Breaking with traditions

It is undoubtedly the most traditional week of the Maltese year, but it has also become the time when traditions are ignored.

Up to a few years ago, the organization Puttinu did not exist except as a small NGO trying to help children (at first) and their families who were sent to London hospitals to receive treatment for cancer.

Then Puttinu grew and grew, always as a private NGO. The amount of residences it has in London for the families of people undergoing treatment has now increased substantially.

In the past years, this private NGO was helped by a more unofficial group which came into being and organized a march on every Maundy Thursday– Good Friday night from Mellieha to Senglea. It created a tradition and destroyed one at the same time; it created an event with humanitarian intentions and gave people not overly inclined to the traditional devotional processions on Good Friday a welcome alternative.

It was never accepted by traditional devotees and up to this year, futile efforts were made to have Puttinu hold the march on some other day or night. The Senglea parish has protested in vain about the rubbish that the thousands of marchers left behind on the church’s parvis.

Now Puttinu itself, the breaker of traditions, has been hit by an event that may well break its tradition, although, being a private enterprise, it is difficult to see how this can affect it.

Every year for the past years, Xarabank, the most viewed of Maltese television programmes, has devoted its Good Friday programme to Puttinu, with a massive fund-raising event. This raised some important questions. When it was still small and new, it was looked upon as a small voluntary event by a few people. Now it has grown and grown but still, until Friday, it was widely accepted and respected. Even PN MPs and candidates were appealing to people to donate money to the cause.

The issue, in this and similar cases is why should people be asked to donate money when it should be the government to fund the health sector in all its needs. There are other fundraising NGOs and the issue is relevant to all of them. It is also relevant to the President’s Community Chest Fund for which the l-Istrina fund-raiser is held, and its many (and increasing) fund-raising ventures throughout the year.

But this year, Prime Minister Muscat, calling from Australia, pledged €5 million from the IIP fund to Puttinu … and all hell broke loose.

Now IIP has always been a controversial initiative of the Muscat administration because it is based on the sale of Maltese citizenship to those who pay for it. The fund, into which most of the proceeds are funnelled, has become rather a loose cannon in the Maltese landscape. Previously to Friday, it contributed funds to the ALS NGO. It is also in the process of buying an almost majority shareholding in Lombard Bank to relieve it of a failed Greek bank shareholding. Earlier claims this is some sort of nationalization by the back door have been denied.

In short, the IIP fund is a pot of gold waiting to be used. Now five million of it (or the sale of six passports) will be used by Puttinu. It is a rather roundabout process – the government-owned fund is being used to fund what may be termed a government shortcoming.

The announcement also brought with it political dynamite on that most holy day, Good Friday, and to a cause that till then had attracted support from all over the country. It is also an example how this fund has become an electioneering and a partisan tool in the hands of a shrewd prime minister always seeking ways to promote himself and his party. It is a blatant use of public money as part of the political process.

There are, of course, many who see nothing wrong in this and who think that any help to victims of cancer and their families is welcome. The Xarabank programme itself and all the clips preceding it showed many people who have been helped by Puttinu and who urged people to contribute. Maybe with the IIP fund putting in so many Euros, people will be less inclined to contribute in the future. That would be another dying tradition

Talking of traditions being broken, the very traditional archbishop of Malta saw fit on these holiest of days to retweet a claim that could be understood as saying that Malta is a Mafia country. Maybe a private person can reach this conclusion but it does sound strange and uncalled for when made by the head of the Catholic Church in Malta. Perhaps being the main celebrant in the various Paschal Week celebrations dulled his sensitivity to what the people attending the celebrations feel and believe.