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James Debono
The chunky acronym for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in late November in Malta remains a mystery for the majority of Maltese people, with nearly two-thirds of respondents in a MaltaToday survey answering wrongly or admitting ignorance of the international event.
The survey was held at the end of October, where respondents were asked to state the name of the international organisation organising the CHOGM conference.
The findings have presented surprising results given the much publicised concern on security arrangements for CHOGM having dominated the news pages for the past months.
Especially in the last weeks, visible roadworks have been going on constantly around Valletta and the other roads on which the 53 Commonwealth heads of state will be passing from.
According to the MaltaToday survey however, the majority of the Maltese public does not have a clue that the Commonwealth will be meeting in Malta.
It certainly appears that for a minority, EU fever has not yet died down: 6.3 per cent of respondents believed CHOGM was just another European Union summit.
Males registered more knowledge of the issue than females: while 53 per cent of males got their answer right, just 20 per cent of female respondents did, suggesting more attention to political news from men rather than women.
Respondents who said they intended to vote for the Nationalist party were also more informed than those who intended voting Labour. Whilst 49 per cent of would-be PN voters answered correctly, only 27 per cent of Labour voters did. The figure blends well with the added attention given to the CHOGM week from the party-in-government’s media organs.
Green party voters tend to have a higher knowledge of the event, with 55 per cent getting the answer right.
Lack of knowledge on the event could also be explained by the lack of controversy on the issue: concerned by the 55 per cent increase in the surcharge, the last thing on people’s minds is CHOGM week.
The organisation composed of former British colonies, mostly African and Asian, has in fact disappeared from the collective memory of most Maltese. Up until the 1960s, membership in the Commonwealth was viewed as the culmination of Malta’s dream for independence. Earlier on in the 1950s, the Nationalist party’s rallying cry was gaining dominion status within the Commonwealth.
Under Dom Mintoff’s Labour government, Malta sought more adventurous pastures in international affairs when it joined the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1970s, which included many Commonwealth countries like India. Unlike the British Commonwealth, the NAM challenged the hegemony of the two superpowers.
The Commonwealth only rose to prominence in the 1980s when African countries challenged Margaret Thatcher’s UK government by promoting a boycott on South Africa.
The Commonwealth has however failed dismally in isolating the oppressive regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Although suspended, Zimbabwe still enjoys friendly ties with several Commonwealth members like South Africa .
The MaltaToday survey was conducted between the 24 and 28 October, a month before the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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