Women drivers, divorce and sustainability

Scratching around for a topic on this island, obsessed with whether we should introduce divorce or not, was not easy. Hopefully, we shall have moved on this week, but somehow I doubt it.

I found an interesting titbit on women on Foreign Policy online, which made me think that despite us Maltese kidding ourselves that we live in a modern democratic society, we do share some idiosyncrasies with Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, we don’t have their oil, hence their money, but the scary tactics of their fundamentalists using God reverberated. A Saudi cleric Shaykh Abd-al-Rahman al-Barrak came up with this gem recently, “God says women drivers are evil and deserve to die”.

A campaign by Saudi women claiming the right to drive (in the only country in the world that forbids women to drive) is currently underway. Manal al-Sharif, one of the organisers of the movement, was arrested by Saudi authorities last Sunday after twice filming herself driving a car in her hometown of Dammam and posting the videos to YouTube, reported Cameron Abadi in “Hands off the Wheel”.

Besides the arrest, the establishment is hitting back with it’s own campaign in it’s national media with interviews with women who proclaimed, "Driving is a hassle”. One slogan our anti divorce campaigners did not come up with, “Divorce is a hassle” might have had some appeal to some of our women.

Well, what do you know, being an independent individual with full rights has its drawbacks. "When I travel to a country where I can drive," said Zaina al-Salem, a 29-year-old banker, "I'm usually burdened with having to park my car and walk all the way to the store."

There you have it fellow females, if you don’t want the hassle of driving, having to find a parking space and walking all the way to the store, move to Saudi.

You will be living like a princess and be chauffeured everywhere.

However, it will be more like the lifestyle of a medieval princess. Using an extremist Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, according to which God forbids any mixed-gender mingling outside the family, al-Barrak threatened "What they are intending to do is forbidden and they thus become the keys to evil in this country," adding that giving women the freedom to move around on their own would be to tempt God's wrath. He predicted the activists would be struck dead: "They will die, God willing, and will not enjoy this."

But as a commentator rightly pointed out, surely “they already are mingling with strange men when they have some chauffeur driving them around to begin with. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the vast majority of cases of adultery within Saudi Arabia involve women and their drivers.”

Another referred to a Harry Enfield hilarious sketch, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39qdhbkTko4,

which still has reverberations, despite being a parody of the 1940’s.

Our fundamentalists have not been as outrageous as al-Barrak. We have not been told that if we vote for divorce we “deserve to die” but we have been told ad nauseum that “God does not want it” and “the keys to evil in this country” does resonate.

It has been drummed in that we shall be ‘labelled’ as having gone against God and Jesus, by our ‘Christian brethren’ and be somehow stigmatised if we voted “Yes” yesterday.

Besides, as I opined last week, in a campaign chock-full of threats and name calling, the “No” campaign targeted women and used all kinds of emotional tactics to scare them away from voting for divorce.

From: “Marriage with divorce will stay valid until the woman’s size grows beyond 10” (A real own goal because it depicts marriage as shallow and based on the woman’s waistline rather than a union based on love and respect) to “Children are the ones to suffer most by divorce”, as though they do not suffer most anyway in any bad marriage or partnership, and “Divorce spells the end to maintenance”.

Well, we shall know soon enough if the babaw tactics worked. Moving on, I received a press release from the Sliema Residents Association, Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar, NatureTrust Malta and BirdLife Malta calling on the authorities to schedule the entirety of the estate gardens of Villa Bonici in Sliema.

While questioning how the gardens of Villa Bonici were mysteriously changed from an Urban Conservation Area to one with ‘unspecified heights’? The NGOs are calling on government “not to miss this unique opportunity to purchase the last remaining large green space in the Sliema/Gzira area, and preserve it as a nature park, as it is an important habitat to a wide range of biodiversity including the western whip snake (serp iswed), lizards and geckos, migrant birds such as herons, falcons, bee-eaters and swifts, as well as resident birds.

“The site also houses a colony of bats, which makes it automatically eligible for protection under Schedule III of Legal Notice 311 - Flora, Fauna and Natural Habitats Protection Regulations, 2006”, said the release.

The NGOs are claiming that although the authorities have scheduled part of the garden for its heritage features, they are failing to protect and have ignored the environmental, architectural heritage and ecosystem benefits provided by the rest of the green space.

They are insisting that failure to schedule this lower half will lead to rampant over-development of the site with all the implications of additional traffic, loss of biodiversity and of water.

And that lack of scheduling of the lower half of the garden shows that the authorities’ action to protect our environment and biodiversity falls far short of their claims of environmental care. 

The NGOs are calling on the authorities to schedule the whole garden, “thus protecting Sliema's green lung from future inappropriate development for the benefit of future generations”.

I actually overlooked this particular garden until very recently. The construction of a new block of apartments now blocks it almost completely and when the building is finished it will not only entirely block it, but will also partly hide the only other bit of green left on Manoel Island, which also will eventually disappear.

As you see I do have personal experience of how any trace of nature is being eradicated. I find the view of greenery not only relaxing, but also appreciate the other environmental issues, including protecting natural habitats, connected with making urban living less stressful.

I was therefore also interested in reading an article by Anne Zammit in The Sunday Times, which carried the catch phrase “Nature can still surprise us” that was used at a conference on sustainable development and the built environment as part of the 53rd meeting of the European Council of Civil Engineers in Malta held earlier this month.

Unfortunately, though no examples of nature surprising us surfaced and there were certainly no surprises about what is being done about sustainability in the building sector.

I read that Alex Torpiano, the dean of the University’s Faculty for the Built Environment, noted that architects and engineers are getting interested in sustainability and disciplines, which marry spatial planning with infrastructure.

About time. We need more than interest. We need them (architects and engineers) to start implementing what they have been blabbing about while we are drowning in unsustainability.

Torpiano also argued that the role of the structural or civil engineer had to change in order to meet new challenges related to our energy and water resources. Wow, change is needed to face new challenges. Revealing stuff!

University lecturer Ruben Paul Borg followed up on the dean’s reference to “talking across the architect/engineer divide”, by stressing “the importance of networking across institutes to adopt a sustainable approach.”

Well is that one of the surprises? Architects and engineers need to communicate to take on board a sustainable approach. “A sense of urgency”, needed to be adopted by the building sector, said Asko Sarja, from the Finnish consulting firm Innokas.

 “We can save really big amounts of energy in buildings. The costs are lower and returns are higher than in most other sectors,” he advised, adding that the knowledge exists. So why on earth are the relevant authorities not doing anything about ensuring such measures are taken?

Interestingly, Mario Fsadni from the University’s Institute of Sustainable Energy, referring specifically to penthouses, predicted that sooner or later building regulations had to be enforced.

Ah, so another surprise? Building regulations are not being enforced! Maybe it is because as hydrologist Marco Cremona pointed out there is “Ambiguity over which authority is responsible for enforcing the law”.

He also noted that the neglect to collect rainwater in households was reflected on a larger scale with abandoned reservoirs, such as the one at the airport.

So no revelations let alone anything amazing and certainly no indication of ‘nature surprising us’ at the “Sustainability for architects and engineers” meeting, but I did find out that old ceiling fans and 1960s chandeliers are in demand.

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Is eternal damnation on its way anyway?

By next Sunday the argy-bargy will be over, or will it? What exactly will the outcome of the divorce referendum on Saturday lead to? Will it lead to bedlam, as the anti brigade is predicting, and damnation that some within the Church are forewarning?

I say some, because the Church is being cagey and playing a very duplicitous game about the whole shebang. While some are putting up highly controversial billboards and promising exclusion for those who vote “for divorce”, others are being more diplomatic excluding themselves from criticism directed at the extremists while not openly distancing themselves from the fracas.

The line Archbishop Paul Cremona took last Sunday, at an event animated by anti-divorce campaigners DJ Pierre Cordina and his wife Mireille at Ta’ Qali celebrating World Family Day, was non confrontational, even romantic (as in imaginary) and very different to Gozo bishop, Mario Grech’s stance. He likened marriage to a “vocation” and that difficulties could be overcome and become “moments of joy and satisfaction” if the couple accepted to carry their “crosses”.

I will be very surprised if the “Yes to divorce” wins the day on Saturday. Because despite the Archbishops’ subtler message of accepting sufferance, there has been so much fire and brimstone bandied about that it is bound to affect the weak minded and the superstitious.

That is not to say that all who will vote “No” are weak minded. But one cannot dispute that there is still a large number of intellectually unsophisticated people around and that includes the ‘educated’ classes.

One only has to see what programmes on TV are the most watched to understand why the majority of the population’s thinking is stymied rather than being stimulated.

Listening to the arguments and name calling being presented from both sides I am either shocked, amused or simply astounded at some of the banalities presented as ‘evidence’, the latter mainly from the “No” camp.

The most outrageous being Dr Anna Vella’s “Marriage with divorce will stay valid until the woman’s size grows beyond 10”. A real own goal because it depicts marriage as shallow and based on the woman’s waistline rather than a union based on love and respect.

But it still might resonate with women who are scared their husbands will abandon them for slimmer women once divorce is introduced. As though those kind of men do not abandon them anyway, with or without divorce.

The “Yes” proponents have been at a disadvantage from the word go. They have had to contend with the opposition’s use of God and Jesus as a marketing tool.

Besides the billboards, flyers have been delivered to individual letterboxes saying, “Kristu Iva, Divorzu Le”, (Christ Yes, Divorce No) with among other messages about love stating “L-imhabba kollox tissaporti”(Love tolerates everything).

But surely if divorce is being considered it means that ‘love’ has flown out of the window.
The “Yes” lobby have also used “love” in their flyers - “Give love a second chance” - distributed door to door.
Despite both camps using “love” in their flyers we have seen too much of the opposite in this highly unsavoury debate, from which the large majority of politicians have been running scared.

Not to mention the threats and confusion emanating from various priests. Some saying “you will commit a sin if you vote ‘Yes’”, while others are saying that it is not.

I was handed yet another flyer, the other day, with the title “Tivvota ‘Iva’ Mhux Dnub?” (Is Voting ‘Yes’ Not a Sin?) It informs of a public meeting organised by “Kattolici ‘Iva’ Ghax Dritt” (Catholics ‘Yes’ because it is a human right) at the Msida local council offices in Msida at 6.45, on Monday at which former parish priest in Palermo and now the director of a Catholic journal Adista, Giovanni Avena is to be the main speaker,

Then we had Bishop Grech, adding to his previous apportioning of “guilt” as “divorce is intrinsically bad”, the claim that anyone voting for divorce could not receive Holy Communion. Although he is now saying he was misquoted on the latter. So was last Sunday’s Times report inaccurate?

Unfortunately, though the “For Divorce” lobby have retaliated by using alternative ‘shock’ promotion tactics. For example, the use of the word “bastards” in their billboard “We’re forced to cohabit: Are our children bastards?” was crass, insensitive and offensive and perpetuated name calling.

Of course the term is correct, but we don’t go around using words, which are distasteful or disparaging just because they are in the dictionary. I took exception to some of the comments online that tried to excuse the use of the word.

“Would the term born out of wedlock sound any sweeter to these nitpickers? We all know what message the billboard intended to pass on and it was not meant to be an insult,” said one.

My response to that comment is that it is offensive to publicise name-calling and anyone with a modicum of sensibility should realise that it would be seen as insulting.

Another opined “That this billboard offends is understandable, but sometimes the truth is brutal.”
Is brutality really a ploy people should be using to garner votes? I don’t think so.

And the most insensitive comment to my mind was the following: “Anyone can take as much offence as they may wish, but it is the legal definition of bastard”

We also had a pro divorce lobbyist, Marlene Mizzi who likened the anti divorce lobby to the Nazi Party and on the other side more recently, we had the Gozo bishop Mario Grech talking about “traitors who used every means to kill the flock”.

So much for love, lets all just offend and insult each other as much as possible as long as we get what we want in the end. Is this what we call debate?

And there is no room for neutrality, “We should show what we believe in by voting”, which of course he means “No to divorce”, Bishop Grech told a packed hall in the Fgura parish hall on Friday evening, previewing the bishop’s pastoral letter that was to be published yesterday.

But all these power struggles might have been a huge waste of time if Harold Camping, the founder of Family Radio a non-profit Christian radio network based in Oakland, California is right in his prophesy.

We are all going to perish soon anyway. He is claiming on billboards, which have popped up all over America, that a massive earthquake will mark the second Judgment Day on Saturday, May 21, yesterday, ushering in a five-month period of catastrophes before the world comes to a complete end in October. When the good will rise to heaven and the bad left to fester.

So is it really worth voting on Saturday. I suppose if you believe Camping you should not only vote, but also vote “No” or else it’s eternal damnation!

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Mainly drivel in anti divorce debate

OMG we have another two weeks of having to put up with all the drivel about the forthcoming referendum on divorce. I do not posses a doctorate and did not go to university, but reading all the tosh being bandied about by people who have supposedly reached a high level of education and form part of our professional class I am thinking that there is lot to be said for the university of life.

“When you live abroad, like I did, you realise that divorce is contagious... If your sister divorces, you have a bigger chance for divorce...Studies abroad showed how many marriages would have been saved had there not been the divorce option,” Anna Vella a medical doctor (lawyers are also called doctors here) and president of the Cana Movement, reportedly said on a TVM debate.

Hopefully, such claptrap does not spill over in her medical advice. I also lived abroad (London) for over 25 years and I never came across divorce as a contagious disease. In contrast to the Cana Movements’ founder Mgr Charles Vella she is obviously terrified by divorce.

The “Yes” to Divorce has put an interview (that has apparently been banned from appearing on our local TV stations) with Mgr Vella on Norman Hamilton’s Bla Agenda on You Tube and it is doing the rounds on Facebook.

On it, the Monsignor says, “I am not scared by divorce. The fact that divorce is available does not mean the end of the Catholic marriage. I am saying this with my hands on my heart and a clear conscience...).

He carried on saying, “as the founder of the Cana Movement, I will fight to the death to save a marriage, but I cannot ignore the plight of the many separated and divorced couples who come to see me and who are suffering. They are still part of Christ’s Church and we have to look after them.”

I would surmise from this that he also does not agree that voting for divorce is a sin, which is yet another babaw tactic being promoted by other priests. As for the nonsense, “if your sister divorces you have a bigger chance for divorce”, which Dr Vella (not to be confused with the Mgr) spouted, expanding on her “contagious” theory, on the latest TV debate, that would mean that if your sister decides to end it all by jumping off the bastions you have a bigger chance to join the suicide ranks. What utter claptrap.

And this was supposed to be a serious debate on our national TV station. No wonder I have long given up watching it. And what about the “Studies abroad” that showed the “no divorce” option “saved marriages”? Which studies exactly? Is this how Dr Vella argues at a medical presentation?

Now in my limited line of ‘expertise’ if something needs saving it must be in trouble and whether divorce is available or not that ‘turbulence’ is not going to disappear.
Anyway, how exactly does the no to divorce option save a marriage? The no to divorce option is not a guarantee that a marriage that has hit the rocks will miraculously stay whole.

Deborah Schembri, appearing for the “Yes” lobby quite rightly accused Dr Vella for ridiculing the debate when the latter said her movement "believed in a lasting marriage, and not a state where people stay together until you are a size 10".
My first reaction to that quote, when I saw it on Alex Saliba’s FB post, shared by Josanne Cassar, was, “No wonder they are worried”, the anti divorce women that is, because let’s face it very few women stay a size 10 for long and a stroll down any major pedestrian walkway will tell you that many women have not only gone beyond a size10 but are verging on the obese.

But seriously, this is yet another tactic meant to scare the women who lack confidence and most of all brains. And what does it say about our men? That they will all leave their marriage if divorce is introduced as soon as the waistline starts to give? On their wives of course, cause theirs doesn’t matter!

And what about the men who married big women because they like their women that way? I suppose those could have a lasting marriage despite divorce.
And what about the rest? There was I thinking that a stable marriage was based on love and respect yet the anti-divorce brigade think it is all very shallow and is all about the woman’s waistline.

Family lawyer Bernard Grech also speaking for the anti-divorce movement made a telling comment. It was reported that he spoke out against the concept of no fault divorce, saying “spouses could walk out of a marriage without reason or control... rendering marriage a loose tie.”

Control is the operative and significant word here. So according to the anti-divorce lot, marriage is all about control and being restrained. But surely a stable marriage is all about two people enjoying each other’s company, not being forced to endure it. Married people are adults and should not need to be ‘controlled’ or ‘restrained’ by the state to stay in a marriage they want out of.

He also warned, according to the report, “that the law as proposed would impose divorce without reason and erode Malta's ‘heritage’ of long-term commitment in marriage.”

Impose Divorce? Does he mean if one partner wants a divorce and the other doesn’t? Why would one partner want to stay in a marriage that the other wants out of? To my mind that spells unhappiness and instability all round, including the children.

Ah yes, the children. In another debate, not on the telly this time, Arthur Galea Salamone, from “Marriage without divorce” , was the pot calling the kettle black. He criticised the “Yes” campaign for using children in their billboards, while urging those voting on the 28 May to keep children in mind when voting on the introduction of divorce. And his movement carries the slogan ” T o g e t h e r f o r o u r C h i l d r e n ” .

Then of course we had the Children's Commissioner, no less, making such a hash of her argument against divorce. Although she claimed she was not taking sides. Helen D'Amato proclaimed she did not believe divorce would solve problems for children from broken families.

Well it does rather depend on the problems doesn’t it? Echoing A n d r e C a m i l l e r i, she said studies had shown that the introduction of divorce led to a decline in marriages and rise in cohabitation and children born outside wedlock.

On the one hand she conceded, “the issue was complex and the reality was that children from broken marriages suffered and it did not make a difference whether the cause was separation, annulment or divorce.”

On the other, she quoted excerpts from a study, which showed that 10 per cent of children, from families who were together, were at risk of having mental health problems but the number increased to 25 per cent for children from divorced families.

So does it make a difference or not? “Beware of divorce, it can drive your kids crazy”, is the implication of her statement on the study. She has been criticised for not giving the conclusions of the study and misrepresenting it by one of the study’s authors.

Ms D’Amato kept stating the obvious, i.e. that children are best off in a stable family, (Do we need a Children’s Commissioner to tell us that?) but amused me when she said she was annoyed by the two extreme views that gave the impression divorce would either save or destroy all children, when she herself had given a dire predicament for children if divorce was made available.

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