“Kemm ghandek n*jk!”

With words like “ħaqalanqas” making it into our vernacular after having been bandied about on Labour’s TV station (One, not TVM) by one of our ministers, and part-time lecturers/full-time conspiracy theorists dedicating entire blog posts to the segment of Jon Mallia’s podcast where he specifically asked the leader of the Nationalist Party to say “tal-ost*a” – I thought it only apt to add an asterix to the title, ma jmurx xi ħadd jieħu xi skandlu.

I would like to make it clear that I have run this campaign on the premise that I will be doing things differently – not pandering to the electorate, not pretending I’m someone I am not, and vehemently refusing to adhere to any pre-written norms insofar as how a campaign is run – basically, what you see is what you get.

The title of this week’s column has been proffered by a multitude of people I’ve met in passing along the years. When people who don’t know a thing about me meet me for the first time, the first things that they notice are the double-barrelled surname and the job title. This is usually followed by a conversation of some kind, where the unmistakably brought-up-english-speaking, probably-went-to-one-of-those-schools-in-the-North, tal-pepe drawl that everyone loves to hate makes its first appearance.

The first question levied is inevitably “jaqaw, int min tas-Sliema?” with a standard-issue raised eyebrow and a not so subtle undertone of mockery.

My parents both worked very hard to invest in my education. We spoke English at home, and at my grandparents’ house. By the time I got to university and realised that case law was a never-ending stream of Maltese (mostly without proper spelling, formatting or punctuation, might I add) I immediately regretted not paying more attention to my Maltese teachers throughout the years (sorry Mr Clint). Conversationally it improved – especially with my involvement in student organisations – but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t something that I felt still holds me back sometimes.

I have a double-barrel surname because my mother stood outside Castille in 1993 with a newborn (spoiler alert: it was me), and her best friend and her newborn son, to petition the government to allow them to revert back to their maiden surnames which they had been forced to change upon marriage – as that was the law. Stemming from a long line of very persistent women, my mum got her way, and was allowed to change her surname back to Bonnici. As a child, I could never understand why children only had their fathers’ surnames – let’s chalk that up to naïveté to the effects of a deeply patriarchal society – and when my parents separated in 1999 this nonsensical disparity became even more prominent in my mind.

In 2006, at age 14, I applied for my first ID card. I remember being dropped off by my dad and walking into that badly-lit building. I queued up and asked the woman behind the desk whether I could have both parents’ surnames on my ID card. She told me I could (the law has since been amended) and that’s how the Bonnici was added on. Contrary to common perception, it was not done to seem ‘cool’, to get a leg up, or to be perceived as anyone but the person I was when I had only one surname – but it was my right, and so I exercised it. 

The idea that in 2022 you can determine who someone is by the language or the accent with which they speak is about as ‘antiquated’ a notion as the etymology of the Maltese language itself. To judge a person’s character or principles based solely on how many surnames they have, is equally farcical. People are wonderfully diverse, and this goes beyond what we look like and it is also what we sound like, how we prefer to speak, what subjects we excel at, what subjects we haven’t quite grasped (maths), whether we have tattoos, piercings or facial hair and where we live. It would also be apt to remind ourselves that Malta relies heavily on foreign workers who are not fluent in Maltese, to function (or we did, until COVID hit, jobs were lost, and they were told to “go back to [your] county” in no less heinous wording). 

If you hold any level of privilege (a good education, a loving family, a wage that pays for a roof over your head, not being subjected to discrimination, etc.) it does not automatically make you incapable of empathy, but it does require an active effort to ensure that you are writing policy for all, and not for the few.

In summation, let us all start judging people on their actions and capabilities (meritocracy – Robert Abela, you may want to look this one up), and stop getting distracted by the shiny, superficial and fake – especially when deciding who we want representing our interests on the 26th March.