Monday, 8th February 2010
'We want a secular state'
'No place' for prejudice against gays
Labour leader Joseph Muscat at the end of his party's 10-day general conference yesterday. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli.
Labour's new movement for progressives and moderates wanted a state that was friendly with the Church but not at one with it, party leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
"The movement aspires to a secular state," he said. The state would not interfere in the choices of individuals. He was speaking at the end of a 10-day general conference that unanimously approved a motion laying the foundations for Dr Muscat's promised movement.
This movement, he said, would not shy away from changing Malta's Constitution to reflect the needs of today's society.
However, the Constitution would remain the guiding document and no changes would be made to "strategic principles", primarily the fundamental concept of neutrality. In an hour-long speech, Dr Muscat said his party had chosen the path of challenge and change rather than keeping things the way they were.
"Today we are rewriting the history of the country because, when it found itself at a crossroads, the PL chose to take the ambitious, visionary and futuristic road."
Dr Muscat said the movement would bring together progressives and moderates who wanted to make changes for the better. "They might not agree on everything but know that the future lies in this movement," he said, insisting that the movement would not replace the party.
In a speech that the Nationalist Party yesterday criticised for touching on many subjects without delving deeply into any in particular, Dr Muscat said the new movement would work to give women a bigger role in a male-dominated world.
The movement wanted a state which did not place more burdens on the family and which took action to stop monopolies and duopolies that led to abusive price increases.
He spoke about the importance of having a sustainable pension system and stressed that the pension problem could not just be solved by raising the retirement age.
He highlighted the need to set up structures to protect the elderly, including laws that would lay down harsher penalties for violence against old people. "We need to introduce a concept of vulnerability," he said, adding that regulations were also needed to ensure that old people were not abused by their families.
The new movement would work towards providing high quality, timely and free healthcare, and also work in favour of the middle class while sticking up for the poor.
The present high level of taxes was not sustainable, he added.
He said the movement was also committing itself to allow freedom of expression. "Democracy also means the right to speak out without the fear of intimidation."
He reiterated his pledge to introduce a Bill on divorce and give Labour MPs a free vote if elected to power, because he believed that everyone should have the right to a second chance if their first marriage did not work out.
There was no place in the movement, he said, for people who were prejudiced against gays or against those who wanted to form a family after their first marriage had broken down.
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, the Nationalist Party said Dr Muscat did not come up with a single concrete proposal or a course of action he intended to take if elected to government.
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Comments
Richard Galea.
What confusion!!! Reading newspapers during mass, kazini, ross fil-forn, prostitutes, Polish pimps. However it was fun reading such an unusual sense of humour!
The moral of all this is that Politics and the priesthood are career-moves from which I would be excluded, and I would exclude myself in any case, because I am too searingly honest. The two professions mentioned are too self-seekingly about weilding, and retaining, power at al costs for my liking. I prefer to have a life, often miserable. But at least a misery of my own choice. Playing the victim is such a short-changing attitude. And gets one nowhere fast. All this, expressed in plain English, may be difficult to grasp but that is hardly my fault.
cont./
"Christianity has been but a passing phase and has now been all but expunged from mainland Europe"
Expunged means completely obliterated. My brother who lives in Germany goes to mass every Sunday, sometimes in Germany & at other times in Luxembourg and the churches are always full! My 2 aunts, 1 from Norfolk, the other from Hampshire (England) go to Catholic mass and also there the churches are always full! St. Peter's (Vatican City) is always full of people of different nationalities whenever the Pope deliveres a speech. And in Spain last October, millions of Christians protesting against Zapatero's new abortion laws. Oh, maybe I'm mistaken then, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, the Vatican & England are not on mainland Europe.
Malti li halla l-pajjizu daqsxejn ta' tfajjel, nofs seklu ilu, ftit wara li ra l-missieru mkisser u meqrud bl-interdett u dubji w twerwir iehor. Ghaddew hamsin sena u ghadna hawn. Malta, Malta ta' zoghziti fejn int? X'sar minnek nkiss nkiss waqt li jien kont qed inhares in-naha l-ohra? Naf li z-zmien isajjar il-bajtar u jbatti l-blat, li xejn ma jieqaf; imma qatt ma stennejt bajtra daqshekk morra, nixxiegha xejn helwa (anzi smajt li nixxfuha apposta biex jibnu.....)
(Loosely translated, this is reminiscing about things Maltese - including a beautiful language - and how it and other things have deteriorated in the last fifty years when I left these Maltese shores as a young lad.
"Maltese have Christian roots "
Please do not keep perpetrating this fallacy. Malta's and Europe's roots are Pagan. Christianity has been but a passing phase and has now been all but expunged from mainland Europe. Malta, as usual, will be a few years behind.
This country is run by a Prime Minister who was the President of the Azzjoni Kattolika and his Permanent Secretary who was the Secretary General of the Azzjoni Kattolika. Just read his CV http://www.doi.gov.mt/en/press_releases/2004/10/pr1545a.asp
Joseph Muscat is a breath of fresh air in this musty country. He might still be young and inexperienced, but he does not take his orders from Archbishop & Bishop Co. Ltd.
Women - more empowerment in a patriarchal society (including the consideration of introduction of divorce option when they're beaten by their menfolk).
Pensioners - we mustn't forget society's sitting ducks, ever grateful for crumbs - for votes.
Capped food prices - wonderful. Gets better.
The middle-class must be sustained and the poor helped along.
I think baby age human ducklings were forgotten. Promise them a nappy change, guaranteed, whenever needed and they'll be clamouring for a vote in no time at all. Nappies, tax-free as also guaranted boners and doggy-bags for the dogs. Circle squared!
And, lest we forget, a reminder of the marginalised, those honoured first time round:
Gays, now free to move abroad - advisable - if they so wish. Their votes lost. Forever.
The godly, offered a parallel existential sop but not quite.
And the Church, ditto. Even though talk of a secular Malta is pie in the sky, a very long way away (but powerless promises are cheap of course). With censored lyrics?! Whatever next?Come on sonny!. It's a bit more complicated than all this and you know it.
When will you wake up and see th light? Why do you prefer staying in the dark? Why don't you want to let the people of Malta enjoy their fundamental right to choice what they want to do and who they want to be? Why do you want to involve the church in state-related issues? You are the real hypocrites who prefer being stuck in the dark and leave people without any rights so you can push them and kick them in which direction you want! Yes,we want freedom! Freedom from corruption, freedom from an obsessive religious state, freedom to be who want to be and become a true European State and not a medieval state which forms part of a 21st century European Union. Stop looking for the dust in other people's eyes and find a way, once and for all, how to remove that large log which is blinding you!! Labour means Freedom!
@ J.Farrugia
Please do not be ridiculious by stating something so low like you did. Only kids talk that way. I suggest, that come next election, you keep your money in your wallet and do not place bets in favour of your party!
Words, more words - a blurred vision and no plans one can judge him by. Slippery as an eel.
Party, Moviment, - call it what you want - I call it a patchwork of old and older which will show its true colours should it be elected!
Ax history repeats itself: meta jitilghu zgur li se jahsbu fijom infusom u fin-nies taghhom biss bhal ma ghamlu fil-passat ricenti, u kummenti qabel l-elezzjoni ta 2008: li n-nazzjonalisti ahjar imorru jghidu ir-ruzarju jixhdu dan...
Maltese have Christian roots and its better if keep close to those values, u ninjorawom biex taparsi insiru moderni, ikun ifisser li mmorru ferm aktar lura milli il quddiem!!!!
What we need (and not wanting) is a humanistic state. A state which camoflauges all the multi-dimensionality of the person.
Secularism is just advocating the most shallow dimension of the human person and so transfroming the island in its new form of 'religious' milieu.
I just hope that populist statements may be transformed for the advent of positive personalism not only in precepts but in the concrete living.
Give me your vote, and if we are in govenment we will do alot of things, but we dont know what to do and how to do it.
What I don't agree with is giving the Labour MPs a free vote. I think this should be a matter for the country as a whole (even though personally I would vote for it)
1) already answered:it is called Zapatero
2) that needs 2/3 majority and nobody will ever get it again.
3)what are they, the principles I mean?Belief in christianity maybe? That is NOT secular.
4)action against monopolies:in a country of 400,000 to have duo- and monoplies is unavoidable.
5) what is the concept of vulnerability?:we are the most progressive state on this matter to the point of ridicule! We even take care of the immigrants, let alone maltese citizens.
6) Allow more freedom of expression:yes more realta,stitching and nadur and libertinagg and drugs, of course
7) Divorce,how about that for a solution?
8) LGBTs please vote for us!
I think I have answered all the points?
Stop living in the misunderstand that Secularism is anti-religious...Wake up and smell the coffee, Its NOT! ..Secularism it's religiously neutral...it does away with a hypocrisy that has persisted for centuries past.
To make matters worse its people to think secularism is anti-religious which call for secularism in Islamic countries and speak out against shaira laws.
What matters is not showing off the number of Christians on these islands, but how genuine they are, may they be fewer, so? What matters is principles teaching and virtues. At least this seems an attempt to step in the right direction.
He has a last card:the immigrants, as Zapatero has done.Will he take it?He will first try to sell it to us by saying that giving them citizenship and the vote will make them leave for greener pastures in Europe! If he succeeds , we will became a massive launch pad for all immigrants from North Africa and again we will reap the whirlwind!(Will Nostradamus's prophesy on Malta take place?)
Courses of action:
- Towards a secular state
- Constitutional amendments
- Safeguarding strategic principles
- Action against monopolies or duopolies
- Introduce concept of vulnerability
- Allow wider freedom of expression
- Legislation to introduce divorce
- Broader concept of family
All the above are progressive ideas and no government in recent history dared mentioning them, being considered 'taboos'. Joseph Muscat is projecting a new mentality - PN be careful, you're soon touching the seabed if not already there!