What happened on St Valentine’s Day

parents can decide to kill their newborn babies (that is, postbirth killing).

In his book Practical Ethics, Peter Singer argues that: “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons.” But animals are self-aware, and therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee”.

February the 15th

And bang on cue, on February 15th the same MaltaToday publishes an article accompanied by a video-clip of an animal-rights activist who stops a lorry carrying pigs on its way to the slaughterhouse, and, calling the pink animals “My babies!”, appeals to viewers to abstain from eating meat.

The coincidence is too striking not to attract our attention.

This is very clearly a PeterSinger-inspired narrative. The article, called “Animal activists ‘apologise’ to pigs on their way to slaughter at Marsa abattoir”, was about at least one animalrights activist from a group called Animal Liberation Malta.

Now, guess what one of Peter Singer’s books is called?

Yes, you guessed right: Animal Liberation!

The connection could not be clearer.

On February the 14th, we get the abortion services advertorial. On February the 15th, we get the Pigs “My babies!” video-clip and article on the “philosophy” of animal liberation.

Clearly, the MaltaToday editorial line seems to be that pigs have more rights than human babies.

Meat eating

As far as I am concerned, you can eat whatever you like. I subscribe to the most liberal school of thought where food is concerned. At the same time, yes, I do have many moral problems with the industrial process that treats animals as if they were not sentient. Animals feel pain and pleasure, and I have considerable moral qualms about the cruelty inflicted on them, not exactly at the slaughter phase but during their short and miserable lives on industrial farms.

I must admit I have agonised at the supermarket wondering to myself why an animal should be brought into the world to spend a short, miserable life to then end up on my plate. I now buy the free-range product.

That does not mean I will give up eating meat. (Even though I did give up eating beef and did reduce my intake of milk drastically because of the cruelty inflicted on animals in intensive animal farming.) But I am hoping against hope that moderate animal-rights activists will succeed in changing agribusinesses. We need the humane treatment of animals reared for human consumption.

A Footnote: The Green Party

Interestingly, Peter Singer was a Green Party candidate in the 1996 Australian elections. Again, MaltaToday has followed the Peter-Singer-inspired narrative to the hilt. Salvu Balzan attacked anti-abortion former Green Party chairperson Arnold Cassola while breaking a lance in favour of the new Green Party Ewok-look-alike starlet, who coyly wants us to discuss abortion.

This coy wish to have a “mature” debate on a taboo practice is the usual strategy used by those who want to introduce the taboo practice in the country. Let us not be fooled.

(For the benefit of the PCBrigade, when I say Ewok-lookalike I am referring to the hairstyle and spectacles.)

However, the attack on Professor Cassola – who resigned from his own party on the abortion issue – was unwarranted and despicable. No, Salvu Balzan. Professor Cassola is right, and the Ewok-look-alike starlet is wrong.

To understand the Ewok-lookalike starlet’s way of seeing the world, she wants to be called “they”. Yes, you read correctly. She wants to be referred to as they – at least this is what she/they said a couple of years ago during some youth event in Ottawa, Canada.

The dictatorship of the headline

Clearly, MaltaToday thinks that it is fine to play politics while pretending to do journalism. I do not share this view. Journalists should not play politics; they should comment on politics. If a journalist wants to change the laws, he or she should contest the elections and give the people a chance to express an opinion. A journalist who uses the newspaper he or she works for to promote a political agenda, going beyond analysis and commentary, is abusing the democratic system. Because in the democratic system, you give the last word to the people, who are the true sovereign. When a journalist plays the game I am referring to, the journalist bypasses and debases the sovereignty of the people, and imposes his or her own sovereignty on them. It becomes the Dictatorship of the Headline, and replaces democratic debate with propaganda.

The role of Joseph Muscat

It is no secret that MaltaToday is a staunch supporter of Dr Muscat’s government, which is why one feels safe to assume that there is the Prime Minister’s tacit blessing to this entire charade. Indeed, offering abortion services to Maltese citizens when abortion is a crime in Malta, is a direct attack on the sovereignty of the country.

Just like the government sent

My Personal Library (40)

The fiery, unique, kind-hearted, extraordinary Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici, affectionately known as Ġoġò, former Chief Justice, former judge of the Strasbourg Court, a former chess champion, former professor of Philosophy of Law who sealed my views on abortion with a robust lecture way back in 1992, passed away this week. He was 88 years old.

When I met him for the very first time, I was, like almost all the other law students, 18 years old. He immediately struck me, for his vibrant intelligence, acute sense of irony, and idealism. It was his idealism which captured my imagination. I quickly made up my mind that one day I would write a book with him. Sixteen years later, in 2008, I did.

He chose the title, Il-Liġi, il-Morali u r-Raġuni [ Law, Morality and Reason]. Except for one chapter (called Quorum pars minuscola fui, which he had already given me as a text), that book was the fruit of a long series of interviews I recorded with him on a weekly basis. I used to go every Friday afternoon, armed with a little Walkman. He would welcome me, with a huge dose of irony, as the ritardatarju [the latecomer], because of my tardiness. And we would laugh heartily, because his criticism was not mean, and there’s not much I can do about my time management disability.

When the book was published, somebody told me I had been courageous because Professor Mifsud Bonnici was the irascible type. That description was partially true, but during all those hours spent with him I discovered a man who was not only extremely intelligent but also kind-hearted and deeply spiritual.

While transcribing one of the interviews, it dawned on me that he spoke as though he sung. There was an inherent musicality in his way of talking. It wasn’t just the baritone voice, but the delivery. It was musical – and I told him as much. He confided that he had inherited the timbre from an ancestor.

He once showed me his extensive collection of books – it is a bibliophile’s dream come true. He used to read religiously the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, walk on his treadmill, and play chess, every single day. Once I needed to talk to him, and his wife told me he was hearing Mass at the church nearby. I went there and found him in the front row, alternately nodding, and disagreeing with the preacher. He was extraordinary. I simply loved him. During my father’s funeral, he sat by my side. It was a small but most meaningful gesture.

In those interviews we covered all the topics which are now the political earthquake being delivered, with or without an electoral mandate, by Joseph Muscat: abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, divorce... It was a real tour de force by a seasoned thinker.

The parting shot in that little book of ours was a powerful statement by Peter Serracino Inglott. He outlined the great contemporary battle between the ultra- (or neo-)liberals and the traditionalists. We had twice gone to dinner, in Valletta, PSI, GMB and I, before PSI dictated that essay to me in his room in the Dar tal-Kleru. Someday I will write about those two extraordinary conversations between two Catholics: an old-school liberal and a traditionalist conservative.

In that essay, PSI said, “[F]or Professor Mifsud Bonnici, Philosophy of Law is not some abstract subject that can be treated as a mathematical problem severed from life and from his personal existence. No serious person can discuss problems of philosophy of law without feeling personally engaged in what he is arguing. Professor Mifsud Bonnici’s book is a continuous argument against that sort of schizophrenia leading to behaviour which disagrees with one’s beliefs.”

Many people should actually ask themselves whether partisan allegiance and the chimera of personal gain disconnect them from their real values.

My most sincere condolences to his family. He will be sorely missed. The last email from him was on 24th December, in which he extended his wishes for the festive season. His name is now added to the growing list of people I will never be able to talk to again.