Surreal syndrome

There is something strange happening, almost weird, when politics turn to surrealism by way of scoring points.

Political discourse is an art, a way of convincing people, but when it leads to a resort to a permanent state of denial of proven facts, then it becomes a farce, the kind of which leaves the audience wanting to laugh but ends up whimpering instead. With incredulity.

This kind of pathetic spectacle is occurring in the United States where we have witnessed the media being bluntly overwhelmed by political interests and rendering the whole presidential election bizarre. Most people can’t wait for the result of next Tuesday’s ballot vote in the hope that things would start going back to normal, if normality can be achieved during a nightmarish pandemic that has cost thousands upon thousands of American lives. But people are also fearing the worst – public turmoil, chaos and even anarchy – the obvious impact from the surreal politics that have been dished out in the US during the past four years. The easiest thing is to attribute all this fear, angst and apprehension to Donald Trump, the front-of-stage clown in the farce, but it takes two to tango.

Now Google-Earth your curser to the right and find this tiny dot in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Zoom into it and let it grow bigger. Ah, yeah, it feels like home, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not lacking any of this surreal syndrome of politics. How else can one describe the lone anti stand of the new PN Opposition leader with regard to the 2021 Budget? And his conclusion that social partners, for coming out to express their satisfaction with Edward Scicluna’s hugely positive Budget despite the current pandemic blues, were only acting like little children who have been given the toys they so desired?

Many attribute this nonsensical stand to inherent negativity, the resumption of a despondent policy that really should have been promptly ejected in March of 2013. Adrian Delia was not given the breather he needed to do it belatedly after his assumption of the PN leadership in the aftermath of an even worse 2017 election debacle. He tried to play ball with his internal adversaries but lost in the end. Bernard Grech seems more willing to toe the party Establishment line, as his handling of the 2021 Budget amply showed.

The whole surreal business, however, does not stop there. We have seen survivors from the humiliatingly debunked Delia era suddenly switching back to that old tone of negativity as they sought to declare the very opposite of what scientific data, at both national and European level, have been showing in connection with, for example, unemployment and economic growth. Ok, they may not trust the national data gatherers, though they belong to the same institutions that did the same work and used the same systems under previous administrations, but the European reviewers and analysts are wrong too? I am not surprised so many people, like yours truly, have never had the slightest inclination to go into politics and be made to look bonkers.

The same surreal treatment is being given to figures connected with the pandemic, alas, and not just by politicians. When the daily score of COVID-19 infections is low, as we generally saw during the first wave of the pandemic, government or the health authorities were hiding the real figures, but when there are spikes, as we have unfortunately witnessed during the past few weeks, then the statistics are correct and the situation is “alarming”!

Some more surreal politics? Illegal immigration: this over-populated island of just a few square miles, believe it or not, is not full up. Trees: much-needed, long-desired public projects sadly include the loss of some trees, but who cares that each and every lost tree has been replaced by scores of new ones that will grow and flourish in due time? It all seems so logical, but seen from a purely negative perspective, it becomes surreal and, at times, even Trumpian.

The days of sheer realism and true grit in politics – like when Mintoff and Borg Olivier openly took on each other but never lost their mutual admiration – have been replaced by farcical attitudes and warped politicians in perpetual denial. How many elections must a party lose before it realises voters have long perceived the madness of it all? One could note recently this reality has not escaped the English-language news media.

Chocolate realities

How sweet was Antonia Micallef’s feature on TVM news the other day in connection with Hamrun’s annual chocolate festival – sadly this year another victim of the pandemic and the town’s traditional association with the goody extract of cocoa beans. Not only did we meet Tiziano Cassar, a young and successful chocolatier, but we also came to know how even during the time of the Knights, the Hamrun area, known as Tas-Samra, used to house depots for the storage of the precious beans.

There is, alas, a black side to chocolate production. A new study by the University of Chicago recently revealed there is a rise in child labour in global cocoa production despite repeated pledges by international companies to stop using cocoa harvested by children. According to this study, more than two-fifths, or 43% of all children aged between five and 17 in the cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producers, are engaged in hazardous work. There are 1.5 million children working in cocoa production around the world, half of them in these two West African nations.

The report said the hazard work includes the use of sharp tools, nightly work and exposure to agrochemical products “among other harmful activities”.

Think about that the next time you dig your teeth into your favourite choc bar.