EU’s ‘Yer Blues’

On the Beatles’ history-making White Album, a line in the John Lennon song entitled Yer Blues – written, he said, when he was reaching out to God and contemplating suicide – reads: “If I ain’t dead already, girl you know the reason why.” Bluesy poetics, I

Icannot say the EU is reaching out to God, as it has always given me the impression that it seriously believes he actually lives in a white house (white album again!) somewhere in Washington. That it is contemplating suicide there cannot be any doubt, given the events of the past few weeks when union haters came to the fore via the ballot box and mystified union lovers started asking questions to themselves and of themselves about what the future really holds.

There has not been one sane reaction so far. The Brits are divided right down across the navel as to where their loyalties really lie, with the eurosceptics of UKIP bursting strongly into the Brussels scene to lay, with Italy’s Grillini, a five-year inner siege. The French, always the most loyal of European subjects, also chose to give massive doses of oxygen to Madame Le Pen’s right-wing party, clearly intent on putting an end to the so-called European vision.

The Scandinavian elections were a mixture of loyalty and disdain in an air of typical neutrality. The Germans find that suddenly, and certainly not for the first time in the history of the continent, that everybody hates them. The gruesome austerity programme imposed on other smaller, poorer nations is attributed to German economic diktat. Enough Chancellor Merkel effigies have been burnt in places like Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain to satisfy the gargantuan needs of a high-capacity power generator.

The Italians, God bless them, will not stop producing cheese, wine and pasta as they grapple with the stoic reality of a new, albeit unelected, administration being run to the tune of Matteo Renzi’s pragmatic music. As always, the Irish will keep on singing and smiling, laughing at their own Irish jokes. The Slovaks simply preferred to stay home. Other Eastern Europeans don’t seem to know where they really stand – whether it’s on the rim or in the centre of the circus ring.

That leaves us, on the southernmost frontier of Europe. Just as we have painstakingly come to the stage when EU membership is no longer an issue, the EU itself is paradoxically going through an identity crisis. While we have again happily provided the Union with the highest percentage of free voter turnout, it is obvious our six MEPs will always be like a cigarette-packet-sized paper boat on the surface of an ocean, whether the European Parliament is meeting in Brussels or Strasbourg (the French stubbornly refuse to let go this boring and costly dual-meeting-point inconvenience).

It is difficult to predict what this severe bout of ‘yer’ blues will lead to, but no one is expecting a rousing ride to the blaring sound of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. A federal Europe cannot even be imagined as yet, not only because member states are deeply divided on the notion, but also because with an EU fomenting war (and legally or illegally exporting weapons and munitions) in places like Ukraine, Palestine, Syria, Libya, the China-Japan seas, Korea, Africa and South America, there can hardly be any time left for such philosophizing.

Trust us to be so united on something that, at this moment in time, is seemingly disintegrating. Of course, there’s always the divisive issue of hunting.

The hunchback of Notre Dame

For the past few days, I was like the hunchback of Notre Dame snail-walking from room to room and trying to withstand the searing pain of a twisted back muscle. Even writing on my PC has been a painful exercise, but I must say the EU gripes in today’s piece are not a direct result of it at all.

My good doctor prescribed a five-day course of painkillers – produced in EU member state Sweden and sold in EU member state Malta – to complement the massage cream. The packet told me, in English, to read the leaflet inside first. I did try but it was only in one language, presumably Swedish.

As both a consumer and a Maltese citizen of Europe, am I not entitled to get those usage details at least in English or, preferably, in Maltese? Or has the “Maltese is an official language of the EU hooray” edict always been a political charade?

You go to any of the big supermarkets around the island, and you are bound to find products that carry details in languages we cannot understand. I find this both frustrating and insulting. Some products conveniently throw an ‘MT’ but with English or Italian directions, and we are supposed to accept it as having been acknowledged. While English, as an official language, may be of some help to most consumers, Italian is not. Try to install a new TV screen or a new washing-machine using the technical script in Italian… your expletives would be in very meticulous Maltese.

Why has everything to do with the EU got to be a complicated joke?

Timely action

I was thrilled to learn the other day that Transport Malta is embarking on a project that will hopefully put some sense and order into the overgrowing business of billboards. The whole situation has become un- bearable. While I am totally against billboards anywhere, I do accept that rightly placed and properly maintained they can offer another good way of reaching out to the commercial public.

What has happened here is that what can possibly be recognised as a successful venture has been turned into a jungle of billboard messages, some of which leave you speechless with their stupidity and amateurism. Even worse, billboards have sprung up in places where they should not be, spoiling countryside views, distracting drivers and, one in Bormla was put up on a spot where it completely blocks the view of a new monument!

Transport Malta’s timely action will hopefully regulate both the business and the quality of the billboards. It is certainly time to make sure that billboards have a uniform presentation base, doing away with the ugly blue/grey/red/rusted steel and monstrous concrete structures that have turned our roads into a gaudy display of utter cheapness.

If we cannot do without them, we can at least restrict them to the major thoroughfares and other urban spaces that can take them.

Like a breath of fresh air

To believers and non-believers alike, Pope Francis has been like a breath of fresh air. He is bold, he is straightforward, he is ready to listen, he is flesh and blood, he is a child, he is a guru, he is fun, he is brawn and he is brain. He is what previous popes, possibly with the exception of John Paul I who regrettably never got the chance to create his style, were not.

On his way back from the Middle East, Pope Francis likened the sexual abuse of children by priests to a “satanic Mass”, announcing his first meeting with a group of victims at the Vatican. He then typically tackled another problem facing his Church in this day and age – celibacy – and was no less emphatic and down-to-earth.

Speaking to reporters on the plane, he said he was in favour of celibacy for priests but that the “the door is always open” to change. Even more significant, however, was his assertion that “celibacy is not a dogma”.

I think both issues are interconnected. With one historic stroke, the Catholic Church can drastically reduce, if not completely eradicate, the number of child abuse cases within it by doing away with celibacy. There’s no one better than this Pope to see it through.