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A certain Fr Robert Soler’s recently wrote in The Times gloating over a divorce survey carried out by the same newspaper. His reasoning is that since 55 per cent of the Maltese disagree with divorce legislation, then the Government should not legislate. What a fine line of reasoning coming from this individual! With all due respect, following his rationale the Government should do away with a considerable amount of legislation where more than 50 per cent of the Maltese disagree. Unfortunately, in spite of what Fr Soler claims, the sole real opposition to divorce comes from an organisation of ‘men in black’ wearing white collars. This organisation whose numbers have been declining since the early 1990’s represents a small, politically and financially influential ‘vociferous’ minority.
A ‘lay’ Government’s attitude towards the introduction of divorce is not about being popular with more than 50 per cent of the Maltese but that of doing the right thing to address the current disastrous state of society. After all, divorce is only a mechanism to be availed of by those whose marriage has failed irreparably (and are doing their own thing anyhow) and not for the masses.
In spite of all his philosophical arguments I have concluded that his articles are nothing more than towing his ‘Party’s line’.
Fr Soler unwittingly argues that Malta is a country where elections “are won and lost by slim margins” of approximately 2 per cent. His argument is dangerous for the anti-divorce movement. If one takes the figure of 38 per cent for the pro-divorce Maltese population, to be correct this equates circa 156,000 people. Therefore with an election being won or lost by circa 5500 votes (The current 11,000 majority divided by half) it is mathematically plausible that the divorce movement has sufficient strength to make its point heard or even felt.
Two questions come to mind when arguing about divorce. The first is whether the Government has to lose the next general election before it realises that divorce was one of the contributing factors. My gut feeling is that the answer will be ‘yes.’ The second would be whether saying ‘yes’ to divorce legislation is a real option after the ‘survey’. I think that the answer is also a definite yes.
Tony Muscat
Birkirkara
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