How about making today a ‘Day of Silence’ instead?

OK, you all know the score. I’m writing this on the last day before the vote is taken – the so-called ‘Day of Silence and Reflection’ (because we are all supposed to ‘silently reflect’ on just how pointlessly obsolete this law has become, in an age of social media) – and you’re probably reading it on the day immediately afterwards: i.e., when the result is actually announced.

Not, mind you, that it should really make much of a difference, this time round (let’s face it: it’s not as though we’re all biting our nails in sheer anticipation of an unforeseeable outcome, are we?)… but still. The situation is awkward, for at least two reasons I can think of off-hand.

One, because – and this happens every five years, by the way: and I still can’t ever get my head around it – believe it or not, what I wrote above actually translates into:

“I am writing this TODAY (Friday), about an election that happened YESTERDAY (Saturday), which you are reading… erm… TODAY (Sunday)… which just also happens to be… THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (Saturday)…’

No, hang on, wait… see what I mean? The ‘day after tomorrow’ is actually SUNDAY; it’s ‘tomorrow’ that’s ‘SATURDAY’… which of course means that ‘TODAY’ must actually be… um… the ‘day before yesterday’? The ‘middle of next week’?

Oh, never mind. I give up (like I always do every five years, anyway). So let’s just skip directly to problem number two.

It’s a little like that ‘Day of Silence and Reflection’, I suppose: ‘pointless, and obsolete’. The election hasn’t actually happened yet; so there is precious little that can be written about it today (I mean ‘the day before yesterday’, of course; but hey, let’s not start all that over again) that wouldn’t already be ‘obsolete’ by the time you read it on… erm… whenever you end up reading it.

But it’s pointless for another reason, too. Because even if we could still safely find something to discuss, about a final outcome that is about as predictable as… ooh, let’s see now: the ending of the 1997 blockbuster, ‘Titanic’ (SPOILER ALERT! ‘And the band played on…’) it would still be more or less the exact same discussion we’ve all been having these past five weeks anyway. Or the past five years; or even, for that matter, the past five decades.

In fact, for all the difference this election is likely to bring about, in real terms… the stark truth is that it may as well not have taken place at all.

All the same, however: even if the ending does turn out to be slightly unexpected… if the ‘Titanic’ does somehow manage to surprises us all: you know, by skillfully avoiding that iceberg at the last second, and sailing safely into New York harbour on April 17, 1912 (as originally scheduled)…

… it’s still not likely to bring about very real ‘change’, is it? Oh, OK: except maybe that Leonardo di Caprio wouldn’t have frozen to death in the North Atlantic (which he could have easily avoided anyway: there was, let’s face it, shit-loads of room on that raft); and there’d be no point whatsoever in that final scene - where Gloria Stuart drops the ‘Heart of the Ocean’ into the, um, ‘heart of the ocean’ - because….

… well, there wouldn’t have been any blockbuster called ‘Titanic’ in 1997 in the first place, would there? In fact, we probably wouldn’t even know the name of that particular White Star cruise-liner at all…

But closing an eye at even that little detail: it still wouldn’t change all the other flaws and defects of the film itself. The script would still be just as mediocre; the acting would still be just as wooden; and Kate Winslet would still look just like she had a toothache, for the movie’s entire three-and-a-half hour running time…

Well, the same goes for Malta’s entire political situation, too. Whatever the outcome of this election, we would still all wake up on Sunday, and find ourselves living in exactly the same old ‘disaster movie’ as before.

As things stand, then, the only real tangible difference we will all wake up to (and again, it applies regardless of who actually wins) is… NOISE. From a ‘Day of Silence and Reflection’, it will simply become a ‘Day of Mayhem, and Pointless Tooting of Horns’…

… and quite befittingly, too, I might add. For let’s face it: the horn of your car does not exactly ‘change its tone’, depending on whether you’re honking it to celebrate a Nationalist or Labour victory, does it? No indeed: it still remains exactly the same old grating, flat, metallic monotone that we all know (and hate) so much… the same sound that was specifically designed to inflict the maximum annoyance and irritation possible, to everyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot… even when it’s the only one being honked at the time (still less, when there are around 200,000 of the blasted things all honking in unison: from the moment the election result is announced, until… whenever their car batteries go flat…)

And what is that, if not a direct auditory correlative of the entire five weeks of the election campaign itself? Two parties, endlessly honking the same old, utterly indistinguishable klaxon?

But tell you what: instead of sitting back and complaining (silently and reflectively, of course) about the ‘pointlessness’ of an election result that we all know will not bring about one single iota of real change whatsoever…

… let’s at least try and resolve, once and for all, all the equally ‘pointless’ issues that are actually within our grasp to rectify. And as we clearly can’t do anything at all, about a result that is likely to be announced sometime later toda… I mean, whenever… how about we do something about that dratted ‘Day of Silence and Reflection’ instead?

So here’s my plan: seeing as we all already know how utterly futile it is, to impose a ‘Day of Silence’ on pre-election Friday – you know, when there are still quite a few hours to go before the polls actually open… which also means that there’s still plenty of time to carry on with what is, after all, the whole point of any election campaign: you know… bullying, bribing, threatening, cajoling… that sort of thing…

… and by the same token, we all equally know that post-election Sundays are very much the opposite of all that: in the sense that there’s nobody left to actually ‘bribe’, ‘bully’, ‘threaten’ or ‘cajole’ anymore; and – much more to the point - there isn’t even anything to really break our ‘silence’ and/or ‘reflection’ about, anyway (except maybe to discuss which roads to take, in order to avoid getting caught up in all those carcades…)

Well, put that all together, and the solution to this whole ‘Day of Silence’ conundrum becomes rather self-evident, don’t you think? There’s no need to add it to the list of ‘archaic laws’ that Franco Debono was once supposed to weed out of our national legislation… but never did [Note: what ever happened to that idea, by the way? Because I can think of a few other ‘archaic laws’ that need to be scrapped rather more urgently: including at least one that was supposed to be ‘debated’ in this very campaign… but never was. Funny, huh?]

But in any case: it’s not necessary to actually consign the ‘Day of Silence’ to the scrapheap of history, or anything as drastic as that. Nor even, for that matter, to simply update it to the 21st century (which, let’s face it, shouldn’t be that hard. And I could say the same for that other ‘archaic law’, by the way; but let’s not digress...)

No, indeed: it would be far simpler (and much more beneficial, all round) to simply shift it a couple of days later instead. You know: make it ‘post-election Sunday’, instead of ‘pre-election Friday’. And, hey presto! Just like that, a law that was originally conceived in the distant 1920s – an era for which it was well-suited, too: seeing as how there was a 24-hour gap anyway, between the time ‘things happened’; and the time ‘things got reported in the papers’ – becomes every bit as relevant, and useful, as it was originally intended to be.

For let’s face it, folks: when do we need ‘Silence’ (and I would say ‘Reflection’, too) the most? On the day when people are so uncontrollably anxious to speak out about politics – and as LOUDLY as they possibly can, too - that they willingly risk a fine of €1,164.69, no less… with every single Facebook status update they post, over the course of the entire 24-hour cycle?

(Seriously, though: if the police were to ever get round to actually enforcing this ‘archaic law’… not only would they end up having to arrest practically every single Facebook user on the entire island; but there’s one guy on my feed, alone, who would probably end up owing the Electoral Commission over half a million euros …)

Or do we need that ‘silence’ a whole lot more, on a day when… well, you’re probably hearing them all right now, aren’t you? And – just like me – asking yourself whether it really was such a bad idea, after all, to impose a little ‘peace and quiet’ for a change…