What is AD doing on the pitch?

There is an old saying in football – attributed to player-manager Brian Clough, though this is debatable – that goes something like: “If you’re not interfering with play… what are you doing on the pitch?”

At its simplest level, it is a general comment about one of the more bizarre aspects of that particular game: the offside rule. I won’t go into it in too much detail – otherwise we’ll be here till the next World Cup – but the funny thing about the offside rule in football is that (under certain circumstances) it seems to resemble Schrodinger’s cat: a player can be both ‘onside’ and ‘offside’ at the same time, without anyone seeing this as a contradiction.

The rule itself is proverbially difficult to explain – though, strangely, incredibly easy to understand just by watching a few games. But it works roughly like this: your mere presence in a position in front of the last defender (at the precise instant the ball was passed… and as long as you are past the halfway line) automatically makes you offside. It doesn’t necessarily follow, however, that you will be penalised for it. That decision depends largely on two factors: your actions (or lack thereof); and the referee’s discretion.

If the referee deems that you were not ‘interfering with play’… everything is hunky dory. The game carries on. If, on the other hand, you do anything that might constitute ‘interference’ – e.g. receiving the pass and taking a shot at goal – then the whistle goes, and it’s a free kick for the other team.

Naturally, this brings us right back to the Brian Clough quote. The only position I have ever played on a football pitch is goalkeeper (which, by a curious coincidence, is also the only position in football that cannot, by definition, ever be offside). As a goalkeeper trying to keep your eye on the ball, and also on all attackers advancing towards the penalty area … the mere presence of a player in an offside position automatically ‘interferes with play’. He is another man to cover. Another worry. Another possible pain in the arse.

Whether or not that player does anything to interfere with play is quite immaterial, really. His position will affect your decisions as a goalkeeper… for instance, whether or not to ‘run out’ (as we used to say) to narrow the angle of a possible shot at goal; whether or not to stay on your line; and even then, whether to plant yourself in the middle of the goal area, or to stand closer to one goalpost or the other.

You will probably guess that I wasn’t very good at making any of those decisions myself (though, to give myself some credit, I did occasionally pull an unlikely reflex save out of nowhere). And like most lousy goalkeepers the game has ever seen, I always blamed the offside rule. 

“He was offside, ref!” 

“Yes, but he wasn’t interfering with play.”

Depending on my rejoinder, it was usually either a yellow or a red card after that. But I digress…

The bottom line is that Brian Clough was perfectly right. The offside rule sucks. And it sucks in all other spheres of life, too.

Like politics, for instance. Political parties, too, can find themselves in a position when they are just not ‘interfering with play’. Alternattiva Demokratika is a good example at the moment… though the same could have been said for the PN until just a few years ago.

Let’s take a look at a few recent positions taken up by Malta’s only ‘Green Party’. Its chairman, Prof. Arnold Cassola recently posted a Facebook status update in which he hinted – then later confirmed – that AD was opposed to embryo freezing.

Like other people who have voted AD in all the elections I’ve ever participated in – giving them my Number 2 in all elections until 2004, and Number 1 in both 2008 and 2013 – I was a little puzzled by this. The argument against embryo freezing arises from the view (associated overwhelmingly with conservative, Christian Democrat parties like the PN) that a human ovum automatically becomes a fully-fledged human being, with all corresponding legal rights and privileges, from the precise instance of conception.

I don’t share that opinion myself, but I won’t waste time arguing with it. It’s the sort of world vision I can understand and appreciate, when it comes from people whose opinions are broadly informed by religion. And this is why I find it strange to hear it from a representative of the secular European Green movement: where opinions are most emphatically NOT informed by religion at all. 

Of all Europe’s Green Parties, AD is the only one to oppose abortion under all circumstances. Now, it is arguably the only Green Party in Europe to argue that a newly fertilised human embryo – consisting of a single cell with a nucleus comprising the shuffled DNA of both its parents – should be considered on the same legal level as a child that has been born.

To my mind, that is utterly absurd. And very dangerous, too, as the same argument is also used to uphold a perfectly unreasonable ban on emergency conception in this country (‘this country’, incidentally, being the one with the highest rate in Europe of teenage girls dropping out of school due to pregnancy).

Is AD against the morning after pill, too? For consistency’s sake, it would have to be. But we will probably never know, because any attempt to elicit some kind of explanation from AD’s current leadership will get you nowhere. Prof. Cassola has ignored all messages I sent to him – as a voter who has supported his party for over 20 years, please note – asking for a confirmation of this utterly bizarre state of affairs. 

And he would later ignore requests for an explanation of a second, even more inexplicable AD position. In recent weeks, an ALS sufferer came out with an impassioned plea for the government to introduce legislation governing euthanasia and assisted suicide. 

As we all should know from the recent ‘ice bucket challenge’ – which everyone was only too happy to participate in, without actually taking stock of the implications – ALS is a ghastly neuro-degenerative disease that eventually reduces sufferers to a vegetative state. The sufferer in question is acutely conscious of the fact that he may soon become a burden on others. Yet under Maltese law as it stands today, any doctor who assists him in terminating his own life – which, let us not forget, is his own life, and no one else’s – might face murder charges.

It is an issue that is topical and current all over Europe. Moreover, euthanasia is an issue that any serious political party would be expected to debate and eventually take up a clear position on, either in favour or against. That is after all what political parties actually exist for.

Not in Malta, however. When this newspaper contacted exponents of various political parties to ask about their views… it was as though we were asking about life on Mars. Eutha-what? Why are you bothering us about serious social issues that affect people and families in a huge way? We’re only in this for ourselves, remember?

The most bizarre reply, however, came from Arnold Cassola. I’ll quote the article verbatim, because I still can’t get my head around it: “On his part, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassola cryptically said that while the Green Party has no position on the issue, IT HAS NO INTENTION TO DISCUSS THE MATTER.” (my emphasis)

There is actually nothing ‘cryptic’ about that reply, by the way. AD has no intention of discussing the matter. It’s a pretty straightforward, uncomplicated position… which can only trigger the same old question asked earlier.

If AD has no intention of interfering with the state of political play… then what the bleeding hell is it even doing on the pitch?

As with all other questions Cassola has routinely ignored, it is not rhetorical in nature. As a long-time supporter of that party, I struggle to understand what AD even represents any more. How can the leader of a ‘Green’ party so complacently reject the idea of even discussing a topic… still less one so deeply relevant to the European Green movement?

AD may not have realised this yet, but precious little of its ‘Green’ credentials is still visible from the outside. All European Green parties discuss euthanasia; it would be unthinkable not to. Every single one that I looked at this week has taken a position in favour (within different limits and parameters). Yet here we have a party that calls itself ‘Green’ – and which, bizarrely, purports to promote a ‘socially progressive agenda’ – that somehow views a discussion on euthanasia as a waste of time.

Meanwhile, it also espouses the exact same conservative ideology as the Nationalist Party on other social issues. What is the difference between AD and PN when it comes to their respective positions on embryo freezing, anyway? OK, this is one I can actually answer myself. There is no difference. They are identical.

Makes you wonder why AD would expect anyone to vote for them, really. If I wanted to be represented in parliament by a staunchly conservative party that makes no distinction between a human embryo and a child… I may as well just vote for the PN. If I wanted to be represented by a party that doesn’t give a toss about end-of-life issues – to the extent that it would dismiss an impassioned plea for a discussion on euthanasia by a terminally ill man – once again, there’s always the PN for that.

This brings us to another reason why Brian Clough’s question is intensely relevant to Maltese politics in the 21st century. MaltaToday recently published its latest survey on current electoral trends. As usual, the results were presented to the public only through the prism of how the two major parties were affected (like that’s the only that has ever mattered). As a consequence, the survey’s most astonishing revelation was entirely ignored.

As of February 2016 – i.e., now – AD’s current share of the vote stands at less than 1%. Fewer people would vote for AD if an election were held tomorrow, than voted for them in the first election they ever contested (i.e., in 1992). That’s really saying something, by the way. In 1992, there was the danger of accidentally re-electing Labour when it was still led by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. In 1996, 1998 and 2004 there was the danger (endlessly fanned by the PN) of jeopardising Malta’s EU bid by electing Alfred Sant. 

None of that exists any longer. Voters can freely vote AD, or any other party, without worrying about any of those things. Yet more did so in 1992, than would do today. 

Clearly, something is wrong. And I don’t think we need a PhD in political science to understand exactly what. AD has found itself in an offside position: it is quite content to simply not interfere with play at all; to not even engage with voters; to not even bother discussing issues, still less forming policies... 

So why would liberal voters be expected to engage with AD under these circumstances? And that, of course, is another question for Alternattiva Demokratika to simply ignore.