Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/717204
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 AUGUST 2016 Opinion Malta's police force has a future in proactivity a barrage of near-unanimous criticism of Malta. The second was, of course, the Panama Papers: in which Malta emerged as the only country where a serving government official was directly named in the scandal… and, unaccountably, is still a government official all these months later. In any case: enough has been said about both those issues to be repeated here. What I find more interesting is the perspective this sudden spate of coverage casts on our country… compared with what we already know about it ourselves. As with a travel guide – or any other form of critical article – inaccuracies and/ or generalisations will stick out like a sore thumb. (Recently, I stumbled on an international pro-life blogpost which quoted Prof. Arnold Cassola as 'the head of the Maltese government'!) And if you follow the local media as a journalist does – i.e., reading pretty much everything, whether it interests you or not – you will usually be able to identif y the source of the information, too. So when reporting on the 2011 divorce referendum, all the foreign newspapers without reliable local sources ended up quoting the 'Gesu Iva, Divorzju Le' billboard as if it were the official slogan of the 'No' campaign… when we all knew it was the private initiative of a tiny (and somewhat loopy) fringe movement. One article even described the Archbishop as 'a figure whose authority is rarely questioned in Malta'… notwithstanding the fact that the same Archbishop is actively vilified and insulted by roughly half the country, almost every single day. Applying the same process used with the Lonely Planet, these details make the difference between an accurate, dependable news source, and one which merely regurgitates the work of others without any verification. I am sorry to say that in most cases, it is the established newspapers that fail this simple test. Conversely, it is the less likely news sources which tend to get their facts right. Recently, a Seattle-based magazine called 'Politico' has – somewhat bizarrely, I admit – taken an interest in Maltese politics. Last week, I quoted from an article about the impact the Panama Papers are likely to have on Malta's EU Presidency bid; this week, Politico ran a brief story about the involvement of the Nationalist Opposition in the 'Golden Passport' scheme… i.e., the same scheme the PN has been busy lambasting these past two years. Factually, the claims are nothing new. We all knew that "several opposition Nationalist MPs have links to companies involved with the country's controversial passports-for-cash scheme, despite their party opposing it"; and that the party's president, Anne Fenech, is a partner at a law firm that acts as an agent for the same scheme. What we may not have known – or what we chose to overlook – is how such information would be received by third parties: i.e, people who know nothing about the complex network of entrenched hypocrisy that underpins our entire political structure; and who therefore naively interpret such information for what it really is. Strange as it may seem to us, a website like Politico – which has no reason under the sun not to take an objective view of the situation – seems to see this as a conf lict of interest. Even the reporting – with its emphasis on 'despite their party opposing it' – suggests that this was the most newsworthy aspect of the revelation to begin with. And just consider how anomalous it would sound, to someone who doesn't actually know the people involved: a political party whose members privately profit from a questionable scheme, while criticising the same scheme loudly in public. Yes, you can see how that would be considered odd (to say the least) in any other part of the world. And yet, when these same facts emerged locally several months ago, the Nationalist Party simply brushed them all aside as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 'That? Oh, we do it all the time. What's new'? Even more bizarrely, the general public bought into that argument without even batting an eyelid. 'That? Well, what about it? They're politicians, aren't they? Isn't that exactly the sort of blatant hypocrisy we have come to expect from politicians these days…?' And of course, you can't really argue with them either. It's true. The Golden Passport scheme is not the only example, and nor is the Nationalist Party. The Sliema skyscraper and Mriehel towers work just as well. Both projects were conceived under a Nationalist administration, against a backdrop where large-scale construction projects were the order of the day… often fast-tracked by a government which (plus ca change) seemed hell-bent on facilitating piecemeal development at all costs. Both, in brief, were brainchildren of the same ideological commitment that Simon Busuttil, today, calls the 'Dubai-ification of Malta'. But while the PN now sees this as a problem… it somehow fails to see its own hypocrisy, when criticising two projects that are ultimately the fruit of its own past policies. I could go on, and the list would be practically endless. You could include almost every single statement by the Labour government since 2013… most of which merely blamed the former Nationalist administration for the mess that they were elected to clean up… but somehow managed to make worse. This, too, is something the entire country seems to have simply accepted as inevitable: as if political hypocrisy was as much part of our local character as hobz biz-zejt. Sorry, folks, but… no. We may have inured ourselves to humungous contradictions, and perfected the fine art of pretending they don't actually exist. But the contradictions do exist, and they are perfectly visible to everyone else. It is not enough for the Nationalist Opposition to shrug off criticism of its role in the Golden Passport Scheme with a simple 'cosi fan tutti'. If it is to salvage its credibility as an alternative government, it has to regularise the position of all its members to conform to its party's stated line. Otherwise, the PN will reduce itself to the embarrassing status of a war profiteer: loudly condemning the ongoing atrocities, but quietly amassing a small fortune out of proceedings any way. Above all, both parties need to remember that the local perspective is no longer the only yardstick against which they shall be measured. It is easy to get away with murder, when your only judge is a cynical electorate that has long given up on the prospect of 'honest politics'. It is when you start measuring up to the standards of other countries that the problems invariably arise. Small wonder the rest of the EU (if Politico is to be believed… which seems reasonable enough, given its accuracy in other things) now has doubts about Malta's readiness to assume the Presidency next year. We are gradually revealing ourselves to be a country where neither government nor opposition has the foggiest notion of what 'governance' even means. PROF. SAVIOUR FORMOSA THE past weeks have been synony- mous with reaching an understand- ing of the remits of the Police Force. Following the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee presentation and subsequent media reports, it is now time to collectively stop putting down the force and elicit its positive drive into a future society. The past is historical while the force is a dynamic and ever-changing construct, ergo prepare for change. The force is both a real-time and a proactive study in dynamics: it is a candidate to instantaneous incidents that require immediate intervention and analysis, while also trying to envisage a potential morphing of society as it evolves. In turn, its members are ever trying to conjure solutions to the incessant varieties of scenarios that crime may throw at them. With a bottom-up situational analysis carried through over the months past as based on a criminological construct, the high-level strategy as was presented by the minister to the committee evidences a prelude for change. The force is the best case study that has come under the spotlight and is striving to mitigate the changes required to face a new world: a world that will be dominated by new forms of crime, whether real or virtual, whether psychological or physical… This change will not come without its birth pains and from the recent surveys, the force's members are willing partners and proponents for transformation. With civil society and policy-makers on board, change will happen and be sustained, but only if all partners own the process. The media's role Suffice it to state that the force needs the media to enable instant reporting and calls for assistance, such having resulted in successful outcomes, though others have suffered unwanted and inevitable results due to extraneous factors such as weather and deviance. However, the media, whilst positing a scrutiny on the force, also requires a revisiting of its perception of policing in its actual social remit and how it relates to society. It is imperative that the force is given its due on its successes and its way forward as against continuous drumming of limitations, whether real or perceived. A balanced approach is called for. Mission possible The ball has been set rolling and there is little to stop the momentum. The high-level strategy presented to the Social Affairs Committee is tantamount to a blueprint on which to draft the final strategy that will be owned by the force. It thus has to be written and owned by the same force in order to elicit the changes taken from a bottom- up and top-down approaches that led to the current progress. The process entails the visualisation of a mission that reflects modern and potential society as well as offers a grounded rooting based on training, continuous professional development and experience. The mission emphasises the need for change through two fulcra that focus on the provision of community-based services and activity in international circuits. The latter will target the force to be prepared and understand the impacts of global and regional trends on national and local safety and security. Positivity is contagious If anything could be gleaned from the analysis carried out prior to the drafting of the high-level strategy, the willingness and belief in the possibility for change sums it all. There is a thirst for new aspects in dynamic policing, a belief that once functional change occurs and the results will be self-promoting. The positive aura to get there is visible in most survey returns and the mere fact that hundreds of ideas were forwarded depicts a mature field that needs nurturing. Which contrasts starkly with polls and surveys that morale is low: it may be low statistically but it is belied by the massive volume of positivity shown in the forwarded ideas for the future nature of the entity. The five core operations The CEO issue is now a historical construct: a call was issued and the fact that it occurred removed many a speculation from the public debate. The drive to effect that change is evidenced by the call itself. The next steps will see a fulfillment of roles and responsibilities for the CEO within that administrative function. The Commissioner's role is highly vital to society and the focus of the resultant strategy would be to effect changes that point towards the amelioration and implementation of the five core operational strategies that will enable the reduction of crime and increase in safety and security. The core strategies relate to preventive patrol, routine activity and incident response, emergency response, criminal investigation through evidence-based approaches and problem-oriented policing. The experience within the force offers foresight for implementation and one has to acknowledge this drive. Any strategy has to ensure a consistent review and upgrading of the activities through training, projects and cross-border initiatives as driven by the Force, the Academy for Disciplined Forces, the University Criminology Department, other educational institutions and partners. The Police Force has a legacy but also a responsibility towards the future. The various analysis and reports have signalled the need to morph the force and the inherent positivity is an inevitable factor driving the process. Prof Saviour Formosa is a criminologist at the University of Malta and advisor to the ministry for home affairs We are gradually revealing ourselves to be a country where neither government nor opposition has the foggiest notion of what 'governance' even means