Killing in the name of

From time to time the United States is shocked by killing sprees committed by some teenager who manages to get hold of a gun, something facilitated by the constitutional right to bear arms.

But despite the shock and anguish the gun lobby manages to thwart any attempt to regulate the availability of guns. This is because the gun lobby has the support of many in the redneck Republican Party and quite a few in the supposedly liberal Democratic Party.

From time to time Malta is also shocked by fireworks tragedies. Every time a factory explodes we hear of new regulations and inquires. But despite the shock and anguish nothing changes until the next factory explodes. Similarly to the gun lobby in the US, the local fireworks lobby has the support of a number of MPs who thwart any call for regulation.

The resistance to calls for a moratorium on firework production until an inquiry on the latest tragedy is finalised, is yet another sign of the power of the fireworks lobby. What is even more shocking is that the supposedly progressive Labour Party is opposing such a moratorium.

Probably my friends in the Labour Party will tell me “what does this has to do with being progressive?” It’s the same reaction I get when I ask them about their jingoistic support for tuna farming and their pandering for hunters’ votes. In reality as long as Labour panders for the redneck vote, it will never become palatable for cosmopolitan voters who resent this conservative streak.

The reality is that Labour includes within its parliamentary ranks fireworks enthusiasts whose world view is as parochial as that of any conservative rural Nationalist. Surely one can say the same thing about the Nationalist Party posing as the party of Europeanisation.

What is striking is that there is not even a trace of dissent in the parliamentary groups of both parties on this issue. The only person to challenge the fireworks lobby in the PN was Georg Sapiano, who in his soul searching after the MEP elections debacle had identified his party’s weakness in tackling this issue as a reason for its declining electoral fortunes. I guess it is one of those defining issues which would decide the fate of the PN as popular liberal party or a national conservative party.

It seems that even modernizers in both parties fear losing votes if they dare challenge the fireworks lobby. AD has scored points by challenging both parties on this issue. For on this issue it is clear that in both parties, the traditionalists rule the roost.

What Malta needs now is alliance of modernizers capable of rocking the boat and confronting redneck Malta in a tit-for-tat struggle for modernization. As far as I am concerned the struggle for modernity and making Malta a normal country takes priority over any other issue.