Classism of 2014

You may have read about Emily Thornberry: a British Labour politician who recently resigned after tweeting a now-infamous photo of a suburban house bedecked with English flags.

Then again, you may not. After all it does not, at a glance, seem terribly relevant to anything that’s going on here at the moment. Nor, for that matter, does a separate (and curiously similar) story about another political resignation across the Atlantic: this time featuring an aide for the Republican Party, who was made to step down after tweeting that the President’s two daughters had embarrassed the nation by wearing what he described as ‘classless’ dress.

Already we can see interesting parallels. Both resignations were indirectly caused by tweets, illustrating the almost pervasive (and invariably toxic) influence of social media on international politics. Another thing they have in common is that both resignations actually took place, even if public opinion was divided (more so in the British case than the American one)… and this can only once again draw attention to the stark cultural deficit that continues to separate Malta from the rest of the developed world in this respect.

In Malta, politicians stolidly refuse to step down even when they are themselves the subject of criminal inquiries into allegations of attempting to cover up a crime. How, then, can they be expected to resign over such relatively harmless cock-ups like an inadvertently offensive Facebook status update?

But the local relevance goes well beyond our home-grown lack of a culture of political accountability. Another, more interesting factor that unites these two stories is that both incidents revolve around the central concept of ‘class’… a concept which changes in both meaning and cultural impact wherever it raises its ugly head.

In fact there is a difference between the two scenarios. In the American case, the word ‘class’ actually featured in the offending tweet. Had it been a Maltese scenario, the local version of the Republican aide – and there is no shortage of these – would have tweeted or blogged that the President’s daughters had dressed like ‘hamalli’. 

By extension, this also means that the target of criticism was not so much the President’s children, who become necessary civilian casualties of political warfare… but the President himself, and all he represents. It is just one other way out of many to subtly underscore the perceived social chasm that still unaccountably divides societies today: an ‘us and them’ mentality that is many centuries past its sell-by date.

Does this ring any bells? It should. It was not that long ago that a very similar point was made locally about the Prime Minister’s twin daughters, who had (if I remember correctly) ‘dishonoured their school uniform’ by actually wearing it. And that is but one of the many public expressions of active distaste for the local phenomenon of ‘hamallagni’: our own, semi-unique brand of ‘classism’, that on closer scrutiny has less to do with actual social differences than with a naked hunger for power.

But more of that in a moment. Onto the British example now… and here, matters are less immediately clear-cut. Emily Thornberry merely tweeted the image without any commentary whatsoever. And on its own, that picture would not seem particularly offensive to anyone with no experience of living in the UK. It is just a very ordinary looking house, with three large flags of St George draped across the façade, complete with (important detail) a white van parked in the driveway.

At a glance, I assumed it had been taken during last summer’s World Cup… in which case it would only be the trees, the red bricks, and perhaps the absence of any Italian flags to distinguish it from a typical Malta street scene. In reality, it was taken during a recent by-election; and this also implied that Thornberry may have been making a political statement.

Following widespread outrage, she first apologised and later stepped down. Voices were heard arguing in her defence; louder voices demanded her removal. But nobody in the UK seemed in any way baffled or mystified by what happened. There may have been disagreement on how the issue was handled… but everyone seemed to tacitly agree that it was, in fact, an issue.

Everyone in the UK, that is. Soon after her resignation, US diplomats were heard confessing that they couldn’t understand the incident themselves, let alone explain it to the folks back home. One of them tweeted the following: “Tried to explain to some Americans why Emily Thornberry’s tweet caused resignation. Lost in translation. Stars & Stripes on many homes…”

Well, that is probably because a simple exchange of flags doesn’t even begin to capture the political and social subtext of that photo. What irked so many people in the UK was not the flags, nor even the colour of the van. It was the mental image both evoke of a type of person… a type of person Thornberry appeared to be holding up to popular ridicule.

A better way to explain it to Americans would be to substitute the image with one depicting a typical family of the kind that is endearingly known as ‘trailer trash’. Even then, I suspect the full implications would still remain unexplained; America just doesn’t have the same class culture that dominates the United Kingdom.

We, on the other hand, do. We got it from the British, remember? So here in Malta, we can perhaps appreciate the subtle political nuance that made an otherwise bland and meaningless little tweet cost the tweeter her political career.

The visual pointers would be slightly different in the local context. Instead of a white van, you might have had a Ford Escort with an “Eat My Dust” sticker on the rear window, and maybe a bright red ‘cornuto’ key-chain hanging from the windshield mirror. National flags are likely to be replaced by ornate stone-wrought fountains adorned by naked nymphets… or a Kristu Redentur niche illuminated by blue neon lights. Those, at any rate, are the visual correlatives that spring to my mind at the moment. No doubt there are many other images that would instantly spell out the word ‘hamallu’ to others. 

And there are other equivalents to the Thornberry tweet, too. It is not just in the UK that people are held up to popular ridicule for the circumstances of their birth or upbringing. It happens here all the time… only in our case, there is never any controversy, still less any outrage or calls for resignation. Incredible as this may sound, it is actually socially acceptable – expected, even – for the Maltese to turn class issues into the legitimate terrain of war.

One recent example of naked classism given widespread credence in the form of countless ‘retweets’ and ‘shares’ was an online attack (you’ll never guess by whom) of a woman whose crime was to sport multiple tattoos, and to come from somewhere in the North of England – oh, and also to be a personal tutor to the Prime Minister’s wife, Michelle Muscat. This makes the woman a ‘chav’, roughly the English equivalent of a ‘hamalla’ (but only roughly: the word has slightly different connotations in the UK)… and therefore, a legitimate political target.

And that is but one small example of the growing manifestation of open class hatred in Malta. There are other, less in-your-face instances: and the latest to reach my ears is by far the most amusing of the lot.

“U m’intix ZIGG parti mill-gvern!”, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat retorted to Opposition leader Simon Busuttil on a television debate last week… and just like the Thornberry tweet, the quote became an instant news item on the social media; and also remains impossible to satisfactorily translate into any language or context. The closest English equivalent I can think of is “Not part of the government, MY ASS!” But I think we can all agree that it just doesn’t do any justice to the exquisite poetry of the original.

‘M’intix zigg’, indeed. Sadly my Photoshopping skills are not up to the task; otherwise I’d have given a famous David Bowie album cover a once-over with Busuttil’s face instead of Bowie’s… under the title: ‘U m’intix Ziggi Stardust, lanqas!’ But after thanking the Prime Minister for reminding me of a priceless slang expression I’d probably not heard since schooldays… the question must be asked. Why, exactly, is this newsworthy? Why was it reported as a mainstream news item on maltarightnow, the online portal of the Nationalist Party?

OK, earlier I said there was a resemblance to the Thornberry tweet. There are differences, too. If this story was widely shared, it was more for its entertainment value than anything else. (I’m still chuckling about it now, to tell you the truth). But comedy apart, what we are also witnessing is also the emergence of a pattern in the way public perceptions are being subtly (and in most cases willingly) moulded into a common theme.

‘Zigg’ may not be particularly offensive, but it remains a euphemism for something more vulgar (and, it must be said, also much more expressive). It is not an expression one generally uses, or is meant to use, in polite circles. In fact, the whole point of the maltarightnow story was to elicit a reaction of prudish ‘shock’ at how low we have fallen, when even our Prime Minister utters words that are however distantly indicative of the male genitalia.

In itself, it may seem harmless enough: but place it in the context of a wider narrative which includes ministerial aides who drive around firing gunshots like it was the Wild West; or tattooed chavs from Northern England who accompany the PM’s wife to red carpet events; or the resounding derision levelled at Maltese Commissioners who sound like Manuel from Fawlty Towers (“I speak the English very good, I learn it from a book!”) when they address the European Parliament… and what emerges is an organised media strategy aimed at constantly reinforcing our age-old national prejudice: that there is an ‘us’ and ‘them’; and that ‘we’ are automatically better than ‘they’ are, because… well, we just ARE… and therefore, ‘we’ deserve to be in a permanent position of authority, while ‘they’ deserve nothing more than to humbly polish our boots on bended knee.

Which brings me to the biggest difference of all between our local class warfare and that currently raging in the UK and elsewhere. In the UK, Thornberry’s far less offensive tweet caused a scandal and a resignation. In Malta, the constant belittling and pooh-poohing of an entire subcategory of the population is greeted only by applause and squeals of gleeful delight.

Which reminds me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask for ages: what century are we in again?

And now, if you don’t mind, a minute’s silence for John Lennon: a chav from Northern England who was shot dead 44 years ago tomorrow…