The two main characteristics of this government apart from the inevitable and explicit and widespread corruption and rent-seeking, are fraud and stupidity. In the middle of the worst crisis in Europe since the 1970s, Labour is governing Malta with its infantile gimmick of the 1000 ideas political manifesto. It could have been extremely hilarious had the world been different and better, but the reality is that it isn’t. Central banks and national governments all over the world are scrambling to avoid a recession while governments all over the world are addressing national security issues with regards to their supply chains and energy policies. We, on the other hand, are making sure to keep ruining our country by, for example, building supermarkets and race tracks on industrial land and airfields for model aeroplanes on agricultural land. It’s like Luna Park Village where Luna stands for lunacy.
The new entrants to Robert Abela ‘s cabinet are quite in tune with the underlying principles of fraud and stupidity. Here is the new Minister for Fisheries, Alice Bugeja Said, saying that in Malta bird hunting is done for food consumption purposes. Now, let’s be clear because her message can be lost in translation. She is not saying that hunters who hunt birds in Malta will eat the birds if edible, she is saying that hunters in Malta need to hunt because they need it for food consumption. At a European level, the Maltese government doesn’t say this, instead, the Maltese government is pushing the narrative at an EU level that hunting in Malta is done for research purposes. This is because our government wants to make sure that we in Europe remain the biggest laughing stock.
All of this would have been hilarious had the country not been falling apart. Even in the small things the Maltese government will lie and use fraudulent arguments. Can you imagine how bigger the frauds and the lies are when it comes to more serious aspects such as energy and the economy?
Hunters in Malta don’t hunt for food purposes – they hunt because it’s a bloody sport which they like. Now, I am not in principle against hunting, but on the other hand, I am not a big fan of bigotry, fraud and stupidity. The hunting lobby in Malta has imposed itself on the whole country with its violent and aggressive tactics and Labour keeps appeasing them by giving them free rein and even free public land. Bird hunting in Malta is done at the expense of the general public as hunters keep squatting over public land and cutting off access to the general public. It’s a modern version of legally-accepted banditry.
Now, with regards to hunting in Malta, it was never practised for food purposes. Bird-hunting in Malta was a rich man’s sport which became popular only in the 20th century and was only adopted by many working-class men after the Second World War. Its popularity grew extensively during the Labour governments of the 1970s. Hunting is not a Maltese tradition. It’s a blood sport and it is very recent. No one in Malta ever used bird-hunting as a source of food even though they do eat the birds for fun, sometimes, when the birds are not completely blasted by lead pellets.
As for my opinion about bird hunting in Malta, I think that it’s unsustainable, reckless and lawless. It’s not the hunting itself, but the way it’s done and the gangster/mafia-like attitude of the hunting lobby. There is a big difference between farmers who shoot at birds to protect their crops and a lobby of semi-literate men who are taking over the countryside by force for an unsustainable sport.
Hunting is also not a right. It’s a privilege and my problem with privileges start when these privileges tread on the public and the whole nation. Labour doesn’t give a damn, of course. Labour is playing the rent-seekers game, appeasing the interest groups it needs for an electoral majority. As I said many times before, this is a ticking time bomb, and when the tables turn, we should not allow Labour to pretend it’s going through a damascene conversion.
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