The Joys of Multiculturalism

 

For a number of years now, it has been apparent that 'multiculturalism', like most policies that do not take reality into account, simply does not work. If any further proof of this was needed, a new survey published by Policy Exchange has shown that young Muslims are even less integrated than their parents and are actually becoming increasingly hostile to the civilization that has welcomed them in its midst.

The basic premise of multiculturalism is that cultures, if allowed to live separately within the same society, will necessarily respect each other. Unfortunately, this depends on cultures concerned. If they happen to be very tolerant then it may just work. If one of them happens not to be then it won't. Moreover, the heroic attempt at getting whole cultures accepted into a host society means that the individuals concerned can only be accepted if the whole experiment works. If it fails, as it almost always does, then these individuals have to pay the price too, in terms of remaining strangers in their adoptive country. The almost inevitable result of this trauma is political extremism - sometimes fascism - particularly when this is easily available as a component of the culture of the countries of origin.

The Electoral System

 

The electoral laws, like those relating to marriage and rent, keep cropping up in the local political debate from time to time, even though significant developments usually occur only about once a decade.

With the recent agreement between the main political parties regarding the the electoral laws, and the talk about Josie Muscat being about to launch a new political party, the issue of what political system will work best in Malta has returned to the fore (see, for example, Fausto's posts here and here and this week's article in The Times by Alternattiva's Secretary-General) and I'd like to give my 2-cents' worth on the subject at greater 'length' than I have done already here on this blog.

In this post I'll start with what I view to be the basic origin of the 2-party system (basically why a semi-PR system is functioning like a first-past-the-post system), and then in later posts I plan to compare the electoral system with the possible alternatives and finally to give my views on the actual actors.

In Malta's case, the two-party system developed as a result of two basic facts. The first was the electoral system, which could actually handle three or four sizeable parties (or small regional ones). The small size of the island and the absence of strong regional identities (outside Gozo, which is after all, only one district) has meant that only sizeable national parties could survive in the longer term. As for national parties, while the system could indeed handle more than two, it nevertheless creates a virtually insurmountable barrier to entry for new parties and ensures a quick exit for parties in decline. With the exception of pre-WWII Labour, most successful third parties since 1921 have either been regional (the Gozo Party, the Jones Party and, to some extent, the Partito Democratico Nazionalista of 1921), or else splits from, or remnants of, the main parties (the MWP, the PĦN, Ganado's PDN and Mabel Strickland's PCP). The DAP are the only exceptions and they existed only briefly during the early post-war years, when the parties of the former 'semi-duopoly', the PN and the CP had been temporarily knocked out by World War II and the death of Lord Strickland respectively.

The second, and more important, reason for the present situation was the Labour Party. Until WWII, the system had not resulted in a clear 2-party system. However, with the extension of the franchise, the creation of the GWU and the sudden disappearance of the Constitutionals, the Labour Party became far stronger than all the other parties combined. Their natural support remained in the region of 55-60% well into the 1950s. Following Mintoff's take-over, the party also moved further to the left than it had ever been before and at that stage was having difficulty tolerating other points of view on the island. So, the perceived issue for non-Labourites for the next 40 years (at least) became how to avoid a one-party system. Fine distinctions between two-party and multi-party systems were not foremost in people's minds. The PN grew gradually to become the mass party it is today only in response to the Labour Party's strength. Indeed, I have no doubt that were the Labour Party to disappear tomorrow, the Nationalist Party would find it extremely difficult to hold itself together.

If the two parties appear to resemble each other, it is mainly because one of them exists to counterbalance the other. The system is a duopoly in a technical sense but I feel that the label 'MLPN' is misleading if it is taken to mean that the two parties habitually act in concert or are 'one party masquerading as two' as a friend of mine once put it. It is, on the contrary, an intensely competitive duopoly and one in which only one of the competitors has a truly independent existence as a mass party.

Separation between Church and State II

 

On the same subject, I must say that I'm quite baffled as to why the police are pursuing this silly case.

It appears that while they are unable or unwilling to protect honest citizens from crime, they are more than eager to protect them from temptation.

Separation between Church and State I

 

I have so far been trying to resist joining the debate on divorce, which has recently returned to the fore in the local political debate, but today I read a letter on The Times by a Mr. John Ghigo that makes what I believe to be a very valid point, and one which I agree with fully, and I've decided to reproduce it here:

I find it disappointing that many of those who declare themselves to be against the introduction of divorce base their arguments predominantly on their religious beliefs. It's a pity that many haven't yet realised that Malta is supposed to be a secular country, and that, therefore, our laws should not be based on, or influenced by, religious doctrine.

If divorce is eventually introduced, it would only apply to civil marriages, not Church marriages. Today, someone whose marriage has ended, and who seeks to build a new relationship, has no choice but to cohabit. If divorce is introduced, then this person would have the choice of either cohabiting or entering into a civil marriage with his or her new partner. If this person was originally also married by the rites of the Catholic Church, then in both situations he or she would still be considered by the Church as being married to his or her original partner, unless the Ecclesiastical Tribunal declares the original Church marriage to be null. Divorce wouldn't change anything in this respect.

Although, of course, everyone is free to express his or her opinion, I think that any religious argument on the issue of divorce is irrelevant, and only serves to blur the dividing line separating the roles that religion and politics should play in our lives.

I admit that it has always been something of a mystery for me why the Church in Malta exerts so much effort to defend the 'sanctity' of civil marriage. As far as I know civil marriages as such have no validity whatsoever in the eyes of the Church. Moreover, those who will seek divorce in order to remarry are by definition not observant Catholics. It's difficult to escape the conclusion that the Church is interfering in the private affairs of those who have voluntarily left its fold, or who have never been in it in the first place.

One can, of course, argue against divorce on several 'secular' grounds (social, economic, psychological or whatever) and the Catholic anti-divorce lobby, and the Church itself, also occasionally make use of such arguments. However, it's not difficult to see that these arguments are for them secondary and that the real issue is a refusal to accept the separation between church and state.

Having said that, it seems that the position of the new Archbishop is more respectful of the separation between spiritual and secular matters than was that of his predecessor.

Death-Spiral Demographics?

 

Yesterday evening I took some time to pore over the National Statistics Office's Demographic Review for 2005, dated 17th January 2007. Most of this blog's readers would have already read the Times' report on the subject two days ago, which highlighted some facts from the document but provided little by way of analysis.

The Review is, of course, a goldmine of information and it certainly deserves a great deal more attention than it has received. For example, few have pointed out that the number of births we had in 2005, even if it were to remain stable in future (as a result of us somehow raising our total fertility rate to the replacement level, which is 2.1 per woman), would by itself still reduce the population by almost a quarter over the course of a single lifetime. If, however, the number of births were to continue declining by just under 1% per annum (which is fairly consistent with the present 1.37 total fertility rate and which is less than the 2% per annum decline experienced since the early 1990s) the population might be halved over the same period. The NSO's projections are consistent with this, although they stop at 2050, by which time the population of under 40s would have already fallen by around 41%. Were the fertility rate itself to decline any further, then even this figure could be optimistic. An extension of our life-expectancy beyond the present levels, and even the application of the existing life-expectancy to our present population, would on the other hand hide a big part of this decline for a while in terms of total population figures but would not change the basic underlying reality. In fact, in terms of the total population, the NSO's projected decline by 2050 is of 'only' 19% - or around 76,000 people.

Of course, demography is not destiny. The decline in the fertility rate may be reversed if the Government makes that a specific goal. This has happened already in Scandinavia, for example, where there has been a modest recovery and in France, where policies aimed at sustaining the birth rate have been in place for decades and have borne fruit. The US has sustained its birth rate mostly thanks to its growing Hispanic minority and to its higher level of prosperity rather than through any specific government programmes. I am, indeed, quite confident that our indigenous population will not, in fact, collapse during my lifetime or that of the next generation for the simple reason that at some point we'll probably wake up and develop a more family-friendly society. As with most problems, however, the later we leave it the harder it will be to solve.

People's Comissars

 

One of the few common-sense libertarian voices on the media these days is former Minister Michael Falzon. Check out his refreshing article in today's Times about the Christian-Democratic tendency to create commissioners (and commissions) for everything under the sun.

The Maltese Property Market - and how not to make a bad situation worse

 

Since the Church's Diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace issued a report (of variable quality) in which it expressed concern at the high level of property prices on the island, there have been a number of reactions, such as that of Lawrence Zammit last Friday and those of Dr. Karl Chircop, the GRTU and Albert Cilia-Vincenti, all of which appeared in today's Times, in addition to the same newspaper's editorial on the same subject. With the exception of Lawrence Zammit's article and to some extent of the Times editorial, most of the other reactions propose solutions that would do little good, and possibly much harm, if ever implemented. Dr. Chircop and the GRTU are essentially proposing that the Government should 'flood the market' by selling the valuable land it holds for nominal prices. Prof. Cilia-Vincenti, on the other hand, proposes a property tax.

I personally have no objection to asset taxes in general. I view a combination of asset taxes and consumption taxes to be much more rational than an income tax. I believe that they are also much more socially just (is it fair for a wealthy person who simply consumes a large inheritance without producing anything to avoid tax altogether while the hard-working middle class are punished for their efforts by heavy income taxes?). If, however, we're going to have asset taxes then I don't see why these should cover only one type of asset (i.e. real estate). This would simply distort the market, artificially driving those funds into alternatives like the stock market, overseas property or even artworks and luxury items. Besides, I simply don't see why I should be taxed on my house while those who are much richer are not taxed on their yachts, for example.

If we want to deal with a situation where a scarce resource is being misused then the key is to allow the market to squeeze out this inefficiency, and if anything to help it in this task, rather than to hinder it. To the extent that we need more properties, these should be built by utilizing existing urban land more efficiently, as is in fact being done with the conversion of terraced houses into apartment blocks. This will, in the medium term, lead to an easing of the upward pressure on prices. If the government further relaxes restrictions on building height in certain areas, this would accelerate and facilitate this process - leading to lower house prices for young families and easing the pressure on Malta's remaining countryside. The rent-laws and those concerning the joint inheritance of properties, are likewise more of a priority than the Government seems to think and probably not for the reasons that Harry Vassallo routinely mentions (that it would create a functioning rental market). The current system is simply preventing the more efficient use (in some cases meaning the redevelopment and sale) of those properties. The joint office and the government, rather than artificially slashing the prices of their land or continuing to build monstrosities on it, should sell it at commercial prices to the private sector which will make more efficient use of it for the simple reason that it would have paid dearly for it. If the church-state agreements do not allow for this, then they should be amended.

Nor should the Government continue to artificially fuel demand by providing subsidies to people with low incomes who wish to rent or buy a property. People in such situations should be assisted, of course (possibly via a negative income-tax rate, among other things) but that assistance should not be tied specifically to the purchase or rent of properties, otherwise it will simply be pocketed by those who are selling or renting out such properties, in the form of higher rents and prices.

Iran Learns about Reciprocity

 

One thing I found somewhat amusing in today's news was the anger of the Iranian authorities at the takeover by the Americans of an Iranian 'consulate' in the north of Iraq and the arrest of the 'diplomats' manning it. The irony of the Iranians, of all people, defending the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises seems to have been lost on most commentators.

Having enjoyed their protection for most of my career, I have a healthy respect for the Vienna Convention and the related treaties and customs, and would normally object to any violations of them. However, the ultimate strength of international law, whether written or unwritten, derives from the principle of 'reciprocity'. States usually respect the obligations arising from the laws they are bound by for the simple reason that if they didn't they wouldn't be in a position to expect the other parties to respect those obligations in their own regard. Most international law students learn this on day one of their courses. Iran has just learned it today.

Those Smart Israelis ;-)

 

A proposal for a negative income tax rate has been approved in the first reading by the Knesset. Last July, I had argued in favour of a similar system. I'll be following this closely ...

A Small Victory for Common Sense

 

At least one of the many cases of the Maltese state seizing private property without due compensation has a happy ending. Most of the other victims have not been so fortunate.

Chavez Gets Serious

 

Hugo Chavez has so far triumphed over all his adversaries. His domestic opposition has made one mistake after another and rendered itself almost irrelevant. The United States has failed completely in its attempts to isolate him and the high oil price has given him the resources with which to spread his influence far outside Venezuela's borders. The anti-american left worldwide reveres him.

Having just won his third presidential election in a row, Chavez now appears to have decided to go directly for a socialist state, which means that he may be facing his first truly formidable opponent - economic reality. Venezuela already has the dubious distinction of being below Cuba, Byelorus and Libya in the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom rankings. For all the country's oil wealth, it ranks 96th among the world's countries for GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, meaning that its citizens have a real annual income that is about a third of what a Maltese citizen can aspire to. This is not likely to improve during Chavez's third term in office, particularly if the pause in the rise of the oil price turns out to be something more serious than that.

Many questions but no answers

 

Retired multilateral diplomat Michael Zammit Cutajar wrote a very stimulating article in yesterday's Times in reaction to a series of four articles by Martin Scicluna on illegal immigration and the Government's policy towards it. The article is stimulating because it consists mostly of (somewhat loaded) questions, the most important of which can be summarized as follows:

- What are the actual numbers of illegal immigrants in Malta?

- Has the present policy worked and has there, in fact, been a decline in public order as a result of the presence of these illegal immigrants?

- Are conditions in the centres adequate?

- 'What is the point of playing "tough" to the political gallery if an irregular immigrant who has served the full term and cannot be repatriated is allowed to stay anyway?'

I find these questions in their basic form to be very interesting and important. The last one, in particular, has always intrigued me. However, it does not take a genius, nor even a deconstructionist, to realize that the way Mr. Zammit Cutajar posts most of his 'questions' is a thinly veiled 'diplomatic' attack on the present policy. The 'intended' answers to his own questions are clear enough. Mr. Zammit Cutajar basically seems to feel that the threat is mostly imaginary and that we may dispense with most precautions. Maybe instead of being concerned about the future political implications of this phenomenon we should be grateful for its rather meagre and poorly distributed short-term economic benefits, as he seems to hint.

It is odd that Mr. Zammit Cutajar finds Mr. Scicluna's reference to 'threats to security, internal stability and public order' to be 'speculative and unconvincing' merely because they refer to possibilities which have not yet taken place. I assume that Mr. Zammit Cutajar is aware of the issues and problems arising in other European countries, where the phenomenon is in a more advanced stage. Does he believe that the situation in Malta is substantially different? If so, how?

I fear that very well-paid people who are trained to say 'the right thing' and achieve consensus are not always helpful where there are real problems to be understood and solved, rather than just resolutions to be passed.

A New History of the Mediterranean

 

Today's Sunday Times reports on a Euro-Med Movement activity featuring former President and FM Guido de Marco, who was quoted as saying that:

The history of sharing and exchange that epitomises the Mediterranean as well as the proximity of nation states within it make the idea of a clash of civilisations not only outlandish but counterproductive.

If Prof. de Marco was referring to the Mediterranean world prior to the Muslim conquests of the 7th Century then this is not a completely misleading description. After that point, it simply does not fit what really took place, although trade did eventually recover and significant cultural exchanges did take place in certain areas and at certain points in time. The Mediterranean was in fact 'reunited' only in the 19th and early 20th centuries mainly as a result of the weakness of one side relative to the other. Relations are nevertheless not warm, and there is much truth in what Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have written, although I'm personally more optimistic than they are.

Later on, he was described as saying that 'the conflict in the region is an abnormal state of affairs' and apparently he supported this by referring to the existence of Christian symbols (such as the Church of the Nativity) in the Holy Land. I would personally say that this is due to the simple fact that the Middle East and North Africa had been Christian prior to the Muslim conquest rather than to any specific history of cooperation between the two civilizations.

Needless to say, I sympathize with Prof. de Marco's intentions (and one must remember that he was speaking to very young people). There is, indeed, nothing I'd like more than to see the Mediterranean truly becoming an area of stability and prosperity. Nevertheless, it's difficult to imagine a prosperous and peaceful future being built on a misreading of the present and the past, however well-intentioned it may be. De Marco's interpretation of history might mislead people into thinking that creating peace and stability is going to be a piece of cake (after all, if our ancestors repeatedly got it right, why shouldn't we?). A new Mediterranean is indeed possible but it will be realists, not idealists, who will have to achieve it.

Harry, Nerik and the Single Transferable Vote

 

One of my habitual reads on Fridays is Harry Vassallo's column in The Times. I must say that I am generally impressed neither by his attempts to belittle those who do not share his views nor by his grip on reality. It was the latter that was most clearly absent from his column today.

Apart from the rather pointless stuff about what Nerik Mizzi might say about his successors if he were to come back from the dead, there is also some rather questionable arithmetic and a good dose of wishful thinking. According to Harry Vassallo, around 2000 votes in one district would be enough for the Greens, or anyone else, to elect a candidate to Parliament (plus some lower preference votes from friends and family). I know of no candidate in recent elections that was elected with anything close to 2000 final count votes, although the fifth candidate to be elected is generally elected with less than a full quota. Dr. Vassallo should have pointed out that, in order for the candidate to be elected, over a thousand additional votes would have to be siphoned off the other parties in subsequent counts, net of any losses in the other direction. In past elections, the opposite has tended to happen, as Alternattiva's electorate tends to be much less 'disciplined' than that of the mainstream parties.

Harry Vassallo blames the electoral system for his party's stunted growth. I think the primary blame lies with the party's own failure to focus its energies on attainable and useful objectives. And, incidentally, I doubt whether Vassallo would welcome the election to Parliament of candidates from the right-wing movements, which have a potential electorate at least as large as that of Alternattiva and would probably also make it to Parliament with a system based on pure proportional representation. For all their defects, the two main parties are nowadays at least moderate and democratic and present the electorate with alternative management teams for the country. A pure PR system might result in a situation where a significant change in the people's vote is reflected not in a change of government but in a tweaking of the ruling coalition. This is what happens in quite a number of European countries.

The electoral system agreed between the main parties avoids two other pitfalls. It is much less arbitrary than the first-past-the-post system, which can lead to situations such as that of the UK, where the Conservative Party currently has to outdistance Labour by about 10% of the popular vote in order to be sure of a parliamentary majority. It is also much more democratic than the continental PR system, which substitutes 'party lists' for our own single transferable vote, thus depriving the electorate of any real say in choosing the deputies themselves.

One of the assets of our system that have not been as yet fully exploited by the electorate is the possibility of expressing extremely nuanced and sophisticated preferences that might not be limited to one party. A rational voter, for example, would continue expressing preferences even after his own party's list is exhausted and even when all that remain are candidates of the 'opposing' party. For example, in some districts, it is quite possible for voters of one party to decide races between candidates of the other party in the last count, overturning the result in favour of more moderate or better qualified candidates. In 2003, there were three districts (4th, 5th and 7th) where Nationalist voters had this opportunity (and did not take it) and two districts (8th and 13th) where Labour voters could have chosen between the remaining Nationalist candidates, after having finished electing their own, and likewise did not do so.

An Italian and European Dilemma

 

Interesting news from Italy regarding the issue of foreign financing for the entrenchment, propogation and radicalization of Islam in Europe. Italy's Interior Minister (and former Prime Minister) Guliano Amato, has expressed his concern about this phenomenon and mentions some possible solutions. A worthwhile read.

Doing Something about Somalia

 

The events unfolding far away in Somalia might, at first sight, seem to be of little importance to our own country. Unfortunately, with Somalia being our single largest 'supplier' of illegal immigrants, we are likely to pay our fair share of the price for that country's disasters.

I hope and pray that the Maltese authorities are analyzing the situation in detail and will do their utmost to push the EU into playing an active role in helping bring stability to that country and in helping Kenya take as many refugees as possible.

Any arrangement that brings about some stability and allows Somalis to build better lives at home would be sufficient from Malta's point of view. Our limited resources, and our very limited political capital in Europe should be spent on goals such as this one, along with the equally-important issue of sea patrols, where our Foreign Ministry and the Government in general seem to be doing a good job in difficult circumstances. Fuzzier and less realistic goals, such as that of singlehandedly bringing about peace in the Middle East should be quietly shelved.

Alternattiva and the Environmentalist Vote

 

Every time I read anything remotely connected to our local hunters, I think to myself what a pity it is that some of our most committed local environmentalists have unwittingly taken the decision to effectively remove themselves from the political equation, leaving no specific counterweight to the hunters' lobby, which may not be as strong as some may think it is, but is nevertheless still a force that mainstream politicians have to take into account.

The main parties make little effort to win over diehard Alternattiva voters for the simple reason that not even the greenest manifesto that they could produce would outgreen Alternattiva. The most that they could win from such voters, as long as Alternattiva is contesting elections, is their second preference (or subsequent preferences), which are of limited value under the existing electoral system and will be completely worthless for this purpose once the agreed changes to the electoral system come into effect. Moreover, it makes more sense for the major parties to take votes from each other, as such votes effectively count double in a two-horse race.

Alternattiva's recent response to its own predicament has been to try and entrench itself in one or two districts and they have chosen Gozo, of all places, as one of their main targets. I have already expressed my views regarding this strategy in a previous post, and I will not comment any further here. However, having made this choice, they should at least desist from contesting those districts where they are not seriously trying to win a seat. It would not harm them and it would at least allow a greater part of the core environmentalist vote to make its presence felt in the strategies of the two major parties.

Happy New Year

 

My best wishes to you all for 2007!