How on earth are we going to get a woman PM

 

So the Maltese are ready for a woman to lead the country and were actually more disposed towards this idea than their European counterparts. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

According to a Eurobarometer survey with 500 people, carried out by Misco last June, 84 per cent of Maltese respondents would feel comfortable with a female prime minister and they were actually more disposed towards this idea than their European counterparts, reported Ivan Camilleri in The Times on Friday.

What amused me was the unwitting use of words in the article that demonstrated the underlying thinking on gender equality, “Sweden (97 per cent), a famously liberal country, is the most tolerant.”

So accepting women as leaders is a liberal notion as it is a question of tolerance! Would one even consider men in power as a liberal concept? Or that a country that accepts men as leaders is the “most tolerant”?

We are not even ready to ‘tolerate’ to elect women to Parliament, or to even accept that the only way to get them there is through quotas, so how on earth are we going to get a woman prime minister?

The political parties may pay much lip service to power sharing with women, but we have yet to see any tangible proof that they are willing to do anything about it.
Tonio Borg (PN), our new Commissioner in Europe, was given a hard time on Women Rights before being accepted, which upset George Vella, our Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman.

“I was angry with Dr Borg for stooping to ‘quench their (MEPs’) thirst’ when he wrote he would fully support women’s rights,” he told Parliament on Wednesday. I thought I had seen the quote in the Times report on Wednesday and posted the comment. “Is this the Labour Party stance? I think we women need to know where the PL stands on women's rights.”

But neither were there when I went back to check. But I found the quote again on Thursday in a shorter report of the same story by Joanne Cocks. I reposted my comment to which Francis Saliba MD replied: “‘Women’s rights’ is a vague term that is being given different meanings according to personal agendas. Not every right claimed by this or that pressure group is a genuine universal fundamental human right.”

Of course by that argument one could say that “Human Rights” can be just as vague. To which Dr Saliba responded, “That is why I (he) never use such deliberate ambiguous terms. I refer to specific universal fundamental human rights as recognised in a United Nations or similar charters.”

Now anyone reading that last comment might not only have wondered why Human Rights and Women’s Rights should be seen as “deliberate ambiguous terms”, but also got the wrong idea about the UN’s stance on women’s rights.

UN support for the rights of women began with the organisation's founding Charter. Among the purposes of the UN declared in Article 1 of its Charter is “To achieve international co-operation … in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”

Within the UN’s first year, the Economic and Social Council established its Commission on the Status of Women, as the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.  Among its earliest accomplishments was ensuring gender-neutral language in the draft Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Now we all know how far “ensuring gender neutral language” has got us here. The amount of palaver we had just over the simplest term “chairperson” is just one minute example. I even had a woman, who was then the chairperson of our national television station, attempting to change my stance on that gender-neutral term. She was obviously content with being referred to as chairman.

Now, when we have the very few women who occupy leading positions with little notion of the underlying, seemingly harmless words that keep us in our place, we have little hope.

The survey also dealt with discrimination, as the article titled “Maltese ready for a woman to lead the country” tells us, “The majority of Maltese respondents agreed that discrimination is still widespread on the island, even though the reasons may be many.”
But here the survey’s scope went beyond women, or I should say heterosexual women.

“Less acceptable seems to be a gay or lesbian prime minister in Malta, although even in this case there are signs of change. Some 55 per cent of Maltese respondents said they would accept a gay prime minister while many of the rest said this would be totally unacceptable.”

Another subtle pointer of the way women are perceived to be treated with indulgence is the way (no disrespect to homosexual people) women are put in the same category as gay and lesbian people. Gay people are men, so if anything they should be categorised with men. But of course men do not need surveys to tell us how easy it is for them to lead.

Published in the Malta Independent on Sunday 25/11/2012

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Life is cheap, fireworks make money

Will we ever learn? How many more lives need be sacrificed before the government takes action on fireworks factories? How many more tragedies before the situation is taken in hand? The authorities need to bite the bullet and sort this problem out once and for all. I wrote that in November 2007, in my then MaltaToday column “Playing with fire”.

The previous June five men had been killed in a similar explosion and then Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg had said that he would have recommendations for reforms to the manufacture of fireworks drawn up by September of that year. Yet, here we are five years on with another fatal accident involving a fireworks factory and with no legislation yet in hand.

In 2004, the Explosives Committee (the regulatory body) had already provided recommendations in a report that was not made public. A Pyrotechnics Committee was then set up to make fresh recommendations. But this report was again not made public. Does this ring any bells?

In September 2010, after yet another tragedy at the Farrugia Brothers factory in Gharb that killed six people, including a pregnant woman, there was talk of a moratorium. A former committee head, Col Albert Camilleri, an explosive expert with 45 years experience, had said that a moratorium would work but “a date had to be set by when every factory had depleted its stock”, which had suggested that a stockpile exists. Initial investigations had indicated that the factory was packed with more explosives than allowed by law, I commented in my column “Culture control” in this paper on 12 September 2010.

As well as the six people who had died on 5 September, a man died on 13 August in an explosion at the fireworks factory in Dwejra, another died in May at St Catherine’s Fireworks Factory in Marsaxlokk and two men lost their lives in February, at the St Sebastian Fireworks Factory in Qormi, in that year.

On a One TV, Joe Grima, programme at the beginning of the firework season that year, I had challenged the rest of the panel − all, excepting one neutral member, defending their safety record − on insurance and asked them: Who takes care of the families left behind after a tragedy?

Later, after the tragedy in September, I read, “No claims for insurance money can be made in connection with Sunday’s fireworks factory explosion in Gharb, which killed six people”. KDM Insurance Brokers general manager Alberto Bisazza explained, “The Malta Pyrotechnics Association has a block insurance policy in place covering the firework licensees but this is a third party liability policy specifically designed to cover the period when fireworks are being let off and while the fireworks are transported from the fireworks factory to the site/s. Therefore, nothing relating to this unfortunate accident can be recovered under this policy,” he had told The Times. I am not sure whether there have been any changes since in this regard.

Now after the latest tragedy, I learn from a Times article by Mark Micallef on Thursday, that the Office of the Prime Minister has now taken over the responsibility for fireworks. This is not the first time that the OPM has taken over a failing portfolio, not that we have seen much change in the process.

A spokesperson told him: “The government will await the policy and legislative proposals forthcoming from the Explosives Committee before moving on to the implementation stage.” According to Mark, he was referring to the implementation of recommendations by the Commission following the September 2010 explosion.

But hang on a minute, the Explosives Committee had already provided recommendations eight years ago, and what about Minister Tonio Borg’s assurance that recommendations for reforms to the manufacture of fireworks were to be drawn up by September of 2007. Why is there so much going over the same process again and again? Sounds like procrastination.

Recommendations to improve safety were made again, not for the first time, last December by the Commission chaired by chemistry professor Alfred Vella. Its report found that dangerous chemical mixtures, banned abroad because they were too volatile, were still in use here.

Rather than action being taken immediately on such a straightforward recommendation in the report, a task force was set up two months later to “oversee a consultation process with stakeholders” on the report’s recommendations. The task force’s proposed measures were then referred to the Explosives Committee in March, which was then asked to draw up proposals for legislation to implement the main recommendations. And it seems that is where it is stuck.

Professor Vella and Professor Victor Axiaq, a commission member (I believe representing the Curia), are now yet again calling for certain key recommendations, particularly the ban of such dangerous mixtures, to be urgently implemented. I don’t know whether the Explosives Committee members are still the same people as eight years ago. But if they are, no wonder they are in no hurry, they probably think it will only be shelved yet again, especially with the parties already gearing up for the next election.

“We are willing to agree with any possible means which renders the art of pyrotechnics safer, including the restriction of certain chemical mixtures,” a spokesperson for The Labour Party told The Times. It was averse to the idea of a moratorium and outright bans. “Moratoriums and outright bans might be popular but would only lead to illegal manufacturing. Strict surveillance and tight regulations should be in place,” the spokesman said. The PL called for an urgent conference that would debate and “decide” on the recommendations of the Vella report. More procrastination. Come on.

Don’t for a moment think that we shall get any further on this if Labour wins the next election. The fireworks lobby is not only strong and has sponsors on both sides of the House, but it also has the vital ingredient – money, lots of it.
The cherry on the cake is that we also hear from Mark Micallef that Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat’s father is an enthusiast and imports chemicals used for fireworks. Scanning through the comments to that article, this gem seems to have bypassed all the usual online commentators.

Published in the Malta Independent on Sunday on 11/11/12

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Who will unwrap the brown paper

 

For a government that has been harping on about transparency, we have seen little of it in Malta.  The EU anti-fraud agency OLAF report, dealing with the details, leading to EC Commissioner John Dalli's resignation remains under wraps. It has been passed on to the Malta Police by the Attorney General with his recommendations. Local media attention has now turned to the Maltese lawyer to whom the snus manufacturer Swedish Match is alleging the bribe was made.

Meanwhile, going way back to early in the year, in a debate between Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Oppostion leader Joseph Muscat in February, one of the  points the PM put forward, to be seen as a plus for his government, was that a Brazilian company was about to invest in Malta.

Since I was present at that debate, I really should have asked the PM to expand on this future investment, but frankly the whole 'debate' was so uninspired that my adrenalin level was beyond any kind of motivation.

The Brazilian company reared its head again, at a televised debate on Friday, when in answer to a jibe, by Muscat that this was yet another unfulfilled government achievement, Gonzi said the company had in fact started operating a while ago and was already employing people.

I did not watch this debate so am unaware if the presenter of the programme delved deeper on this point. For example, when exactly was a "while ago" and what the name of company was? However, it does not seem likely since the Malta Sunday Timeshas been asking the questions and reported today that the Office of the Prime Minister was being economical with details about the company.

“The company is a Brazilian international company. In the wake of Libya’s unrest, the company decided to relocate its offices to Malta. The company co-ordinates major construction projects in North Africa,” an OPM spokesperson told the paper.

It also reported that it was informed (one can speculate on whether this information came from the Opposition, from rebel MP's who have left or been ousted by the PN, or from within the PN itself)  that the PM failed to answer two parliamentary questions made months ago by Labour MPs Gino Cauchi and Carmelo Abela on the same subject.

So why the secrecy? I am beginning to think that there might be a John Dalli connection.

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PM Gonzi's Office failed to name Brazilian company he mentioned as one of his Government’s many achievements during a TV debate .

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