Bring on the referendum

Having paid close attention to the local hunting situation for the past 30 years – literally, I might add: in around 1984 I was a committee member of what was then still known as the ‘Malta Ornithological Society Youths’ section (now BirdLife Malta) – I can confirm that the situation on the ground has remained unchanged over three whole decades.

Oh sure, there’s been the occasional minor little ‘improvement’ here and there… on paper. The odd token legislative tinkering to keep Brussels happy, and to pretend we’re actually implementing European directives, and all that.

But everyone and his kelb tal-kacca knows perfectly well that this is just a load of jack-snipe guano. The reality is that we may as well still be in 1984, and we all know it.

A few examples. Back in the mid-1980s, the hunters considered Buskett to be their uncontested domain. This is particularly significant, because it was in 1981 that Buskett (and Ghadira, and a number of other areas) became officially off-limits for hunters.

Before 1981, there was no such thing as a ‘nature reserve’ in Malta; no such thing as ‘closed or open seasons’; no such thing as ‘carnet de chasse’; or anything like that. The only regulations of any relevance to hunting concerned firearm use; and they were intended to protect people, not birds. You couldn’t shoot in built-up areas, near roads, etc.

As a fledgling birdwatcher I was often in Buskett back then. And beyond the occasional (and very half-hearted) raid by the Special Assignment Group, the ‘bird sanctuary’ was always crawling with hunters… and, consequently, a dangerous place to be for everyone else.

On one occasion, hunters fired petards (i.e., BOMBS) in the direction of a large group of very young birdwatchers. I distinctly remember one hitting the ground and bouncing twice, before detonating within a few feet of dozens of little children.

What I remember most clearly, however, was the reaction of the policeman on duty at the Rabat Nigret station.

“Why didn’t you leave, if you saw that there were hunters there?” he demanded to know. And that pretty much sums up Malta’s entire attitude towards wildlife protection. Hunters illegally occupy a nature reserve, and what happens? Birdwatchers get blamed for ‘provoking’ an assault, by being present in the same bird sanctuary.

That was 30 years ago. A decade later, when there were plans to tighten hunting legislation in line with EU legislation, unidentified vandals ran amok and spray-painted pro-hunting, anti-MOS slogans onto the temples of Mnajdra, Borg in-Nadur, and Hagar Qim. Remember? ‘Namur jew intajru’ – i.e., give us what we want, or we will blow this place up.

You will surely recognise in the above behaviour all the hallmarks of classic terrorism. On a much smaller scale than the sort of thing normally described by that word, true… but terrorism all the same. The idea behind all those acts of violence was to induce fear: not just among the population at large, but more specifically among the political parties which ultimately pass legislation through parliament.

The message was painstakingly clear: touch our delizzju in any way, and we will unleash hell upon this country. And they have consistently kept their word, too. Whenever MOS organised protests in the 1980s, they were violently attacked by hunters and forced to disperse. When the government closed the spring season on orders by the European Commission in 2007, hunters descended en masse upon Valletta and pelted the police with bottles.

I was among a number of journalists who had to take cover behind a police van on that occasion. Not everyone escaped unhurt; Times photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi was assaulted and injured in the same protest, and his camera broken.

Last Sunday, we all saw the exact same pattern unfold yet again. Hunters responded to attempts at law enforcement with acts of violence aimed at very specific targets: journalists, political party clubs, birdwatchers, etc. Yet again a journalist was assaulted and hurt. Yet again, hunters ‘reclaimed’ Buskett as their own uncontested territory, and attacked birdwatchers who had a legitimate right to be there. Underpinning all this thuggery was the classic ‘No Kacca, No Vote’ approach, that has always stood them in such stead.

Aye, for therein lies the rub. Until last Sunday, this same strategy had always (but ALWAYS) worked like a charm for the hunters. Since hunting first became an electoral issue in the 1990s, both Nationalist and Labour Parties have engaged in a never-ending arms race: competing with ever-more generous concessions, in order to placate a lobby group which has always held them at gunpoint.

For the record, it was Labour under Alfred Sant that started it: specifically in 1996, when George Vella signed a shabby, shameful pre-electoral contract with the hunters. But in the best of schoolyard traditions, ‘what Labour started’ was promptly carried on to spectacular effect by the PN.

Part of the reason I irretrievably lost respect for the Nationalist Party was precisely this: for all its lofty claims of ‘vision’ and ‘values’, it has always capitulated to the hunters’ demands. Every single bloody time. At one point, even the original pre-1981 restrictions were rolled back… hunters were suddenly allowed to shoot next to secondary roads, oblivious to the manifest dangers this posed. Eddie Fenech Adami himself even went on record stating (before the 1998 election) that “any changes to the hunting regulations would be to the advantage of the hunters”. 

What is this, if not a classic case of giving in to blackmail? Where is the backbone, where is the vision… dare I say it, where are the PRINCIPLES in this sort of behaviour? Nowhere that I can see. Like Labour before it, the PN simply degenerated into an unprincipled, spineless bunch of snivelling weaklings, when threatened with the loss of a handful of votes.

And because what we are ultimately dealing with is an irascible, irrational lobby group, none of this was sufficient. The hunters wanted nothing less than the total abolition of all hunting regulations. Their entire bargaining position has always been to insist on EVERYTHING going their way… or else they would break Malta into little pieces, exactly like a little toddler breaks his toys when his parents don’t immediately give in to tantrums.

Fast-forward to 2013, and oh look: yet again, the hunters get exactly what they want. This time it was modern, forward-looking and progressive Joseph Muscat who just crumpled like a paper bag when bullied. So yet another Maltese government proves spineless when faced with threats, and simply capitulates to the hoodlums’ every demand: which this time also includes the reintroduction of trapping… in other words, turning back the clock and undoing the few tangible benefits of EU accession.

So coming back to last Sunday’s fracas: well, can anyone be surprised? If you make a little lobby group of armed and dangerous criminals feel as if it owns the bloody country – with government, opposition, the police, etc. all eating out their hands like frightened little sparrows… how on earth can anyone expect anything but more violence, more threats, more blackmail and more delinquency?

As things stand, I noticed only one significant difference between today’s scenario and that of the 1980s. The violent element within the hunting community is getting younger. I half expected the same thugs who threw bombs at us 30 years ago to have aged 30 years in the meantime. But no. Look at the photos, watch the videos, and you will see that the thugs threatening to smash up Malta today are still in their early 20s.

This also implies that, far from improving the situation in the last three decades, we have succeeded in making it worse. We have failed in the single most important objective of any country, anywhere: to educate and elevate the most primitive sectors of society, in order to evolve beyond the thuggery that pervaded the 1980s. And this cannot possibly surprise us, either: it is in fact the only inevitable outcome, when a county is condemned to be ruled forever by power-hungry cowards with no observable principles of any kind.

Meanwhile it is only now – and only to avoid the international embarrassment of Malta’s shocking environmental record dominating Karmenu Vella’s European Parliamentary hearing next Monday – that a Maltese government finally finds the courage to say ‘no’ to the hunters… and a Maltese opposition finally agrees.

But let’s just see how long it lasts this time. My guess is that both the Labour and Nationalist parties will be back to their usual vote-grabbing antics within seconds of Karmenu Vella’s approval next Monday. Clearly, these two parties cannot be trusted to bring about any lasting change to this intolerable situation… and nor can the European Union.

No indeed: if we are going to evolve beyond this primitive thuggery at all, we will have to do it on our own steam.

Bring on the referendum.