Books and blogs aren’t a game, Mr Prime Minister

In an attempt to sound in control, Prime Minister Robert Abela managed to offend an entire industry this week, belittling the hard work of scores of people, even betraying a sense of ineptitude on his part.

Iam obviously referring to the Prime Minister’s remark about books and blogs, which he referred to in the most derogatory of manners. I wish to give the benefit of the doubt to Dr Abela and put it down to him having to react to the publication of Dr

Robert Aquilina’s publication about the bonanza of illegalities that was the infamous Pilatus Bank.

I wish to think that the Prime Minister was pressured to at least make a reference to it in his weekly Sunday sermon and play cavalier about the whole thing. His invitation to his critics to continue playing with books and blogs, depicts a very sad state of affairs.

I will not go into the merit of whether the Prime Minister should have reacted to the actual content of the book per se. The book is quite the brick of information, and I don’t expect Dr Abela or any of his aids to have read it in time for Sunday morning to provide any reasonably useful insights into it.

What irks me most is this Government’s attitude towards its critics, which admittedly it borrowed so successfully from its immediate predecessor, and the sheer arrogance of it all.

Sadly, the media is the final bastion of defence against a series of Governments that have decided to ride roughshod over anyone and anything. Some sections of the press, as well as a handful of independent writers are the only way we have to know what is really going on behind our backs. How our politicians are letting us down. How everyone is making a pigs-meal (not my choice of words) out of everything.

And yet, even though time and time again we have seen how top officials of the Labour Party in Government were only interested in getting rich quick at the expense of the hardworking tax payer, the Prime Minister still sees fit to dismiss any criticism wholesale.

I have argued before how Robert Abela can actually turn this into a massive opportunity for him. He can start afresh, and genuinely cut all ties from the poisonous past of ‘taghna lkoll’. If he is genuine about it, he would go down in history as a saviour, however he just does not. He prefers to tip toe around, seemingly protecting certain individuals – also leaving a highly dubious Police Commissioner who appears to be incapable of making any significant headway, in office.

A few last words about reading and the publishing industry. Malta consistently ranks in the last few places in the European Union when it comes to its citizens’ interest in reading. In fact an alarming number of Maltese people have not picked up a book past their obligatory education days. Our bookshops are vanishing and while ironically more books in Maltese are published each year, no one really knows who is reading them.

Reading is a corner stone to a life worth living. It is a gateway into the wonders of the world, but more significantly the wonders of self! It is through reading that we develop our strong characters, our belief systems and our value structures. Consuming information off the internet, as useful and convenient as maybe, is not a replacement. Reading real books, the classics, the contemporaries and anything in between is the true gymnasium of the mind… and even the soul.

Once again, I wish to think that the Prime Minister didn’t mean to denigrate the work of hundreds of people, but sending us to play with books and blogs, delivered precisely that message.

“I have argued before how Robert Abela can actually turn this into a massive opportunity for him. He can start afresh, and genuinely cut all ties from the poisonous past of ‘taghna lkoll’.”