Letters: 19 April 2015

The hunting referendum

The first issue of a local newspaper, after the referendum result, carried on its front page a sickening photograph of a 5-6 year old child, and presumably his father, celebrating the hunters’ victory, with a hunter’s belt full of cartridges, in public.

This situation embarrasses one to say one is Maltese.

They say that a referendum is the most democratic tool, when one wants to decide something in a democracy. I say that too, but in my opinion not always. Rainwater is the cleanest water one can get, but not for long – seconds after it hits the ground it becomes the most dirty, and sometimes poisonous, so that it can kill you.

In my view, referendums here in Malta, perhaps abroad as well, remain clean only until politics creep in.

A few years ago we had a referendum on the introduction of divorce. I always believed that the No divorce camp would win. Political parties at first said that they were not going to interfere, then a short time after they made a crusade for divorce. I voted No to divorce, only because I was sure that divorce would open the floodgates of other evils.

This time the same happened, week after week the polls showed that the anti-hunting group had a majority, but then the political parties crept in, with the Prime Minister saying that everybody was free to vote how he/she thinks, but that he, Joseph Muscat the Prime Minister, was going to vote yes.

From that moment I said that the No hunting camp had no chance to win. This time also Simon Busittil, leader of the opposition, declared in public that he was for hunting in spring (if it is regulated).

Let me make myself clear. These two gentlemen had every right to vote as they wanted, but they are not ordinary citizens like I am. They have a load of weight behind them, big herds who unfortunately follow them.

Joseph Muscat, Mosta