fully appreciate the implications of the unhealthy, unwholesome and quite frankly idiotic emotive attachment to political parties, you have only to absorb the 'real' messages simultaneously sent out by the PN as it geared up for the Independence celebrations. While his party's PR department was busy marking the side-lines for the new PN football club outside Piano's parliament, its leader Simon Busuttil has been equally busy making speeches about his own 'honesty' and 'integrity'. We were told, for instance, that the difference between PN and Labour is that Labour makes populist noises to attract votes, when it has no intention of delivering on its promises. "This level of dishonesty requires an alternative from the PN – and this means clean politics, transparency, of giving a chance to everybody, that treats people in a mature way…" Busuttil said. Yet oh look: the same meeting was also addressed by a certain Manuel Calleja: described in the article as "a former Labour voter, [who] said he had been denied assistance by his local MP and minister after an injury left him jobless". "'I used to be a Labourite... now I swear loyalty to you, Dr Simon Busuttil,'" Calleja added to tremendous applause. Jolly good: so a man who expected 'favours' from the Labour government, to which he clearly was not entitled (if you are made redundant on account of disability, there are other entities to turn to before involving the minister or your local MP), abandoned the PL and turned to the PN instead: presumably, on the basis that the PN would comply with these unfair requests for political favours, where Labour would not. And he 'swore loyalty', too: loyalty, which is defined as 'unthinking allegiance'… and which is exactly the same attribute demanded of football fans by their teams. Meanwhile, a full list of comparable hiccups would be too long for this humble article: but it has become practically impossible for the PN to open its mouth on any subject at all, without completely contradicting an earlier position or statement. The decision to clutter Piano's masterpiece with unsightly football paraphernalia – after having so loudly booed and hissed at the mess made on the same spot by others – is one simple example. Another is the fact that the PN now advocates a further 30% reduction in utility bills, when the same party had criticised Labour as 'populist' for promising an 'impossible' 25% cut before the last election. But it doesn't really matter, you see, for the reasons so beautifully explained in that visual correlative with a street football match outside Parliament. Political parties like the PN can always get away with such blatant contradictions and outrageous political dishonesty… so long as the level of political support it relies upon remains entirely indistinguishable from football hooliganism. hooligan…