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James Debono
Who is out of tune with public opinion? The pro-life lobby, which has been unjustly branded as fundamentalist, or the liberal élite, asked Tonio Borg in his opinion in The Times earlier this week on Wednesday, the day of the deadline for the submissions from civil society on the proposal to entrench abortion in the Constitution.
The choice of the term shows much about the Home Affairs and Justice Minister’s affinity with the vocabulary used by the fundamentalist wing of the US Republican Party, which uses this term to denigrate educated and affluent liberals.
Before Tonio Borg, the only mainstream politician in Europe to use this term was former Tory leader William Hague. In June 2000 Hague declared that the Conservative Party “will not just turn the tide – we will defeat the liberal elite.”
Hague also struck out at Labour plans to repeal the law that banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. “New Labour and its liberal elite are trying to force feed our nation’s school children with their politically correct nonsense.”
But before being dumped by the electorate, Hague hoped to make ‘culture war’ issues between left and right a crucial election battleground. Tory campaign strategists had recognised the fact that fighting the election on the economy would have been difficult in a scenario where incomes were rising and unemployment falling.
In a country like Malta where unemployment is rising and incomes falling, moral issues like abortion are a welcome diversion.
But the liberal elite moniker is most often applied to residents of the US Northeast, according to open-source directory wikipedia, particularly to New Englanders and the highly educated.
The term is also often applied to those who have an affinity for European cultures, especially those who enjoy French wine, French cheeses especially brie and French films.
Proclaimers for the liberal elite in the US proudly display their credentials with t-shirts and mugs available from www.cafepress.com/thewhitehouse.
jdebono@newsworksltd.com
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