Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/574624
9 Raphael Vassallo maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2015 Opinion Contrariwise… A lice Liddell has been unusually busy recently... considering she's actually been dead these past 90 years. But hey, since when has 'being dead' ever stopped anyone from getting any action? Just ask that pig they've been banging on about all week in the UK… Hold it, stop. Just repeat after me: No more pig jokes. No more pig jokes. NO MORE PIG JOKES. I just can't take them any more… Now where was I? Ah yes. The little girl we've all been living next door to all these years, without ever realising it. Remember Tonio Fenech just before the last election? "Straight out of Alice in Wonderland", was his verdict on Labour's energy proposals at the time. (And looked back on two years later, he may well have had a point. Labour's new power station does indeed bear a striking resemblance to the Cheshire Cat: all that can be seen of it is a slowly fading smirk…). And more recently, the newly elected British Labour party leader faced similar claims over his economic plans. "The stuff of Alice in Wonderland", they were described: an expression that seems to instantly evoke images of topsy-turvydom in a creepy, somewhat sinister way. Poor Alice, I can't help thinking each time. Isn't it bad enough she got reluctantly drawn into the surreal realm of male menopause, aged only 13? And a vaguely nightmarish realm Lewis Carroll's was, too: with its paranoid delusions, and its domineering, psychotic women running around screaming things like "Off with her head!"… Now, all these years later, Alice gets drawn into a world she will surely find familiar: the 'contrariwise' world of Malta's increasingly neurotic Tweedledums and Tweedledees. OK, so after several weeks of serene contemplation and internal round table discussions, the Nationalist Party finally came out with its position on the proposed decriminalisation of blasphemy laws last Sunday. I admit I didn't exactly know what to expect. You can never tell when you jump into a rabbit hole: it could lead to a magical world and mystery and enchantment… or you just land in a heap of pellet-sized droppings instead. And this particular issue must have been perplexing for the PN. Until fairly recently the party had dutifully rallied to all the regular Church-approved causes, as its long history (which reminds me: it's just turned 135. Happy birthday!) had all along positioned it to do. Opposition to divorce, defence of censorship in the twin cases of Realta' and Stitching, etc… So consistency alone would demand a defence of the criminalisation of blasphemy, too: if nothing else, just to keep up the tradition. The PN has, of course, changed leader in the meantime; so a change in direction would not be entirely out of script either. And there were possible indications of such a change: in 2013, the PN's only two MEPs voted in favour of a resolution which specifically called on the EU to "firmly oppose any attempt to criminalise freedom of speech in relation to religious issues, such as blasphemy laws". So now that the government has done precisely what the PN's own MEPs had urged all EU countries to do in 2013… how can the PN realistically oppose the initiative today? How can it turn around and tell us that it now disagrees with something it had advocated itself a mere two years ago? Ah, but that's the magic of Maltese politics, you see. It's contrariwise. Even though joining all the dots seems to lead you in a certain direction, there is no telling exactly where you will actually get to in the end. Simon Busuttil, for instance, ended up claiming that decriminalisation of blasphemy (and, to give it its full due, 'vilification of religion') would somehow constitute a 'national threat'. So, two years after opposing "any attempt to criminalise freedom of speech in relation to religious issues, such as blasphemy laws"… he now approves. "Everyone knows what's happening around us and what happens when religions are taken to the extreme," he told a mass meeting last weekend. "What worries me is that Muscat's stance will create a national threat. What happens if someone hot-headed decides to take matters in his own hands?" Hm. OK, it's a fair question, I suppose. What happens, indeed, when someone reacts violently to an insult or offensive remark? I don't how it works in Wonderland exactly; but last I looked, here in the real world it was the 'hotheads taking matters into their own hands' who were generally regarded as constituting 'the national threat'. And NOT the target of their violent anger, who (or which) would reasonably be considered as the party requiring the full defence and protection of the state. Vigilantism, revenge attacks, and violence of any kind in response to a perceived provocation are all patently illegal – unless, of course, you happen to come from Mellieha… in which case it's perfectly OK to run someone down with your car if he calls you 'gay': and there's even a magistrate's ruling to prove it. Closing an eye at such random examples, as a general rule it is the persons carrying out such actions who should be brought to justice, and not the victims of their crimes. At least, that's how it usually works in our legal system… and herein lies the source of the PN's perplexity over this issue. The idea to repeal these archaic laws is not new: ironically, it had begun under the Nationalist administration, when a review was set up to examine Malta's code of laws and weed out those articles which were patently past their sell-by date. Malta's laws against vilification of religion are obsolete precisely because they defy the logic that governs all other laws on retaliatory crime. They criminalise the act of provocation in order to avert the reaction… instead of doing what the law should do, and criminalise the real threat to public order. This logic underpinned the same EU resolution that the PN's delegation had supported en masse (i.e., both of them) in 2013. And yet, it is the counter- logic that has now prevailed: with the PN now advocating criminalisation – complete with threat of imprisonment – of those who 'offend religious sentiment', in the hope that this might dissuade a few 'hotheads' from 'taking the matter into their own hands'. OK let's try and apply this reasoning to anything but religion, and see where it takes us. Domestic violence, for instance. Some of you might remember a case a while back in which a woman was murdered by an irate family member (allegedly) because she had 'burnt his toast'. I won't go into the specifics of that particular case – though it is important to bear in mind that this kind of thing does happen – so let's turn it into something generic: 'Man kills woman over burnt toast'. There. Now, how would the wheels of justice turn if the matter were to be decided using the 'national threat' argument? Clearly, here we have a 'hothead' who 'took matters into his own hands'. All we can all agree that an escalation of this sort of behaviour would threaten 'public order', too. I mean, you can't exactly have men running around murdering women all over the place, just because of the precise degree of carbonisation of a piece of bread. It would be impossible to get any work done… But we can equally agree that this man had been provoked beyond all reasonable human endurance. I mean, insults to family and religion are one thing… but burning a piece of toast? The offence is unpardonable. Why, anticipation of a crunchy piece of toast, with melted butter slowly dripping down the crust, is half the enjoyment of a hard-earned breakfast. One salivates merely at the heavenly smell emanating from the direction of the kitchen… Then it comes to the table charred to a crisp: a smouldering husk of dust and ashes, that looks (and smells) about as appetising as an extinct volcano crater. I mean, be honest: what sort of man can possibly endure this level of disappointment without … Oh, I don't know… accidentally cracking that woman's skull with the nearest hard, blunt, heavy object that comes to hand? OK, so maybe this guy overdid the skull-cracking part a little. We all have our off-days. But let's not forget that his culinary sentiments had been gravely (but GRAVELY) offended… and that, had the woman desisted from provoking him though such a thoughtless, insensitive gesture… the disaster might well have been averted. In any case: what does one do when confronted with such a national threat? I know! We'll criminalise the act of burning toast! Yes, that'll do the trick. Having a criminal deterrent in place – say, six months in prison –would certainly result in a drastic drop in Malta's national burnt toast statistics. And with all those slices of toast now reaching the table with just the right golden- brown texture of crunchiness, it stands to reason that we'd have happier, more satisfied men all round. And happier, more satisfied men are less likely to bludgeon the occasional women to death than angry, hungry, hot-headed ones. It's logical, see? Meanwhile, who cares if all those long-suffering women now have to face the threat of prison (on top of the constant threat of an abusive man) for failing to observe laws designed specifically to keep men in a permanent state of satisfied, complacent superiority? After all, the law is not there to protect them from direct threats… it is actually there to protect them from harming themselves, by criminalising the act of doing something trivial on the basis that it might otherwise provoke a violent, possibly fatal reaction. And there you have it. Problem solved. And as for the 'national threat'… Pouf! Gone in a small cloud of caterpillar smoke… Honestly, you couldn't get more 'Alice in Wonderland' than that if you tried. You really couldn't. And I know, because I've tried. Often… 'Contrariwise': Alice in Wonderland's Tweedledum and Tweedledee are the perfect illustration for Maltese politics