News • 07 September 2003

The philosopher’s drone

Joe Friggieri reveals to MATTHEW VELLA how he juggles the deeper questions in life with the pressures of being an A-list invitee to any art exhibition on the island

Once again, almost twelve months to date, Joe Friggieri and I meet. His aggressive bulb of hair maintains its unwavering steadiness. His soft drawl delivers reasons for tardiness.
There haven’t been many intellectuals to brave the winds of conformity in Malta, to lash out at the unforgiving zero-sum political culture of the island. Friggieri can be held accountable for a positive contribution during the EU referendum for a timely intervention on the ‘Vote 2’ campaign of Alternattiva Demokratika, when Austin Bencini seemed bent on rubbishing the Green party’s tactic.
But so many other great minds rest peacefully down in Tal-Qroqq. Truthfully, Friggieri’s mettle has been displayed in other areas, him being a poet and a playwright as well as a philosopher, and politics today may not be his piece of cake. You would challenge the whole system with accusations of apathy permeating university lecturers and students.
But Friggieri does not mourn political inactivity at the University of Malta. Theatre would be a more fruitful pursuit for him. And although he laments the silent infiltration of political parties on campus today, even Friggieri was, once upon a time, an active herald of left-wing critique. I ask Friggieri if he was ever a Labour party supporter:
"I was the editor of Illum between 1975 and 1980. It was a monthly journal that provided very interesting critique and an evaluation of the political and social issues of those days.
"We were all left-wing in those days – Daniel Massa, Lino Spiteri, Evarist Bartolo, Dun Ang Seychell, Fr Hilary Tagliaferro and Fr Peter Serracino-Inglott all wrote for Illum. But what happens after is that the left-wing always hits out at left-wing critique. We used to be critical of government as well. We used to carry double-spread focus reports on different sectors of the economy and infrastructure in Malta.
"Initially we used to print at Union Press. Then Dr Joe Micallef Stafrace wrote a couple of articles criticising Mintoff, and that was it. The old Labour/union alliance made sure it would never happen again. Under pressure from the usual heavyweights, Union Press refused to print, and we had to take it elsewhere. This was one of the most clamorous cases of press censorship."
Friggieri might have grown out of left-wing politics, because he also disagrees with me when I claim that the Nationalist Party is conservative:
"I don’t think Eddie Fenech Adami is conservative. He is actually quite progressive. He has a clear and progressive vision for Malta. You only have to look at what he has done for education.
"The battle to enter the EU was not an easy one. Don’t underestimate the amount of energy spent on conducting that campaign and making it work. I think the EU was crucial for Malta. Now the summer has passed and it’s high time that we take the reins back in our hands and move forwards.
"I think this is also the time for serious reforms and that we have to start a wide discussion on looking for solutions in the health sector, social security, transport. We need a wide consultation that includes all political parties and the social partners. We should have a general, constructive debate and should stop trying to score political points. Instead of painting a negative situation of the country, we should be working with all political parties to look for solutions. The points of departure are not as contrasting as they are sometimes portrayed. So let us work towards convergence."
Friggieri graduated from the Royal University of Malta in 1970, graduating in English, Italian and Philosophy. Many agree, as Friggieri recalls, how the university back then was smaller, with less courses, but with more meaningful relationships between lecturers and students.
"I don’t think the university was only accessible to well-off students. Suitable qualifications earned many other people places. In theory, it was open to everyone," Friggieri says. And since those days, the University of Malta has grown to accommodate almost 10,000 students. Not everyone has appreciated the opening-up of university, citing that the institution has become a degree dispenser, hosting academic courses not suited for a university. Friggieri lauds the architects behind the process, crediting much to Peter Serracino-Inglott, former rector, with being one of the most innovative and visionary of persons.
"It was the democratisation of education prompted by the drive of the Nationalist government that made possible a heightened level of education. Today there are greater possibilities of study with so many courses on offer. The advantages for the country to have a much wider cohort of the student population that goes on into university are enormous, a great human asset. We may pine nostalgically for the past, but the present situation is certainly much better."
I ask Friggieri how much of the political activism of the RUM days is still present in Tal-Qroqq today. Many will say today’s students are totally career-driven, but Friggieri does not lament the political apathy at university:
"I admire much more those students that are active in a cultural organisation rather than those students who parrot what their political parties are communicating. I suppose that if there was a movement which stood outside the orbit of this political culture, this would be understandable. But to have a political party cell at university is not something I really desire.
"I’d rather see students actually studying and reading. This is a time that never repeats itself. I encourage students to make the best out of it, and remind them they should interest themselves in vaster areas of knowledge, away from their field of studies and from the parochial nature of party politics."
Indeed, so many students brave the elements as they get through to their final years of their courses without ever considering militating in a political organisation at university. Today it seems that the majority of students are actually only reading and studying and planning their career. Why then do so many students, those in the arts in particular, still find it hard to meet the demands of the labour market? As the University tracer study on graduate employment in 2000 has revealed, over 11 per cent of graduates, mostly arts students, never find a job which suits their qualifications, skills, or studies:
"It has to be said that the report carried in The Times represented a contradiction between the headline and the body of the text. Whilst the title claimed that the majority of graduates were finding it hard to find a job that suits them, it resulted that over 80 per cent were satisfied with their jobs, whilst it was a minority, most of them arts students, that were experiencing difficulties to find a suitable job connected to their field of studies.
"The headline could have been reversed: most students find course-related jobs. This twist would have certainly not been eye-catching enough, but that is the way of the media nowadays. Positive information does not create news.
"Of course there will always be a percentage of students who will not find a job that does not correspond directly to their course of studies. But studying at university will always regale you with a certain set of skills. Philosophy for example can give you skills to deal with problems in certain ways, to follow an argument through, to at least realise when an argument works or not. You don’t necessarily have to work as a philosopher with a philosophy degree. Our graduates are now finding employment in government and with private schools. But you can also be employed by a bank, a private business, in the civil service. A university degree has become a sine qua non to acquire certain jobs.
"As the professor of philosophy told a prospective student when asked what a philosophy degree would serve him for when he would be out of university, "it will help you take it philosophically when you are out of a job."
Friggieri is today the President of the Malta Council of Culture and the Arts. He is quick to pounce on any furtive question: "Many people usually ask me whether culture per se is elitist," he says.
"I always give culture an anthropological definition. Culture is not only the fine arts, but a people’s way of life. This is the widest interpretation of culture for me. We cannot talk about culture, however, without addressing the fact that a large number of people in Malta are still illiterate, there are those who don’t read, or who don’t read or understand English. This is a cultural problem we are facing. How will someone enjoy the theatre if they don’t understand English? If they go to the cinema for example, they will opt for say, a gangster movie where words come at a premium, and where shooting comes more gratuitously.
"Certainly the conclusion here is not to have everything in Maltese, but to teach people better. People who are fluent in English are certainly more prone to buy a book in English, to watch a play in English. Culture is hundred per cent tied to the quality of our education."
Since the last time we met in his office, little seems to have changed. And we finish off where we started last time. Iraq has been the last of nations to be reduced to a morass of civil unrest burdened under a pillaged economy. What does Joe Friggieri make of the unstinting flair for the human race to wreak havoc at such regular pace?
"I don’t think war solves anything, nor that war is inevitable. There are theories claiming that war is part of our genetic make-up, where we build up some form of anger and then explode. Others say that war is determined by historical and political reasons. I don’t believe in any of these claims. I am not a determinist, biological or historical. I think war is always a failure, on the part of politicians especially, to negotiate a different solution. It means you haven’t tried hard enough to find a solution.
Granted that dishonesty and evil are also at the heart of politicians’ resolve to wage war. The use of masks enables politicians to place the problem as they would like to impose it upon people. Saddam Hussein was without doubt a cruel dictator. But I don’t believe war was the solution to remove him.
"With the rather questionable proofs for declaring war risking Blair his government, one has to ask whether Saddam really presented an imminent threat to the world. It would seem that on such grounds as presented by the US and the UK, half of the African continent would have to be attacked. In hindsight, we have to assess what this war has brought today and its long-term consequences."