Atheism is not news

On Sunday, the Labour Party’s newspaper ran a front-page headline declaring that Lou Bondì is ‘a Nationalist who does not believe in God’.

Well, apart from the obvious, knee-jerk reaction – Bondì IS God, so how can he possibly disbelieve in himself? – my only question is: what drugs is the editor of that newspaper on, exactly?  

Last I looked, there is nothing newsworthy about the religious beliefs (of lack thereof) espoused by any individual in what is supposed to be a free and democratic country. I thought this was common knowledge in this day and age. But just to remind Mr Wenzu Mintoff: Malta is signatory to the European Charter of Human Rights (which is also entrenched in the Constitution) and – shocking as this may be for people who consider atheism to be front-page material) these rights include the freedom to publicly express opinions without fear of reprisal or recrimination.

To the best of my knowledge, the only restrictions concern the proviso (written into the same charter) that none of these rights and freedoms may be used at the expense of the rights and freedoms of others. But apart from that, people are free not to believe in God until the Sacred Cows come home, and the Saints go marching… wherever.

So why the MASSIVE front-page headline, declaring that (shock, horror), Lou Bondì is an atheist? Could it be just to make the point (shock, horror, mark II) that the PN uses ‘double standards’ with Bondì and Alfred Sant – which it undeniably does?

That was the official reason supplied deep, deep within the article itself – almost the very last sentence, in fact. But personally, I think there is much more to it than that.

I think the Labour Party – or parts thereof, at any rate – is so far removed from 21^st century reality that somebody (maybe Wenzu, maybe someone else) sensed an opportunity to score a few cheap political points… without actually thinking through the consequences.

What consequences? Well, I for one cannot understand how I am expected to vote for a party which so nonchalantly exposes to public opprobrium people like… myself. People who happen to share Bondì’s views on at least this one point: i.e., that there most probably is no God, and most certainly there is nothing to even indicate (still less prove) his existence.

To be honest, it is a perfectly natural and normal view shared by millions of perfectly ordinary people around the world. Atheists around the globe are in fact starting to feel more comfortable and less threatened, and are now declaring in ever-growing numbers that which would have been illegal but a few decades ago. It’s but one global phenomenon of many that seems to have altogether passed Maltese politics by. Honestly, you’d to have your head stuck three feet up an ostrich’s backside not to have noticed this yourself.

But it seems Kullhadd didn’t notice it. Not only that, but it seems that there are still people within the Labour Party who view ‘non-conformity with Catholic ideology’ as somehow alien to this country’s ethos and identity… and therefore worth pointing out on the front page.

Strangely for a paper edited by one of the founding members of Alternattiva Demokratika, its approach to this issue was all but identical to that of government MP Edwin Vassallo, who recently wrote an article in PN paper Il-Mument to the effect that people who lose their religion are by definition ‘immoral’.

Clearly, then, both Nationalist and Labour parties still prefer to buy into that canard that Malta is somehow ‘too small’ to accommodate different opinions on the subject of religion. I am reminded of a detail from the diaries of former Governor Charles Bonham Carter, who was confronted in 1930 by Sir Augustus Bartolo (of the Constitutional Party, no less) who objected to a proposed new Constitution on the grounds that it would ‘allow non-Catholics to hold public office’.

Eighty years have since elapsed since then, but the mentality hasn’t changed very noticeably. In 2011, declaring oneself an ‘atheist’ is still evidently ‘shocking’ to some… a view that would not have seemed so entirely out of place, coming from the party that opposed divorce, that sought to realign the Constitution with the Vatican’s pro-life stance, and which still adheres to a motto than places ‘religio’ before ‘patria’.

But coming from the Labour Party? It looks a little like Pope Benedict filling in for Manu Maltese in a gay porn shoot.

More worryingly still, this whole ‘look-at-him-he’s-an atheist’ approach comes just as the country is entering election mode: evidenced by the current jostling for position, as political parties crouch and wait for the starter pistol to go off.

The question almost asks itself. Is this how the campaigns are going to be fought? Are the political media machines going to home in on a new target – the Godless infidels, the people who have turned their back on religion, etc. – and turn the masses against them, just to score a few lousy political points?

There is of course another question, and it is arguably weightier. If political parties use their respective media to target public individuals over their religious opinions (or lack thereof)… how will this affect the future of freedom of expression in Malta? Or to put it another way: if you know you’re going to be pilloried by the press for declaring your godlessness… aren’t you a lot likelier to just shut up?

How sad. So we are encouraging a climate whereby the country is described as ‘Catholic’, not because it really is, but only because non-believers feel bullied and intimidated into lying about their non-belief.

And how unfair, too. People probably have little knowledge or appreciation of just how difficult it can sometimes be to be an atheist to ‘come out’ (as it were), in a country still so thoroughly dominated by religion. I know people who don’t believe in God but are terrified of ever saying so in public. Half the time I think they’re exaggerating – after all, I’ve been what Dave Allen called a ‘practising atheist’ for around 20 years, and have ‘atheist’ down as my religious views on Facebook… and there have been no noticeable repercussions of any kind (at least, not that I’m aware).

But some people fear for their jobs, others the reaction of their family, peer pressure, being described as a ‘kiesah’, etc etc. Bearing this sort of pressure in mind, how responsible is it of the Labour Party to compound these primitive views? And more to the point: how in keeping is this attitude with Joseph Muscat’s claims to have reinvented the PL as a ‘progressive force’?

Personally, I was unaware that the definition of ‘progress’ extended to holding atheists up to public opprobrium, as if we were misfits, aliens or reprobates. But no matter. It seems we are destined to be constantly disillusioned by politics.