• World
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Central & South Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East & North Africa
    • North America
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
    • US Election
    • US politics
    • Joe Biden
    • Brexit
    • European Union
    • India
    • Arab world
  • Economics
    • Finance
    • Eurozone
    • International Trade
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Startups
    • Technology
  • Culture
    • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Film
    • Books
    • Travel
  • Environment
    • Climate change
    • Smart cities
    • Green Economy
  • Global Change
    • Education
    • Refugee Crisis
    • International Aid
    • Human Rights
  • International Security
    • ISIS
    • War on Terror
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Weapons
  • Science
    • Health
  • 360 °
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice
  • About
  • FO Store
Sections
  • World
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Sign Up
  • Login
  • Publish

Make Sense of the world

Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries

Close

Oh Look, Another Bandwagon

By Daphne Caruana Galizia • Feb 17, 2012

Again a good example of how politicians react to public opinion in view of votes which their existence depends on.

It is more than a little bit trying to see the Labour Party hop aboard yet another vote-catching bandwagon instead of trying to tackle matters responsibly. I’m speaking of the issue-flavour of the month, ACTA, which is designed to cut down on copyright theft but has been turned into an anarchists’ cause celebre. It has now become impossible to discuss ACTA and its implications with anything approaching a rational tone of voice because the hysterics immediately hit the red button and begin spewing stories of governments rifling around in our private in-boxes or planting spying devices in our laptops.

This, if you please, from the sort of people who happily, willingly and without a qualm upload their entire lives’ details to Facebook and Tweet the world about what they’ve had for breakfast, where they are sitting now, what they’re drinking and where they’re going to next. They even upload status updates to Facebook using their smart-phones, so that the status update shows up with their current location and this by default.

All this suggests an element of protesting too much. But the Labour Party, ever with its eye to the main chance, has seen the anger and rubbed its hands together, recognising the opportunity for a bit of vote-catching. Because you know how it is: you majtezwel vote Labour because of ACTA and damn everything else for the next five years after that.

Speaking for myself, I find it difficult to take the Labour Party seriously on freedom of expression issues. So Joe Grima, Anglu Farrugia, Toni Abela, Karmenu Vella, Alex Sceberras Trigona, and Brontosaurus Bazwa are now paladins of free speech, are they? Gosh. Don’t blame me for being ever so slightly unimpressed.

And Joseph Muscat, who so believes in freedom that he worked his guts out to prevent us from holding a European Union passport, is suddenly making himself out to be the paragon of liberty, including the liberty to steal other people’s copyrighted property at will, just because it’s on the internet and the internet should be outside the law. You can’t go into a shop and steal a pair of jeans, but the way these people talk, it’s perfectly all right to steal somebody else’s film or music. The name Kim Dotcom means nothing to Joseph Muscat or his current sidekick Edward Scicluna, who is now being wheeled out so often that he is in serious danger of wearing out his knee cartilage.

In word association games, I would never link ‘Labour’ with ‘liberty’, but there you go. Maybe it’s just me. Either way, I’d have had more respect for this lorry-load of opportunistic irritants if they had said that they support this and that aspect of ACTA but are against this particular other aspect because of XYZ. A blanket objection just puts the Labour Party at the intellectual level of a recent school-leaver who has watched too many YouTube videos by conspiracy theory groups calling themselves Anonymous. And that makes the rest of us very nervous.

THE YAWN-MAKER

Perhaps it’s time that The Times understood how its coverage of Franco Debono, who is invariably described as a prominent criminal lawyer despite his not having featured in many jury trials that I can recall, and whose speech, behaviour and ideas are called ‘passionate’ when the more accurate word is obsessive or irrational, has become just as yawn-makingly tedious as its months-long droning about Arriva this and Arriva that.

Also, that coverage is detached from the context of reality and is precisely what newspaper reporting should not be. You can’t turn somebody into a hero just by writing him up as one, when people out here feel very differently.True, diehard Labour supporters are enjoying his tedious performances even if they do think he’s not worth much as an individual and is a bit of a jerk. But everybody else wishes he would just shut up and let us get on with the business of going about our work with a relative measure of peace of mind.

It’s all right for him, of course. There will always be football hooligans beating up police officers at the stadium, which football hooligans then ask him to defend them in court (his most recently reported brief). That the man who bangs on about democracy, the separation of powers, the police and the administration of justice should break off from his rants to defend two women accused of assaulting a police officer, off whom they had to be physically removed by another police officer, is not in his world view a conflict of interest or even marginally ironic.

After all, this is the man who took up Cyrus Engerer’s brief when they were both still very much involved with the Nationalist Party and were hiding the information about Engerer’s behaviour, police interrogation and prosecution from their party leader. If we need heroes, and I agree that we do, then surely The Times and certain members of its news staff can find somebody more impressive to look up to than – and here I suppress a very wide yawn – Franco Debono. Malta has very low standards in many things. We don’t have to extend our poor standards to our choice of heroes too.

*[This article was originally published by daphne galizia´s blog on February 13, 2012].

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Share Story
Categories360° Analysis, Europe, Politics TagsFocus Article
Join our network of more than 2,000 contributors to publish your perspective, share your story and shape the global conversation. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Post navigation

Previous PostPrevious The Cartoons That Resist Amnesia
Next PostNext The Transition of Yemen
Subscribe
Register for $9.99 per month and become a member today.
Publish
Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse.
Donate
We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your donation is tax-deductible.

Explore

  • About
  • Authors
  • FO Store
  • FAQs
  • Republish
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact

Regions

  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Central & South Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East & North Africa
  • North America

Topics

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Global Change
  • International Security
  • Science

Sections

  • 360°
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice

Daily Dispatch


© Fair Observer All rights reserved
We Need Your Consent
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. Learn more about how we use cookies or edit your cookie preferences. Privacy Policy. My Options I Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Edit Cookie Preferences

The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.

As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media.

 
Necessary
Always Enabled

These cookies essential for the website to function.

Analytics

These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you.

Performance
Uncategorized

This cookie consists of the word “yes” to enable us to remember your acceptance of the site cookie notification, and prevents it from displaying to you in future.

Preferences
Save & Accept