To hell with marriage?

When did the lion-hearted generation that defied mortal sin and excommunication suddenly turn into an army of strawmen and women?

Carmen Sammut 22 May 2011, 12:00am

3 min read

Both sides of the Divorce Referendum campaign needed to magnify worse-case scenarios to support their arguments on marriage. In the process, the two poles seem oblivious of the one clear warning they are sending to segments of society: ‘If you are single, stay so’.

The prospects are so damn dire that would-be brides and grooms may be tempted to reconsider their choices. The wedding industry should be on high alert. Turn wedding halls into apartment blocks, plant surplus carnations in roundabouts, change your white limos into hearses; substitute wedding bells with death knells; keep your frilly virgin gowns and go to hell!

I do not blame young couples’ new anxieties. Images of battered black-eyed women and helpless desperate housewives abound. We hear about miserable, inconsolable and psychologically-marred children born to featherbrained parents who leave relationships without batting an eyelid. There is ample reference to deceitful men, whose pockets are strained by the weight of multiple alimonies and hefty utility bills. Isn’t this enough to frighten the most resolute of star-crossed lovers? And we have not even added the gargantuan stress that comes from buying a house; paying mortgages; choosing furniture; paying school fees and making ends meet in the age of plenty. Who wants a second chance in this dismal scenario? Isn’t it wiser to avoid taking the first step in the first place?

Here, I am obviously being as hyperbolic to stress that we all need to get real.
Some of the NO campaigners are divorced from a reality that has long dawned on the Maltese islands. We are constituents of the so called ‘risk society’ in which we cannot take our future fore-granted, not even the stability of our most intimate relationships. This reality will not go away, whether we like it or not; whether the state approves a divorce bill or not.

As a nation we may seek to find ways to cope in this sea of uncertainty or opt for the ostrich position and bury our heads in the sand... shifting sand. But a state of blissful denial is not viable.
This referendum campaign shows that we are currently experiencing one of the widest generation gaps ever. “Iz-zwieg kaxxa maghluqa” was one of my nanna’s favourite mantras. The thought of divorce never crossed her mind but ironically it was marriage (not divorce) that she deemed to be a leap in the dark. But if nanna is turning in her grave, it is not because of the NO campaign’s billboard of darkness. She would have been seriously scandalized by those of us who decide to leap out of the box and spread their wings.

The wide generational divide was elegantly described by my colleague Dr Charles Dalli as a gap between the “generazzjoni tal-interdett” and the “generazzjoni tal-internet”. Polls point towards a historical paradox; the divorce bill is more likely to be blocked by the “generazzjoni tal-interdett”. When did the lion-hearted generation that defied mortal sin and excommunication suddenly turn into an army of strawmen and women? Is it because they are being persuaded they may all go to hell if they support a Parliamentary Bill that regulates marriage?

The “generazzjoni tal-internet” will surely pass a Divorce Bill in the near future. Even some of the strongest ‘No’ supporters acknowledge this. But still, some key figures within political parties, the State, the Church and civil society resorted to the tactics employed by the “interdett” generation. In the process, they revealed how detached they are from the tectonic shifts that are reshaping the current social landscape. Moreover, they are showing insensitivity towards the role played by modern-day individuals.

The people who form the internet generation will surely not be silenced. Dinosaurs from the past will need to evolve if they wish to survive into the future.

More from Carmen Sammut

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Fehmawvuci You are completely wrong on the economic management. I am not going to defend the national debt or whether it is justified or not. Malta is not going bankrupt in 2013. I agree that certain assets should never have been sold such as the Airport and the ports. Those should never be in private hands for strategic reasons rather than eceonomic reasons. Europe is far from the doom and gloom that you are imagining. Certain Euro countries have a debt problem granted but so does the UK and it was created by a left wing government. Left or right wing is no longer distinguished by the economic model of free trade and commerce. Your love of high tariffs and are impossible to implement. True China controls the value of its currency but it is still based on private enterprise. The problem with the Euro is only temporary. The Euro is a good idea but implemented badly when they let in countries which were not ready for it such as Greece. seems that you are still nostalgic for the command economies of the past. I am not.

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The list of people trying to tell us what the yes and no campaign the wrong has become a long one...if one were to take their points of view one would end up with a hotch potch of a campaign on either side. Beyond rhetoric and scaremongering, both campaigns managed to bring to the fore their arguments. The no campaign had a tall order and did slightly better than i thought they could even if with an unhealth dose of emotion that blurred thought. The yes campaign did not have the resources on the ground of the no campaign but still managed to stabilise their campaign after a shacky start. The arguments are obviously all going for the yes campaign and that is to me pretty obvious. The contest now is the arguments of the yes vs the militancy underpinned by the catholic organisation of the 'no'. The greatest benefit from all this is not that paves the way to a healthy divorce legislation but that it will hopefully lead to crucial reforms within the catholic church that will not only serve the church but also the political class and finally our nation.

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Kelinu, you are mixing apples with oranges. Left wing politics and socialism was the norm in the 1970's & part of the 1980's because workers were abused by the right wing political system. You must remember Mintoff started with Zero assets and an empty coffer, so he was right to put high tariffs and controls on foreign exchange, so he could built the Maltese economy and he did through Air Malta, Enemalta, Sea Malta, the banks and other entities. But when the PN got elected they controlled the media and brainwashed the people into believing that free trade and globalisation is the new economy. They destroyed the economic system of Malta by selling off all the state assets and in order to become a member in the EU, Malta went in a frenzy with high deficits and uncontrollable national debt. So today you have an administration that has sucked the life out of its citizens, burdened the island with debts that are out of control and the only thing that matters is how much more money these politicians can squeeze out of the population. Most countries that elected to choose globalisation, free trade and the sell off of national entities has witnessed that the assets were stolen by oligarchs and inner circle friends and families and Malta is not exception. With about 140,000 working stiffs on this island, who can justify the 6 billion euros debt that the govt and its remaining entities owe un junk bonds. The EU is in disarray because most of the members in the eurozone are bankrupt and cannot service their debts. If the MLP has the foresight to find and elect as capable a leader as Mintoff during these 25 years the economy would not have grown to the detriment of all this unservicable debts. By 2013 Malta will be in the same position that Greece Portugal Spain and the rest of the eurozone and that is only if most of these countries do not choose to opt out of the single currency. You talk about China as if they have endorsed free tradem when the opposite has happened and that's why theor economy keeps growing. Their rembimbi is under state control and imports are also under goverment survelliance. If right wing politics is the right way to build your economy why are most nations of the western world on the edge of bankruptcy? Unfortunately the PL as it stands has one mission and that is to promise all things to all people in order to try and get elected with a mentality that is more concerned of what is in it for me.

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Fehmawvuc Further to what i just wrote I don;t see how you differ from my opinion of the MLP when you yourself say that the palace at Mile End is run by gummy bears!! Seems that after all you agree with me that the MLP/PL has still not found its wayi Mintoff and KMB's senseless battles of the late 70's and 80's lost the MLP a whole generation of the upwardly mobile middle classes which it could ill afford to lose. Because of those mistakes, the loss of that generation and the lack of good leaders, the MLP has remained in the wilderness ever since.

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fehmawvuci my friend. The MLP had one object in mind which was the creation of a welfare state. In that it was successful to a large extent although Mintoff made a cardinal mistake with pensions in 1979. That model still forms the basis of the welfare system in Malta. Beyond that he MLP had little or no vision at all. Its economic management was ridiculous and to say that we should have retained the 1970 and 1980 economic model shows that you fail to understand that the world moved on. In any case that economic model with nationalised industries and central planning failed a long time ago all over the world. Even communist China abandoned it. Cuba retained it but is now ever so slowly dismantling its system. I agree that Mintoff was, metaphorically, a giant compared to today's pygmies but his mistakes were likewise gigantic. This does not diminish the value of what he got right.

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Kelinu my friend, I beg to differ from your assessment of the MLP. Had Malta remained with the same economic agenda as the 1970's & 1980's under the MLP, this little island would not be burdened with unattainable debts and it's national entities would still be there and contributing for the good of the country and it's citizens. You claim that the MLP lost it's way, but in truth the only thing it lost iat that time was a fearless leader. Sure there was collusion & corruption but then again what do we have now in Malta? This island is in trouble because the opposition has never had enough vision and foresight to elect a leader on par with Dominic Mintoff who practised what he preached, Malta is first & foremost. Look at the situation today at Mile End. The place is being run by a bunch of gummy bears.

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Spot on!

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Giordano Bruno is right. It is the PL and elements of it that are feckless. The old MLP did much to modernise Malta up till the mid-70's but then lost its way. It has not found it yet.

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I think your statement of the generation of the interdet is quite gratuitous. Do you have any data to back it up? And yes I take umbrage in being called a strawmen. I am sorry but what right have you got to call us 'Suldati ta' l-azzar' strawmen? How can steel turn to straw? I grew up in that era today and pride myself that my family was interdicted. After all those years I have not lost one iota of the socialist ( I am not scared to say it) principles. I have always been in favour of divorce because my mother though happily married was very sensitive to the plight of women whose marriage fail. Carmen, the interdet generation will vote yes because we challenged hell for our principles and these included civil and social rights. I just wish that the current Labour Party had the passion we had at the time. We are still there to be counted because thanks to Mintoff we still dream the impossible dream. You better worry about the internet generaltion many of which might forget to vote because they are glued to facebook chatting or playing games. You missed the whole point which is, my generation cared, this generation is so pampered and spoilt that that it does not give a rat's ass about divorce or anything else for that matter.

duncan abela •

What has struck me in the whole debate is the docility and submissiveness or perhaps indifference of the whole University student body in this whole divorce debate. Students in any other country would have been up in arms in the forefront of fighting for their liberty and freedoms . Just think of the agitation and activism of the Italian and Spanish students in times of radical change to liberate themselves from the shackles of a conservative Catholic tradition and introduce secular measures. Yet here the divorce event is passing off with hardly a poster let alone a single graffito on the whole of campus. Indeed to a certain extent I feel that many of our young Maltese internet generation has not been imbibed with the spirit of a new dawn of freedom and rational free thinking much much less than it has galvanised societies in the Arab world which are seeking and forging in many cases with their blood new liberal Arab dawn . I am afraid the sickness of our society with perverted egoistic and consumeristic values reign supreme in our student population. We got a foretaste of this lack of principle and idealism when hardly a handful of students stuck their neck out to defend Vella Gera and Camilleri in the scandalous neo-conservative censorship and patronising attitude by our alma mater. Half of of our student body have probably already committed themselves to a partner for life( or so they do dream) and are already sowing the seed of future marital breakdown in financially committing themselves to a glamorous wedding, fully equipped house and having to juggle between them four jobs plus children. Another part of our students has perhaps already leapfrogged and consider "passe" the very concept of marriage and have started on their journey of a series of hedonistic relations where marriage is being replaced by temporarily shacking up with their latest flame. Unfortunately these are the paths and blind alleys we are leading ourselves into whilst in denial we refuse accepted palliative divorce measures and still imagine marriage values and norms dead so long ago.