‘But for her name begins with G…’

It is not often that I have to admit to being flummoxed, but there is something about the recent spate of 'leaked' Sliema local council recordings that I find slightly hard to understand.
Judging by the tones of shock and horror on One News this week, I sort of expected to hear audio evidence of something truly momentous and earth-shattering. Osama Bin Laden rising from the grave, perhaps. Or Edwin Vassallo saying something in Parliament that wasn't an utterly incomprehensible load of gobbledygook. (Yes, yes, I know it's far-fetched, but what can I do? My generation was brought up on Buck Rogers, you know...)
And yet, on closer inspection, it turns out that all the One TV news team had really stumbled upon was audio evidence to suggest that:
a) former Sliema mayor Joanna Gonzi is not exactly over-fond of her Labour colleagues on the same council, and managed to get herself recorded saying so on tape. (Oh yes, and she also seems to have some rather dotty ideas about garbage collection... but then again, who in local government doesn't?);
b) former Sliema councillor Julian Galea - who, at the time of writing, was also a prospective candidate for yesterday's election -professes a dedicated, visceral, undisguised and quasi-pathological hatred for the same Labour colleagues on the council... and also towards Labourites in general (who, last I looked, accounted for roughly half the entire country).
Which brings me to the immensity of my current flummoxation. OK, so Joanna Gonzi doesn't like Labourites. And neither does Galea. Gee, who would have ever guessed? And will any of our lives ever be the same again? Tune in next week, same time, same place, to find out...
And there is more. For while I can more or less see the point in reporting a blatant prejudice exhibited by a candidate in a local council election - that would be Galea by the way - I still haven't worked out what was worth reporting in Joanna Gonzi's rather silly remarks... especially considering that, unlike Galea, she was not even in the running for re-election.
And yet, and yet... the more newsworthy and infinitely more damning of the two recorded conversations was reported once, and almost immediately forgotten afterwards; while Dr Gonzi's remarks have been trumpeted to the four winds (which at the time of writing sound more like 14) for all the world as if they had any form of serious long-term consequence and implications.
Hmm. Perhaps there is something in those comments that I missed. Let's take a closer look, shall we? But first... the usual parental advisory/explicit lyrics warning, which is now mandatory in all op-ed columns as a result of EU Directive 404412-N:
"BE WARNED: The following paragraphs contain what squeamish, prudish and hyper-sensitive little wimps would describe as 'strong language' (as opposed, presumably, to 'puny language')... and as such, readers are cordially advised to take all necessary precautions against symptoms of hypovolemic tension and/or cardiogenic shock. Avoid reading either during or immediately after meals, and above all be sure to wear protective head gear at all times, to avoid injuring oneself while swooning away in untold horror. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!"
OK, back to the comments. Joanna Gonzi's initial outbursts were: "I want them all dead" and "fuck them all". And... ye-e-es, I admit they may come across as slightly untoward, coming as they do from a Sliema mayor (who happens, worse luck, to also share the Prime Minister's surname).
But let's be honest... they are also exactly the sort of thing 99% of any country's population would probably say under similar circumstances - i.e., loss of temper, which was very evident from her tone of voice, etc - and as for the remaining one per cent... well, those are the types wearing the protective head gear outlined above, and (no offence or anything) they hardly count.
Besides: I can't help but note that there is something decidedly arbitrary and rather nonsensical, in the way we choose to literally interpret some phrases but not others.
For instance: in reporting the above 'news', the newscaster made it sound as though Dr Gonzi really did want all of her Labour colleagues dead. In fact, judging only by the tone of the report you'd be forgiven for thinking she intended to murder them all herself, ideally in the most violent way imaginable.
So, using the same yardstick... shouldn't the same newscaster also have interpreted her second comment literally? I.e., that Dr Joanna Gonzi's innermost desire was to... erm... 'fuck them all'?
And if so: isn't that an expression of physical attraction rather than repulsion? Doesn't it imply imparting pleasure more than pain? (Unless, of course, we are dealing with a bonking session of the more sado-masochistic variety, in which case... um... perhaps the less said, the better?)
Right. Yes. What? Oh. Sorry... sort of lost my train of thought there. No idea why, honest.
But back to the matter at hand. Now, had the Sliema mayor ended her spectacularly mindless rant at that precise instant - as the initial news reports suggested she did - there would have been precious little for any serious newsroom to even bother mentioning, still less elevating to main news item. (Unless, of course, 'unbecoming language during one of the less significant larval stages of political development' has evolved into a seriously newsworthy event while I wasn't looking).
Unfortunatetly for Dr Gonzi, it did not stop there. And her second recorded comment - in which she openly fantasised that (Labour councillor) Martin Debono's mother would suffer a heart attack - was admittedly a teenie-weenie bit more on the indefensible side of things.
In fact, sooner than defend that kind of remark, most people would rather crawl under a stone and wait until the second coming of the Great Green Arkleseizure (which is only next December anyway).
BUT... still we are talking about the incoherent (and, it must be said, singularly dim-witted) ramblings of a person who was more or less beside herself with rage at the time: which means that, while plainly indefensible, it does at least remain well within the confines of the comprehensible... if only just.
So much for the Gonzi tapes (I won't even bother with the garbage collection business myself, because.... Honestly, who cares?).
Now compare the above to Julian Galea's comments, which were given considerably less prominence on that news item. The first and most glaring difference is that Galea was very audibly NOT beside himself with rage. In fact, his voice comes across as calm and self-possessed... not only that, but you can't help but come away with the impression that he was openly boasting about his self-avowed 'phobia' of Labourites. Like it was actually something to be proud of, rather than the bizarre and unprompted declaration of ignorance it so plainly was.
And worse - much, much worse - than even the silliest of Joanna Gonzi's idiotic remarks, was Julian Galea's claim that he pays different wages to his employees, depending on whether they are Nationalist or Labour supporters.
That, I fear, is a rather serious matter.
Not only is it hopelessly reprehensible, downright uncivilised and (let's face it) monumentally bigoted to boot... but it is also ILLEGAL.
Or at least, it would be, had the person making that claim been a candidate representing any party other than the PN.
For as far as I was aware, Malta not only has anti-discrimination clauses written firmly into the Industrial Relations Act (among other relevant articles of law); but the concept of 'equal pay for equal work' is also entrenched in the Constitution - Chapter 2. 14, to be precise. And this need hardly surprises anyone, seeing as the same Constitution claims to be based on the principle of work.
And yet, where the police immediately swoop down like carrion birds on AD candidates who fail to submit their VAT returns on time... or arrest people with long-term drug habits, barely a day after their sons publicly defect from PN to PL ... oh look, suddenly the same police are absolutely nowhere to be seen, when a prospective PN councillor is recorded publicly boasting about breaking the law (not to mention the very principle upon which the entire canon of Maltese legislation is built).
Nor is it just the police who seem to have let Galea off remarkably lightly, given the gravity of his indiscretion. Curiously, the newsroom at One TV was equally forgiving; in fact, they were only too quick to apparently forget the entire issue, no sooner did the PN insist on (and obtain) a public apology.
Ah, but Dr Joanna Gonzi, on the other hand... who was not even on the list of candidates, and who to all intents and purposes is no longer even on the political radar... was still high on the Labour Party's agenda until Thursday, the latest allowed by our ridiculously archaic electoral broadcasting laws.
And what, I wonder, could explain this curious anomaly? Other than (not unlike a certain Clarence, from a certain play about a certain twisted political psychopath) 'but for her name begins with 'G'...?