Rebuilding the traditional family

Times of Malta
Opinion

Friday, 15th January 2010

Caroline Galea

The eagerly-awaited report drafted by the House Social Affairs Committee regarding the reality crassly labelled as "the unknown father" has now been published. This report follows the Caritas-sponsored conference held earlier last year entitled Marriage- Quo Vadis? While the latter attempted to address a number of thorny issues surrounding the realities of marriage, the SAC report zeroed in exclusively on the role of the father and the impact of the absence of the father figure in the life and development of children.
The SAC report continues to confirm the continuing growing trend of single-parent families. The committee explicitly reveals its preoccupation with the disconcerting rise of undeclared fathers on birth certificates. Over a relatively short period of time (2003-2007), the increase of single-parent households in Malta increased by a staggering 112 per cent (from 1,720 families in 2003 to 3,650 families in 2007). In the following year, a quarter of all births were registered outside wedlock while a third of these children were registered as "father unknown". It seems abundantly clear that the trend is continuing to rise and has so far shown no signs of abating let alone diminishing.
The SAC held a number of public hearings with several professionals in the field of family issues with a view to drawing a clearer picture as to the realities and challenges facing Maltese families today. Having pondered on the facts presented, the committee had the unenviable task of putting forward a number of recommendations that seek to address the circumstances of the modern family and the apparent erosion of the traditional Maltese family nucleus. Since the exercise is a public consultation, the SAC made it clear that the recommendations were open to scrutiny and to further suggestions or improvements. In this sense, the report has its positives and, possibly, also some contentious aspects.
I was relieved to see that the economic aspect of the phenomenon was given the appropriate mention without too much emphasis on the monetary/fraud conundrum. Sadly, when this subject is discussed it is the social benefit angle that invariably takes the upper hand. Make no mistake in that I believe that this situation should be addressed as soon as possible. However, reducing the phenomenon of the single family/unknown father to pounds, shillings and pence (or euros!) is abjectly simplistic and artificially shallow.
The report's recommendations are built on four aspects.
Firstly, admitting the realities that our society faces and, thus, the importance of awareness. In this context, rights and obligations of both parents are to be highlighted. This is followed by the need for more training and preparation for couples both on a legal and psychological basis. At a more basic level, the case is made for further education.
This is, of course, none other than sex education, a subject that could be the key to more mature choices within relationships. Lastly, the need for more comprehensive and intense research that would give law makers and professionals a less anecdotal and more scientific basis for evaluation and concrete action in the future.
The committee has not minced its words. It is clear it believes that the role of the father is indispensable for the sake of the full development of the child.
Clearly, it has deduced that children from broken families are the ultimate victims in messy separations. Although it avoids to generalise, one feels that the committee was probably too harsh in its belief that children shorn from the traditional family face impending doom. Here again, the lack of precise national data hampers the discussion as such.
The SAC recommends that the registration of both parents should be obligatory. While one appreciates that law makers have to make hands-on decisions, the delicate nature of the subject makes the matter even more complex than it appears. Compulsory registration may address particular issues, yet, it fails to address the deeper changes that are occurring in our society. Mere names on certificates go a short way in resolving issues of relative poverty or social exclusion experienced by a significant proportion of non-traditional households.
The SAC understands the issues surrounding the present realities and gives credence to the need to strengthen values. This, unfortunately, cannot be done by mere legislation. Preservation of our values comes from personal beliefs and circumstances. In this sense, it seems strange that no mention has been made as to the realities behind many of the children born out of wedlock who are probably now part of stable relationships, which are unable to reconstitute themselves legally. One would have expected such an issue to be raised at least at this level.
Clearly, the family and the welfare of children continue to occupy the agenda both of this country and its people. There is now significant momentum to further this debate. The changes that will be proposed may have significant influence on our society in the future. Effective change can only happen through consensus and our participation is evidently crucial.
info@carolinegalea.com
Times of Malta
Letters
Friday, 15th January 2010
Impassable pavements
Natasha Aleksic, Sliema
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100115/letters/impassable-pavements
There has been a lot of discussion about parking and works in the streets in Sliema. But does someone check the state of the streets and of the pavements?
I would like to draw attention, for example, to High Street. A very dear Maltese friend who lives there is confined to a wheelchair. She loves to go out but sometimes it is a nightmare.
Part of the street is so rough and unsuitable for wheelchairs that we have to use the road and angry drivers stop and shout "prosit!" or "bankina!". Sometimes we find bags of rubbish blocking the pavement and again have to step down onto a busy road.
Once we reach Dingli Street, where the footpaths are better and can be used, the problem we encounter is cars mounted on pavements. It often happens that we have to step down on the street between two cars with little space in between and no ramp.
Somebody has to do something about pavements in Sliema, a town with a high population of elderly people as well as being popular with many mothers with pushchairs.
Times of Malta
Letters
Friday, 15th January 2010
Replacing censorship with age classification
Owen Bonnici MP (PL), Valletta
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100115/letters/replacing-censorship-with-age-classification
Austin Bencini failed to put forward a coherent reasoning on obscenity laws (January 13) and merged the debate about the young editor Mark Camilleri's ordeal with censorship, child pornography, sexual harassment, extreme pornography, erotic websites and the like.
His article was published only one day after Justice and Interior Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici told Parliament that my proposal to throw censorship in the arts out of the window would open the door to pornographic material which abuses of children, people with disability and other vulnerable persons.
Censorship by definition is a mechanism whereby a state-owned entity curbs and suppresses, partially or in toto, a communicative effort from being transmitted before that effort is actually transmitted. Therefore the Camilleri case has nothing to do with censorship since he at no time was held from publishing and distributing his newspaper, but with another issue (that of the application of anti-obscenity laws).
In our country, censorship is obtained under the so-called Cinema and Stage Regulations whereby, as the Stitching promoters know well enough, a government authority has the obscene power to censor a film or play in part or in whole.
As MPs from both sides of the House, the President of the Chamber of Advocates and a long list of authors and artists have claimed, the concept of censorship is anathema to a healthy democracy based on freedom of speech, belief in the arts and the natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
Really and truly, censorship reflects the state's lack of confidence in society.
A 2002 Council of Europe report compiled by a group of experts led by Anthony Everitt stated in no uncertain terms that "stage censorship, being a control over the freedom of expression, is inconsistent with the principles of the Council of Europe and the European Union and should be abolished. (B 6.17)"
Since I believe in a true, healthy democracy I am calling for the total abolishment of censorship from our laws obtaining under the Cinema and Stage Regulations and the introduction, instead, of an age rating mechanism similar to that found in cinemas and some TV programmes.
Should the present-day conservative government keep on dragging its feet on this issue, Labour will propose its own fully-fledged private members Bill by the end of next May to throw censorship out of the window completely and replace it with an age-classification mechanism.
Even without the archaic institute of censorship, society would still be protected from grave abuses involving child pornography, extreme pornography and serious harassment to vulnerable sectors of society through anti-obscenity laws.
However, the application (or non-application) of anti-obscenity laws should always be made in a way in which to favour the liberty of freedom of expression and artistic freedom.
To take the Camilleri case, there is absolutely no way where a sensible and progressive democracy can ever accept that a young University student be accused of a crime which carries the maximum penalty of six months imprisonment just because he happened to publish an article or short story in a University newspaper on an anti-hero who attracts disgust on his views about women, be it with or without any literary value!
We need both a modernisation and revamp of article 208 of the Criminal Code and the anti-obscenity laws and, most importantly, a revamp in the conservative mentality of this government and all the other authorities which were involved in this tragi-comedy of errors.
In discussing what is obscene, we should keep in mind that the European Court of Human Rights has stated that the values of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society demand a freedom of expression not only of ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb.
Labour will do everything that is in its power to put some sense and instil in Malta a breath of fresh air in line with the contemporary reasoning in Europe.
In saying this, Labour is not putting undue pressures on the serenity and the independence which the courts must enjoy at all times as it has been suggested, but is putting pen to paper what it believes in, what it stands for, and where it wants the Maltese society to go.
Times of Malta
Letters
Friday, 15th January 2010
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Ryan Dalli, Movement for Peace and Justice in Palestine, Malta, Żabbar
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100115/letters/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict

Palestinian farmers clash with Israeli settlers who tried to stop them from working in their land in the village of Immatein, east of the West Bank town of Qalqilya, earlier this week. Photo: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP.
I am afraid that Albert Cilia-Vincenti (Neutrality In ME Conflict, January 12) has the wrong idea of neutrality and its meaning in the face of prolonged injustice and oppression.
His concept of neutrality on which the argument is based is at the least very naïve. We ought to approach the concept of neutrality thoughtfully. We need a different approach.
Three come to mind: There are the mind-sets of the naïve (which is a way of avoiding critical thought), the cynical (who are paranoid against the other side(s)) and the critical. The distinction between the cynical and the naïve is not as sharp as it may seem - and wherever possible we need to avoid that kind of thought.
In my letter First Anniversary Of Israeli Offensive, as a representative of the Movement for Peace and Justice in Palestine, Malta, I did not advise Maltese politicians to support blindly and without question the Palestinians at the European Union, but instead we advise the Maltese people to be critical.
Being critical does not mean being negative or hostile - it is not cynicism - it means using dialogue and expressing one's views in a peaceful and critical way rather than pretending to be invisible in world politics.
When dealing with the concept of neutrality we have to avoid the extremes of both the naïve (looking away) and the cynical rejection of one side or the other.
Instead, a critical and neutral country like Malta should evaluate the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in our view is the illegal occupation of a country by another country, and construct its own position on whether the deaths of 1,387 Palestinians, half of whom were women and children, were worthwhile or not. I have to remind Mr Cilia-Vincenti that Malta is part of this world and like all other countries it has an essential role to play.
Ironically, in his last few sentences he wrote: "As President Obama has stressed, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to work out how they can have two adjoining states living in peace." Malta can start being neutral yet critical by advising President Obama that there will be no peace between Palestine and Israel if the US won't stop selling arms to Israel.
In this context I would like to share this quote by Paulo Freire: "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."