At the time of writing, almost a quarter of all respondents to an online poll on The Times voted no to the question "Do you feel the time has come for Malta to discuss the introduction of divorce?". Holy beeep! 24.5% don't want it discussed! Makes you wonder whether the question should have been "Do you feel the time has come to start thinking about the concept of entertaining the possibility of eventually starting to consider a discussion about divorce".
Meanwhile, the bishop of Gozo chimed in, adding his view that Christians should not be held back from expressing their views about "a monogamous and indissoluble marriage". Here's a thought Bish, why not find out what those Christians think rather than telling them what to say? Most of us know of a few cases where that indissoluble marriage turned out to be not so indissoluble after all.
Divorce is one of the main issues in which the church keeps repeating its mantras, about how it will undermine society, weaken the family and so on. Of course one has to wonder just how healthy our divorce-free society is. "Oh yeah my mom is married... but not to the man she's with".
Divorce does not break up families, nor does it dissolve marriages. It is the recognition that a marriage has already ceased to exist. It's not happily married couples who get divorced. It's the couple who are already living apart, often with new partners, and whose love for one another has either been quenched, or sometimes turned into bitterness. To call a couple in such a situation "married" is absurd.
In fact it is not divorce that renders marriage meaningless, it is the absence of divorce. It's better, and more meaningful, to accept and admit that a marriage has failed, than either to pretend that it's still valid, or (in the case of annulment) to pretend that it never happened. These anomalies are based on the flawed assumption that marriage is forever. Certainly, couples getting married should - and do - try to make it work forever, but good intentions are not always enough. Sometimes they break apart despite the good intentions on both sides, and sometimes the good intentions become one-sided with time. This is certainly an unfortunate situation, and it's a good thing for society to try to examine the causes and do what it can to prevent couples from getting to this stage. Eventually however, some will still get to a point when there is no way to stay together. When the only thing left of a marriage is a piece of paper in the public registry, it's time to call a spade a spade and accept that the marriage is over.
Divorce needs to be introduced, and care needs to be taken not to repeat the mistakes of other places. Nobody is calling for a Hollywood-style situation where you can get married in the morning and divorced in the afternoon. Neither should we go for the situation in which a divorce requires one of the couple to sue the other for wrongdoing, which inevitably leads all divorces to become bitter legal battles with hatred on both sides. Hence the need for a discussion and a well planned introduction.
Divorce has been available in most countries around the world, and statistics exist to show where the rate is highest. Not surprisingly, the US tops that list. Italy in the meantime remains closer to the bottom - and personally I think that Maltese society and personalities are much closer to Italian than Las Vegas.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Friday, 18 July 2008
Recipe for Success
The announcement by the Ministry responsible for IT that it is actively seeking open-source solutions came as a surprise, albeit a very welcome one. It signals a shift from our government being bound to and dependent almost exclusively on one supplier, to a more open IT scene, and one which is based on some very healthy practices of openness and competition. It's no secret that the Government's policies in IT will propagate across the private sector, as well as MCAST and the University.
Open source products have already been used by the government, both internally by Government IT workers, as well as in projects delivered by third-party suppliers. Unfortunately this was not a policy, but rather something that just happened, and even kept somewhat under wraps. Its use is much more comprehensive – and open – in the private sector.
Open source software has long since shed its initial image of hobbyist products. Now, industry heavyweights like Oracle, IBM and Sun have put their weight behind open source. Even Microsoft, often seen as the arch-enemy of open source, changed tack and has already released a variety of products under an open source license. Open source software is used by banks, hospitals, stock exchanges, military, and is even happily running up in the International Space Station.
A great analogy for software production is cooking. The source code for a software product is its recipe. The product itself is the finished cake. With "normal", closed-source software you get the finished cake. It tastes great, and presumably it's well-made.
Open source delivers each cake together with its recipe and a lifetime supply of all the ingredients and equipment needed to make it yourself. Not only can you have your cake and eat it, but you can alter it too. Maybe you want to make a low-fat version, or with no peanuts. You can. Cuisine would be boring indeed if everyone who had created a recipe could prohibit anyone from creating any variations of it.
This openness delivers a long list of advantages. Cost is one of them. Open source software leaves the user free to negotiate the best terms with a supplier. One can simply download or share that software (legally) without paying a cent – which is a perfectly good option for a tech-savvy kid who prefers to learn by doing. On the other hand a company or government agency will want the peace of mind of having a formal support contract in place. Even here, open source means that the entity in question can choose between different suppliers, negotiating the terms that suit it best. The government could negotiate a lower rate based on the fact that it has its own IT experts in MITTS who can handle most internal support. This kind of negotiation is only possible because the government has more than one supplier to choose from.
In education, open source software is particularly attractive. A training facility can choose the software it wants, and then supply each student with a free, legal copy of all the software being used in the classes. A beginners' course in the use of office software could supply each student with a free copy of OpenOffice.org. If on the other hand they conduct all their training using Microsoft Office, apart from the school's own costs, for a student to buy Microsoft Office (home & student edition) costs close to €100 each, going up to almost €450 for the full edition. The costs for IT students can be much higher, and if the trainee is not a full-time student, academic prices generally do not apply.
Not only can IT students be given a CD containing all the software they will use, they can actually look under the hood of that software, learning from the experience of thousands of highly skilled IT professionals worldwide, looking into real-world projects with teams of anything from a few to hundreds of developers.
One of the serious concerns about Maltese IT courses is that many of them are almost exclusively based on Microsoft technologies. When job offers start coming out of SmartCity, not all of them will be seeking Microsoft skills. Most will want students with diverse skills. The student who has hands-on experience in Linux as well as Windows, mySql as well as SQL Server, PHP and Java as well as .NET will be much better placed than being one of the thousands who all know Windows, SQL Server and .NET, and only those. Open source allows students to gain as much experience and knowledge as their talents allow, rather than being held back by cost.
An extremely important aspect of open source is that it allows that software to be modified legally and without needing anyone's authorisation. While most users will not particularly care about changing the source code themselves, to an entity like the government, that freedom is very important. The government may well be Malta's biggest economic entity, but on a global scale it's a small fish. If the Maltese government's needs run counter to the interests of a major supplier, it's unlikely that the supplier will go against their own interests. With open source, the government retains a level of independence from the supplier. It could continue using a product that the supplier does not consider sufficiently profitable. It can pool its resources with other countries to maintain a product that it needs, or could outsource support for an important product to the private sector.
Open source software frequently coexists quite happily with commercial software, and indeed there are still many areas where the best products available are not the open-source ones. This is why another vital policy for the government is to insist on open standards. These are computer standards that allow different products to exchange data and work together in a heterogeneous environment. The reason you can send email using Thunderbird and receive it in Outlook Express or Google Mail is that there is a set of open standard for emails. Nowadays there is also ODF as a standard for the exchange of word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Web Services allow web applications written on different platforms to be work together and share data easily. The ZIP file has become a ubiquitous standard for exchanging compressed archives. MP3 files allow music to be used on devices as diverse as computers, portable players and car stereos. It is important that the government insists on such open, free standards for the storage, retrieval and exchange of its data.
This new announcement could be the beginning of an important new phase in the Maltese IT scene and augurs well for the future.
Open source products have already been used by the government, both internally by Government IT workers, as well as in projects delivered by third-party suppliers. Unfortunately this was not a policy, but rather something that just happened, and even kept somewhat under wraps. Its use is much more comprehensive – and open – in the private sector.
Open source software has long since shed its initial image of hobbyist products. Now, industry heavyweights like Oracle, IBM and Sun have put their weight behind open source. Even Microsoft, often seen as the arch-enemy of open source, changed tack and has already released a variety of products under an open source license. Open source software is used by banks, hospitals, stock exchanges, military, and is even happily running up in the International Space Station.
A great analogy for software production is cooking. The source code for a software product is its recipe. The product itself is the finished cake. With "normal", closed-source software you get the finished cake. It tastes great, and presumably it's well-made.
Open source delivers each cake together with its recipe and a lifetime supply of all the ingredients and equipment needed to make it yourself. Not only can you have your cake and eat it, but you can alter it too. Maybe you want to make a low-fat version, or with no peanuts. You can. Cuisine would be boring indeed if everyone who had created a recipe could prohibit anyone from creating any variations of it.
This openness delivers a long list of advantages. Cost is one of them. Open source software leaves the user free to negotiate the best terms with a supplier. One can simply download or share that software (legally) without paying a cent – which is a perfectly good option for a tech-savvy kid who prefers to learn by doing. On the other hand a company or government agency will want the peace of mind of having a formal support contract in place. Even here, open source means that the entity in question can choose between different suppliers, negotiating the terms that suit it best. The government could negotiate a lower rate based on the fact that it has its own IT experts in MITTS who can handle most internal support. This kind of negotiation is only possible because the government has more than one supplier to choose from.
In education, open source software is particularly attractive. A training facility can choose the software it wants, and then supply each student with a free, legal copy of all the software being used in the classes. A beginners' course in the use of office software could supply each student with a free copy of OpenOffice.org. If on the other hand they conduct all their training using Microsoft Office, apart from the school's own costs, for a student to buy Microsoft Office (home & student edition) costs close to €100 each, going up to almost €450 for the full edition. The costs for IT students can be much higher, and if the trainee is not a full-time student, academic prices generally do not apply.
Not only can IT students be given a CD containing all the software they will use, they can actually look under the hood of that software, learning from the experience of thousands of highly skilled IT professionals worldwide, looking into real-world projects with teams of anything from a few to hundreds of developers.
One of the serious concerns about Maltese IT courses is that many of them are almost exclusively based on Microsoft technologies. When job offers start coming out of SmartCity, not all of them will be seeking Microsoft skills. Most will want students with diverse skills. The student who has hands-on experience in Linux as well as Windows, mySql as well as SQL Server, PHP and Java as well as .NET will be much better placed than being one of the thousands who all know Windows, SQL Server and .NET, and only those. Open source allows students to gain as much experience and knowledge as their talents allow, rather than being held back by cost.
An extremely important aspect of open source is that it allows that software to be modified legally and without needing anyone's authorisation. While most users will not particularly care about changing the source code themselves, to an entity like the government, that freedom is very important. The government may well be Malta's biggest economic entity, but on a global scale it's a small fish. If the Maltese government's needs run counter to the interests of a major supplier, it's unlikely that the supplier will go against their own interests. With open source, the government retains a level of independence from the supplier. It could continue using a product that the supplier does not consider sufficiently profitable. It can pool its resources with other countries to maintain a product that it needs, or could outsource support for an important product to the private sector.
Open source software frequently coexists quite happily with commercial software, and indeed there are still many areas where the best products available are not the open-source ones. This is why another vital policy for the government is to insist on open standards. These are computer standards that allow different products to exchange data and work together in a heterogeneous environment. The reason you can send email using Thunderbird and receive it in Outlook Express or Google Mail is that there is a set of open standard for emails. Nowadays there is also ODF as a standard for the exchange of word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Web Services allow web applications written on different platforms to be work together and share data easily. The ZIP file has become a ubiquitous standard for exchanging compressed archives. MP3 files allow music to be used on devices as diverse as computers, portable players and car stereos. It is important that the government insists on such open, free standards for the storage, retrieval and exchange of its data.
This new announcement could be the beginning of an important new phase in the Maltese IT scene and augurs well for the future.
Monday, 16 June 2008
Your private life on your ID card
The news that the new ID cards will contain sensitive personal medical information is a very nasty prospect. Why on earth should I have such private and sensitive data on a card that has to be produced in a variety of situations and can easily be lost? Why should the bank have access to my health information? If I go to see an eye doctor, why should he have my banking details?
Keep in mind that every encryption technology has limitations, but these cards will be there for a long time and cannot be replaced overnight. All it takes is for a simple secret code to be leaked or stolen, and all of a sudden your local video rental store can know your bank accounts, your visits to the GP or sexual health clinic, your card transactions and who knows what else. And once the ID cards are used in every general practitioner's clinic, in all hospitals, in all bank branches and so on, it becomes only a matter of time before one of the keys is secretly stolen. You won't know it happened. Your card will be read like it is normally read, but it gives up far more information than you'd be willing to divulge if you knew about it.
I would expect that the powers that be have plans for some good security in place, but in the report I linked there are no mentions of what these might be, or whether people will even have the right to NOT have their medical information on the card. Does this mean, for instance, that our constitutional right to vote will become conditional on having our medical information on the ID card?
The ID card is a document that we are legally obliged to posses. It should therefore have nothing on it beyond the absolute minimum of information required to identify the individual - which is what the ID card is for anyway.
I think it's high time that we started being more aware and concerned about the importance of defending our privacy. In a world where a 500Gb hard disk costs less than €100, you could store all the personal details of every person in Malta for a few cents each. There are companies to whom this would be a useful asset - they might want to market their new herbal remedies to anyone who visited a dermatological clinic in the past year, or invite people with a low bank balance to take out a no-questions-asked loan and mortgage from their online bank. They are ready to pay good money to posses a slice of the private life of everyone in the country. The new ID cards could be exactly what they're looking for.
We need to defend our privacy if we want to remain in control of who to trust with our personal details.
Keep in mind that every encryption technology has limitations, but these cards will be there for a long time and cannot be replaced overnight. All it takes is for a simple secret code to be leaked or stolen, and all of a sudden your local video rental store can know your bank accounts, your visits to the GP or sexual health clinic, your card transactions and who knows what else. And once the ID cards are used in every general practitioner's clinic, in all hospitals, in all bank branches and so on, it becomes only a matter of time before one of the keys is secretly stolen. You won't know it happened. Your card will be read like it is normally read, but it gives up far more information than you'd be willing to divulge if you knew about it.
I would expect that the powers that be have plans for some good security in place, but in the report I linked there are no mentions of what these might be, or whether people will even have the right to NOT have their medical information on the card. Does this mean, for instance, that our constitutional right to vote will become conditional on having our medical information on the ID card?
The ID card is a document that we are legally obliged to posses. It should therefore have nothing on it beyond the absolute minimum of information required to identify the individual - which is what the ID card is for anyway.
I think it's high time that we started being more aware and concerned about the importance of defending our privacy. In a world where a 500Gb hard disk costs less than €100, you could store all the personal details of every person in Malta for a few cents each. There are companies to whom this would be a useful asset - they might want to market their new herbal remedies to anyone who visited a dermatological clinic in the past year, or invite people with a low bank balance to take out a no-questions-asked loan and mortgage from their online bank. They are ready to pay good money to posses a slice of the private life of everyone in the country. The new ID cards could be exactly what they're looking for.
We need to defend our privacy if we want to remain in control of who to trust with our personal details.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
The Cinema Experience
I remember that when I was a young boy, going to the cinema was an exhilarating experience. TV in those days was a black-and-white affair with one Maltese station and a handful of Italian ones. Video recorders had still not made their début. Going to the cinema was a family treat. We could see feature films in full colour and in much better clarity than the grainy TV we had at home.
Fast forward to the present day and the home TV situation has improved dramatically. We've got stereo colour TVs at an entry level, and if you really like your home entertainment you can get flat TVs with crisp pictures, surround sound systems and even home projectors so you can enjoy the images in a large format. DVDs and a large number of video rental stores provide your choice of movie, at a time of your convenience, with all the comforts of your home. Oh, and microwave popcorn of course.
Yet compared to all these impressive changes that have taken place in the home entertainment field, cinemas have barely moved ahead for all these years. Probably the biggest improvements locally have been the cleanliness of the venue and banning smoking indoors. That's all? In over 30 years? Cinema owners as well as the production companies are complaining about the constantly dropping sales from cinemas, blaming it on everything and everyone but themselves. When was the last bit of really impressive innovation taking place in a cinema? Where has the cinema experience gone? Where are the queues of people standing in actual awe of what they are about to experience?
Going to a cinema, especially for a family, is an expensive undertaking. First one has to travel to the cinema and hopefully park somewhere reasonably near to the theatre. Then, apart from the cost of the tickets themselves, one has to buy drinks and snacks from the exorbitantly-priced "bar" - which only sells salty, thirst-provoking snacks or sweets. Once inside, one often has to deal with the rest of the audience, and there are few things as annoying as having someone running a continuous commentary on the film to a companion just behind your right ear. Except perhaps trying to catch the actors' words through the rustling crisp packets, ringing mobile phones, and people getting up to take a leak or coming in after the movie has started. Why would anyone want to pay through the nose for that?
If the cinema is to remain a profitable business, new ways need to be found to once again make the cinema experience something to look forward to. There have been a few attempts to do this, like 3D films, but these tend to be relatively short, documentary-style films. When will we be able to see something like the Lord of the Rings in full 3D with shaking ground, or projections on the front, side and above to fully immerse oneself in the experience? Or maybe some new-fangled environmental cinema where you can actually feel the heat of the desert sun or the cold of the Antarctic tundra. Now that would be something to look forward to. If cinemas do not try to recapture the experience that they lost, they are a dying breed.
Fast forward to the present day and the home TV situation has improved dramatically. We've got stereo colour TVs at an entry level, and if you really like your home entertainment you can get flat TVs with crisp pictures, surround sound systems and even home projectors so you can enjoy the images in a large format. DVDs and a large number of video rental stores provide your choice of movie, at a time of your convenience, with all the comforts of your home. Oh, and microwave popcorn of course.
Yet compared to all these impressive changes that have taken place in the home entertainment field, cinemas have barely moved ahead for all these years. Probably the biggest improvements locally have been the cleanliness of the venue and banning smoking indoors. That's all? In over 30 years? Cinema owners as well as the production companies are complaining about the constantly dropping sales from cinemas, blaming it on everything and everyone but themselves. When was the last bit of really impressive innovation taking place in a cinema? Where has the cinema experience gone? Where are the queues of people standing in actual awe of what they are about to experience?
Going to a cinema, especially for a family, is an expensive undertaking. First one has to travel to the cinema and hopefully park somewhere reasonably near to the theatre. Then, apart from the cost of the tickets themselves, one has to buy drinks and snacks from the exorbitantly-priced "bar" - which only sells salty, thirst-provoking snacks or sweets. Once inside, one often has to deal with the rest of the audience, and there are few things as annoying as having someone running a continuous commentary on the film to a companion just behind your right ear. Except perhaps trying to catch the actors' words through the rustling crisp packets, ringing mobile phones, and people getting up to take a leak or coming in after the movie has started. Why would anyone want to pay through the nose for that?
If the cinema is to remain a profitable business, new ways need to be found to once again make the cinema experience something to look forward to. There have been a few attempts to do this, like 3D films, but these tend to be relatively short, documentary-style films. When will we be able to see something like the Lord of the Rings in full 3D with shaking ground, or projections on the front, side and above to fully immerse oneself in the experience? Or maybe some new-fangled environmental cinema where you can actually feel the heat of the desert sun or the cold of the Antarctic tundra. Now that would be something to look forward to. If cinemas do not try to recapture the experience that they lost, they are a dying breed.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
What War on Christmas?
Every year about this time we read countless letters in newspapers complaining about how some unidentified "secularists" are trying to turn Christmas into a secular event, taking Christ out of Christmas, and generally behaving in a Grinch-like manner towards all things Christmassy. They rile against people who use terms like "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". But does this modern "war on Christmas" really exist or is it a figment of the imagination?
For as long as I can remember people have been wishing each other well using a wide variety of expressions, including Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays, Il-Milied it-Tajjeb or Il-Festi t-Tajba. There you go - some mention Christmas and some do not, just as they have always done. Why has it become an issue now? Why is it that all of a sudden, if one sends out a card which says "Season's Greetings" one gets frowned upon, or if said card shows a robin in the snow or a candle, it's a faux pas? There have been Christmas Trees, Christmas Logs, turkey dinners, tinsel and fairy lights - none of which have any Christian significance that I can determine - since long before I was born. They shared the space with cribs and nativity scenes quite happily for decades if not centuries. Yet all of a sudden, they're seen as a threat. Over the last few years, songs like Jingle Bells, Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer or White Christmas are being seen as out of place in Christmas - just because they're not religious and they don't mention Jesus. Various personalities complain that these are removing us from the "true meaning" of Christmas. The fundamentalists who try to promote this idea of a secular war on Christmas rarely go to the trouble of confirming the validity of their claims. On the very day before Christmas last year, The Times' columnist "Roamer" regaled us with the story that in 1998, Birmingham Council replaced Christmas with a festivity called Winterval. Birmingham Council, their offices bedecked in a large banner proclaiming "Merry Christmas" to everyone and busy sending out cards with nativity scenes and the words Merry Christmas on them, were rather surprised to hear the news when it first broke. There was in fact an activity called Winterval. It was an attempt by Birmingham Council to drive more business into their renovated city centre, in 1997 and 1998, and certainly did not replace Christmas in that city. Of course like most rumours, it's easier to start one than to set the record straight, and despite almost a decade going by, Birmingham Council still have to respond to countless complaints each year about their anti-Christmas stance. Similarly, Luton Council has to deal with the annual controversy about the event called "Luminos". In vain they repeatedly explain that Luminos was a single event held one weekend in November 2001, and which had nothing to do with Christmas, let alone replace it. People still call to complain and ask why they were trying to replace Christmas with something called Luminos. A Scottish bank which instructed its employees not to place Christmas decorations too close to computer screens due to a possible fire hazard had to deal with complaints that they were attacking Christmas.
Take a deep breath everyone. Nobody is attacking Christmas. Nobody is trying to ban it, arrest it or deport it. Nobody's knocking on your door to make you remove the 150 kilowatt light display in your upstairs window. You won't receive a court injunction to take down your crib, or your tree for that matter. Christmas is this year what it has been since time immemorial - a time of happiness, having fun, meeting up with relatives, letting your hair down at an office party, exchanging gifts, and many other things. People will again this year celebrate it in different ways. So who's the one acting against the Christmas spirit of merrymaking? Seems to me that the only Scrooge characters around are those who spend these days grumbling about the fact that they received a card with Season's Greetings, and not the ones who sent it.
For as long as I can remember people have been wishing each other well using a wide variety of expressions, including Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, Happy Holidays, Il-Milied it-Tajjeb or Il-Festi t-Tajba. There you go - some mention Christmas and some do not, just as they have always done. Why has it become an issue now? Why is it that all of a sudden, if one sends out a card which says "Season's Greetings" one gets frowned upon, or if said card shows a robin in the snow or a candle, it's a faux pas? There have been Christmas Trees, Christmas Logs, turkey dinners, tinsel and fairy lights - none of which have any Christian significance that I can determine - since long before I was born. They shared the space with cribs and nativity scenes quite happily for decades if not centuries. Yet all of a sudden, they're seen as a threat. Over the last few years, songs like Jingle Bells, Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer or White Christmas are being seen as out of place in Christmas - just because they're not religious and they don't mention Jesus. Various personalities complain that these are removing us from the "true meaning" of Christmas. The fundamentalists who try to promote this idea of a secular war on Christmas rarely go to the trouble of confirming the validity of their claims. On the very day before Christmas last year, The Times' columnist "Roamer" regaled us with the story that in 1998, Birmingham Council replaced Christmas with a festivity called Winterval. Birmingham Council, their offices bedecked in a large banner proclaiming "Merry Christmas" to everyone and busy sending out cards with nativity scenes and the words Merry Christmas on them, were rather surprised to hear the news when it first broke. There was in fact an activity called Winterval. It was an attempt by Birmingham Council to drive more business into their renovated city centre, in 1997 and 1998, and certainly did not replace Christmas in that city. Of course like most rumours, it's easier to start one than to set the record straight, and despite almost a decade going by, Birmingham Council still have to respond to countless complaints each year about their anti-Christmas stance. Similarly, Luton Council has to deal with the annual controversy about the event called "Luminos". In vain they repeatedly explain that Luminos was a single event held one weekend in November 2001, and which had nothing to do with Christmas, let alone replace it. People still call to complain and ask why they were trying to replace Christmas with something called Luminos. A Scottish bank which instructed its employees not to place Christmas decorations too close to computer screens due to a possible fire hazard had to deal with complaints that they were attacking Christmas.
Take a deep breath everyone. Nobody is attacking Christmas. Nobody is trying to ban it, arrest it or deport it. Nobody's knocking on your door to make you remove the 150 kilowatt light display in your upstairs window. You won't receive a court injunction to take down your crib, or your tree for that matter. Christmas is this year what it has been since time immemorial - a time of happiness, having fun, meeting up with relatives, letting your hair down at an office party, exchanging gifts, and many other things. People will again this year celebrate it in different ways. So who's the one acting against the Christmas spirit of merrymaking? Seems to me that the only Scrooge characters around are those who spend these days grumbling about the fact that they received a card with Season's Greetings, and not the ones who sent it.
Sunday, 12 August 2007
Min se jgħasses lill-għassiesa?
Min se jgħasses lill-għassiesa? (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) Kieku kelli mmur f'għassa tal-pulizija u nakkuża lil xi ħadd b'reat li fil-fatt ma jkunx seħħ, il-pulizija tieħu passi legali kontrija talli għamilt rapport falz - kif għandu jkun. Kemm huwa iżjed serju meta tkun il-pulizija stess li tressaq nies quddiem il-qorti u tixlihom b'sensiela ta' atti kriminali li l-pulizija stess jafu li kienu foloz? Nhar l-14 ta' Frar, il-maġistrat Antonio Mizzi illibera lil 31 mara li kienu ġew imressqa mill-pulizija mixlija bi prostituzzjoni u li mexxew burdell - fost akkużi oħra. Il-pulizija kollha li ttellgħu jixhdu ammettew li imkien ma raw indikazzjoni ta' prostituzzjoni, u ma kien hemm ebda indikazzjoni li l-persuni mixlija kellhom xi sehem fit-tmexxija tal-post - li ovvjament ma kienx burdell. Il-maġistrat ikkritika lill-prosekuzzjoni (il-pulizija) talli xlew lil dawn in-nies b'dawn l-akkużi. Kritika oħra kienet dwar il-mod kif ġew trattati - uħud min-nisa ġew imġegħla joħorġu barra fit-triq bl-istess ilbies imqaċċat li kienu libsin ġewwa l-istabbiliment "biex kulħadd jara x'intom". Dan x'raġunament hu? Aġir bħal dan imur kontra d-drittijiet fundamentali tal-bniedem, li jipprojbixxu trattament degradanti saħansitra lil min jinsab ħati, aħseb u ara xi ħadd li anqas għadu tressaq il-qorti. Xogħol il-pulizija mhux li jiddeċiedu min hu ħati u jaqtgħu is-sentenza huma. Filwaqt li nifraħ lill-maġistrat ta' dak li qal bla tlaqliq, il-mistoqsija li għandna nistaqsu hi, x'passi se jittieħdu kontra dawk responsabbli? Il-pulizija għamlu akkużi foloz lill-qorti, u ttrattaw lill-akkużati - li fil-fatt kienu innoċenti - b'mod abbużiv. Jien nikkunsidra dawn l-azzjonijiet bħala atti kriminali - u l-pulizija għandha l-obbligu li tieħu passi kontra dawk responsabbli. Kien hawn żmien - m'ilux ħafna - fejn ħafna Maltin kienu saru jibżgħu mill-pulizija. Jekk int tkun akkanit ta' partit flok ieħor, tista' tħabbat wiċċek ma' xi membru tal-korp li għalih il-liġijiet ma jgħoddux. Għalkemm iż-żminijiet inbidlu, din l-azzjoni tal-pulizija tfakkar f'dawk iż-żminijiet ta' l-imgħoddi, jew inkella l-"morality police" ta' l-Iran, li jekk jaraw tnejn iżommu idejn xulxin jiċċekkjaw jekk humiex miżżewġa. Din id-darba, xi proxxmu qabad u ddeċieda li kull persuna liebsa "indeċenti" fi stabbiliment strettament għall-adulti għandha tiġi arrestata, degradata u mixlija b'akkużi falsifikati. Barra minn hekk, għandna naraw jekk dan it-tip ta' kontroll morali għadx hemm loku. Fl-istabbiliment konċernat setgħu jidħlu biss adulti minn 21 sena 'il fuq, u kull min jidħol jaf x'tip ta' "shows" isiru. Jekk persuna adulta tixtieq tidħol fi stabbiliment bħal dan m'għandu jkun hemm ebda restrizzjoni. Anzi, dan jista' jimla' niċċa fil-prodott turistiku tagħna.
Monday, 28 August 2006
The Decline in Christianity
The recent census by Discern has just confirmed what everybody knew all along - church attendance has continued falling, just as it has been doing for the past few decades, though perhaps at an accelerated rate. This will, of course, be followed by various opinions about what's causing it, suggestions on how to "bring the people back", as well as peeved and patronising arguments about how really important the church is to our lives.
The fall in church attendance can be attributed to two main factors - people losing their faith or interest in the Church and Mass, and people losing their faith in gods. The first is not hard to explain in today's world. Mass, like most prayers, is a rote recital. There's the same priest every week, intoning the same tired lines in the same bored voice, making the same gestures, asking the congregation to sit, or kneel, or stand in all the right places. And the flock responds in turn, repeating the same phrases as last week, and the week before, and the week before that... Is it any surprise then that people are feeling that this charade is meaningless in their lives, when we have become so accustomed to a fast, colourful and interesting life? I suppose that back before TV was invented, or when it consisted of only a few channels transmitting in the evening in black and white, when Paceville and Buġibba were quiet little backwater places, going to mass was a big and interesting event, practically a family outing. Today it's often viewed as just a waste of time, and even Catholics who doggedly attend mass each week show a marked preference for that priest who manages to compress mass into as short a time as possible. Some try to make mass a bit interesting, adding music of different kinds, or even brightening up the venue a little, but few would choose a cake for its icing if the inside is dry.
So what else is the Church good for? Its private schools? There is no doubt that the Church does run some good (and expensive) schools, but that is not specifically a religious matter. There are also very good non-religious private and public schools. Is it the occasional tirades issued by the Vatican or Curia? People are growing increasingly tired and skeptical about them. Despite the church's insistence that divorce is a terrible evil, one look at the statistics will show that in our divorce-free country, all is not rosy in the marriage business. Separated couples and single parents are on the increase, despite the fact that there still is a piece of paper somewhere that declares them to be "married", and people are not so convinced that insisting that marriage is for life when it so obviously is not always so, is the solution. Fewer still think that annulment is anything other than divorce with a different name, and a nice cash cow for the church. Similar invectives aimed at gay people or gay marriage are likewise losing their lustre. The church hasn't convinced people how gay marriage is supposed to undermine "traditional" marriage, especially in view of the countries which have legalised it without affecting existing marriages and their success rate. Of course there are also the village festas - those remain quite popular, but then again it's not really the religious aspect which draws the crowds most. It's the band marches, the festive air, the hot dogs and candy floss, maybe the traditional running and dancing around with the titular statue hoisted on the shoulders of the highest bidders. And of course, the fireworks - especially if one resides a good distance away from where they are being let off.
To make matters worse, some of the church's actions have been seen as quite cruel. I know of more than one case where the church refused to baptise a child because its parents were "living in sin" (that is, their church marriage broke up irrevocably and eventually they started afresh). Considering that the same church teaches that these children will not enter heaven until and unless baptised, that's a rather cruel bit of blackmail from the church - one which does little to endear it to its followers.
All of this leads to quite a few people losing their faith in the church. Some will seek other denominations, while others will retain their faith in God without the religious trappings of an organised religion. Some will go the whole hog and abandon faith in gods altogether. In the past, gods were created to provide an explanation for phenomena we didn't quite understand. Volcanoes everywhere were believed to be gods, lightning was a fearsome weapon wielded by Zeus, and storms were a sign of the gods' anger. Over time, through a better understanding of the world around us, we learned about magma and tectonic plates, about static electricity in clouds, and about the sun's warmth causing the movement of large air masses. In a relatively short period, the ancient gods of volcanoes, lightning and storms were abandoned, roadkill on the highway to knowledge. Of course some remained, since by that time these deities had been fleshed out with other attributes besides their bad tempers. The deity of Christianity was no exception, and has gone through some major makeovers in the Bible. From a quick-tempered deity who got very directly involved in matters such as floods, plagues, the outcome of wars, punishing entire peoples for the most minor of infractions and yet happily going along with things like slavery and genocide, he gradually mellowed into the benign god of love and forgiveness described in the gospels, allowing him to survive in belief where other, less fortunate deities were made redundant or even became an embarassment.
But one thing did change. From providing explanations to phenomena we did not understand, these remaining deities required far more explanations for their own existence and the stories attributed to them. Many are the Christians who have a hard time justifying the idea that someone ought to be punished for the sins of their ancestors, or why God would repeatedly punish the Pharaoh and all Egyptians when it was the very same God who repeatedly hardened Pharaoh's heart. Some may read words like "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14) and wonder why Jesus seems to have forgotten that when their prayers go unanswered. Of course, one look at any other religion and similar problems will crop up everywhere. In fact, if the prayer-granting rate is any indication of authenticity of the deity in question, it would seem to make little difference whether you pray to any god or to the fairy queen for all the good it will do.
I will, of course, not be making any suggestions about "bringing people back" to an activity which, in my view, serves no purpose. I have no doubt that religions will remain for a long while yet, kept alive partly by a combination of fear of retribution or hope of reward, and unwillingness to change something familiar. I have little doubt however that the downward trend in popularity will continue. The gods have served their purpose, and now deserve a nice, peaceful retirement.
The fall in church attendance can be attributed to two main factors - people losing their faith or interest in the Church and Mass, and people losing their faith in gods. The first is not hard to explain in today's world. Mass, like most prayers, is a rote recital. There's the same priest every week, intoning the same tired lines in the same bored voice, making the same gestures, asking the congregation to sit, or kneel, or stand in all the right places. And the flock responds in turn, repeating the same phrases as last week, and the week before, and the week before that... Is it any surprise then that people are feeling that this charade is meaningless in their lives, when we have become so accustomed to a fast, colourful and interesting life? I suppose that back before TV was invented, or when it consisted of only a few channels transmitting in the evening in black and white, when Paceville and Buġibba were quiet little backwater places, going to mass was a big and interesting event, practically a family outing. Today it's often viewed as just a waste of time, and even Catholics who doggedly attend mass each week show a marked preference for that priest who manages to compress mass into as short a time as possible. Some try to make mass a bit interesting, adding music of different kinds, or even brightening up the venue a little, but few would choose a cake for its icing if the inside is dry.
So what else is the Church good for? Its private schools? There is no doubt that the Church does run some good (and expensive) schools, but that is not specifically a religious matter. There are also very good non-religious private and public schools. Is it the occasional tirades issued by the Vatican or Curia? People are growing increasingly tired and skeptical about them. Despite the church's insistence that divorce is a terrible evil, one look at the statistics will show that in our divorce-free country, all is not rosy in the marriage business. Separated couples and single parents are on the increase, despite the fact that there still is a piece of paper somewhere that declares them to be "married", and people are not so convinced that insisting that marriage is for life when it so obviously is not always so, is the solution. Fewer still think that annulment is anything other than divorce with a different name, and a nice cash cow for the church. Similar invectives aimed at gay people or gay marriage are likewise losing their lustre. The church hasn't convinced people how gay marriage is supposed to undermine "traditional" marriage, especially in view of the countries which have legalised it without affecting existing marriages and their success rate. Of course there are also the village festas - those remain quite popular, but then again it's not really the religious aspect which draws the crowds most. It's the band marches, the festive air, the hot dogs and candy floss, maybe the traditional running and dancing around with the titular statue hoisted on the shoulders of the highest bidders. And of course, the fireworks - especially if one resides a good distance away from where they are being let off.
To make matters worse, some of the church's actions have been seen as quite cruel. I know of more than one case where the church refused to baptise a child because its parents were "living in sin" (that is, their church marriage broke up irrevocably and eventually they started afresh). Considering that the same church teaches that these children will not enter heaven until and unless baptised, that's a rather cruel bit of blackmail from the church - one which does little to endear it to its followers.
All of this leads to quite a few people losing their faith in the church. Some will seek other denominations, while others will retain their faith in God without the religious trappings of an organised religion. Some will go the whole hog and abandon faith in gods altogether. In the past, gods were created to provide an explanation for phenomena we didn't quite understand. Volcanoes everywhere were believed to be gods, lightning was a fearsome weapon wielded by Zeus, and storms were a sign of the gods' anger. Over time, through a better understanding of the world around us, we learned about magma and tectonic plates, about static electricity in clouds, and about the sun's warmth causing the movement of large air masses. In a relatively short period, the ancient gods of volcanoes, lightning and storms were abandoned, roadkill on the highway to knowledge. Of course some remained, since by that time these deities had been fleshed out with other attributes besides their bad tempers. The deity of Christianity was no exception, and has gone through some major makeovers in the Bible. From a quick-tempered deity who got very directly involved in matters such as floods, plagues, the outcome of wars, punishing entire peoples for the most minor of infractions and yet happily going along with things like slavery and genocide, he gradually mellowed into the benign god of love and forgiveness described in the gospels, allowing him to survive in belief where other, less fortunate deities were made redundant or even became an embarassment.
But one thing did change. From providing explanations to phenomena we did not understand, these remaining deities required far more explanations for their own existence and the stories attributed to them. Many are the Christians who have a hard time justifying the idea that someone ought to be punished for the sins of their ancestors, or why God would repeatedly punish the Pharaoh and all Egyptians when it was the very same God who repeatedly hardened Pharaoh's heart. Some may read words like "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14) and wonder why Jesus seems to have forgotten that when their prayers go unanswered. Of course, one look at any other religion and similar problems will crop up everywhere. In fact, if the prayer-granting rate is any indication of authenticity of the deity in question, it would seem to make little difference whether you pray to any god or to the fairy queen for all the good it will do.
I will, of course, not be making any suggestions about "bringing people back" to an activity which, in my view, serves no purpose. I have no doubt that religions will remain for a long while yet, kept alive partly by a combination of fear of retribution or hope of reward, and unwillingness to change something familiar. I have little doubt however that the downward trend in popularity will continue. The gods have served their purpose, and now deserve a nice, peaceful retirement.
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