Wrong medium, wrong message

It is unfortunate that, after not speaking in public for a while, Michelle Muscat chose to make her first public pronouncement in months, in English. The video clip has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, with everyone not talking about what she said (which in itself was debatable) but how she said it. 

Public speaking is always daunting, but when you decide to do it without notes in a language which does not come naturally to you, then you are setting yourself up for a fall. Inevitably, people are mocking her accent, the halting phrases and the mangled sentence structure as she braved her way through what appeared to be an off-the-cuff speech without any prepared notes. I cringed as I watched it; wanting to turn it off because it was so painful, but forcing myself to sit through it. 

It is not unusual to have a heavy Maltese accent when speaking in English, because so does most of the population (I similarly cringed when listening to Joseph Calleja narrating the new Air Malta advert; frankly I could not make out half of what he was saying).

Part of me feels sorry for her for being ridiculed, but another part of me says that she should have known better (or else have been better advised). The medium is the message, so if you are going to decide to speak in English you had better ensure that you are comfortable with the language and you can express yourself naturally. I think as the Prime Minister’s wife, she has not yet really understood that everything she does is going to be heavily scrutinized and, yes, torn apart, by political adversaries. It does not help when she herself hands them such loaded ammunition on a plate.

If Mrs Muscat’s decision to speak in English was due to the fact that there were non-Maltese speakers in the audience, such as the American ambassador, then she should have written her speech, practiced it like crazy and even recorded herself doing so until she had it down pat. Get in a vocal coach if necessary to iron out those troublesome vowels and to practice relaxation (it was very clear that she was extremely tense and nervous). Even after all that, she should still have had the written speech in front of her so that she could read from it if her nerves failed her.  Only a very polished, experienced public speaker can face an audience without writing it all down first.

There are those who might say all this does not matter because after all she is ‘just’ the PM’s wife and not a politician herself. But these kind of public gaffes do matter because of the message they transmit and this where I have to mention the elephant in the room: social class.

It is not unusual to have a heavy Maltese accent when speaking in English, because so does most of the population (I similarly cringed when listening to Joseph Calleja narrating the new Air Malta advert; frankly I could not make out half of what he was saying).  But whether we like it or not, accents in Malta and one’s fluency or lack of in English are social indicators of where one went to school, and where one comes from. For those who care about this kind of thing, it helps to neatly pigeonhole everyone in their own safe, neat little labelled cubicle.

So what I think irks some people the most about Michelle is that she refuses to be boxed in. She comes across as being a social climber who wants to ‘fit in’ with the English-speaking crowd. Those who do speak English as a first language (even if they do mangle it themselves in their own way), turn their noses up at her and call her a ‘wannabe’, sneering at her for even daring to try to ‘be like them’. I have lost count of the times I read the ultimate, scathing put-down, ‘just who does she think she is?’   

It is a fact that Michelle Muscat, ever since she was thrust into the limelight, has been criticized perhaps more than any other politician’s wife I can remember; Kate Gonzi was and still is untouchable and so, to a certain extent, was Mary Fenech Adami. I don’t think I ever remember them being mocked or ridiculed in any way, perhaps because they were lucky enough to be in the public eye before the social media gave a voice to everyone with a keyboard.

In contrast, every time Michelle says or does something, or even when she makes a fashion choice, she is up against a swathe of the population which is ready to swoop down on her, sometimes justifiably and sometimes due to prejudice and narrow-mindedness. It is for this very reason that she really needs to be at the top of her game with every public appearance, and to be more in tune with her own limitations to avoid similar faux pas.

Josanne Cassar blogs on www.josannecassar.com