Ian’s slip of the tongue and a culture of double standards

Ian Borg’s slip of the tongue may not have constituted a breach of ethics, according to Standards Czar George Hyzler but, according to us, the incident served to highlight the ongoing culture of double standards in this country.

We say this because, once again, the strong seem to get away with anything, while the weak always end up bearing the short end of the stick.

The Infrastructure Minister became a national meme last week when he tried to justify his blaspheming, which was caught on prime-time television. He had been taking part in a talk show on the Labour Party’s TV station when, during a reference to the Opposition Leader, he unintentionally let out a swear word.

The clip went viral the minute it was posted on social media and the Nationalist Party’s own media made a big fuss out of it.

Surprisingly (or, perhaps, not so much), Borg took to his own Facebook account and tried to explain to us that he wasn’t actually swearing but was rather using a very obscure Maltese phrase that has yet to make its way into Maltese dictionaries.

His ‘ħa qalanqas’ phrase will forever remain etched in our collective memory and will provide banter for many years to come.

Perhaps Borg took us all for idiots and did not foresee that his claim would be swiftly shot down by literary academics. He should have apologised. After all, a slip of the tongue can happen to any of us and the particular phrase he used is so commonly in our mother tongue that many of us often blurt it out mid-sentence without even realising.

It even happens to Members of Parliament sometimes. In fact, Borg’s colleague Glenn Bedingfield had been kicked out of Parliament in 2018 after he was heard swearing during a particularly rowdy debate. Bedingfield had admitted his mistake and apologised.

Ian Borg chose to go the other way and make an even bigger fool out of himself.

But the matter did not stop there. Enter Arnold Cassola, the independent candidate who accounts for practically all of George Hyzler’s caseload, demanding an investigation.

After looking into the matter, the Standards Czar said it was clear the young minister had used profane language. However, ‘’ħa qalanqas” does not exist anywhere in the Maltese language, he continued, and so he found that Borg’s blaspheming was not premeditated and did not merit an investigation. Thus, Ian Borg got away with it with just a slap on the wrist.

And there is nothing wrong with that because, in the grand scheme of things, a slip of the tongue does not even compare with the big corruption that we have seen. Those are the things that we should ‘waste’ our time investigating.

But the issue here goes beyond Ian’s cussing.

Godwin Schembri, the soldier who was kicked out of the army after a video of him making fun of a useless gate went viral, pointed to this country’s double standards.

We are not defending Schembri’s actions, even though his video was never meant to go public. It was a bit of fun between friends, one of whom betrayed his trust and posted it on social media.

But we fail to understand how one person can lose his job for swearing in a Whatsapp video while a minister who swears on television, a Prime Minister who laments a “żobiku” argument in court and the foulmouthed chairman of a national council all get away scot free.

No second chance was given to Schembri. He wasn’t offered the chance to retain his job after an apology.

This is reminiscent of how politicians and big business in Malta often see a blind eye turned to their transgressions, while we common mortals face the full force of the law for similar infractions.

It is reminiscent of how, for example, honest business owners get dragged to court for failing to submit a tax declaration on time, while top politicians who fail to pay their tax are treated with a velvet glove, and how others who consistently fail to explain their lavish lifestyles and suspicious neverchanging bank balances are never asked for an explanation.

It reminds us of how normal people are swiftly prosecuted and jailed while cases against politicians take years and often lead nowhere.

The big fish always get away, it is said, and this saying often proves to be true in tiny Malta.

This is truly a country of double standards.