I will not Vote

Maltastar



Much as I hate it this referendum has revived the unsavoury experience of elections in the 1960`s, when it was a mortal sin to vote Labour. It was a mortal sin to read Labour`s newspapers or to attend Labour`s meetings.

Then as a young lad in my teens I rebelled at the notion that fundamental clerics pretended they have the right to freeze my brain and to force me to vote against my free will.` Today`s youngsters would probably not believe that this was actually happening in Malta 40 years ago.

And yet it is happening again.` This time it is not fundamental clerics that are acting as the freezing agent. It is the entire right of the political spectrum who with unashamed access to the public coffers they have used our tax money to buy the support of the English language media and the business organisations to attempt to freeze the electorate will power to exercise its democratic right to vote freely.

`I am proud that I can call this tiny island my home and that we can define our own role in the world respecting our particular psyche.` Instead the electorate has just endured five weeks of relentless bombardment which had a simple but deceiving message. It continuously pounded our brain that this referendum was our last chance to catch the train to heaven, that details do not matter but this is a unique opportunity to save us from the dire consequences of our inability to rule ourselves, that our children expected us to join the EU to save them destruction from under our own incapable hands, and that if anyone dare doubt any of this than one should just as well go and have his brain checked because all who mattered were just singing the tune to sign away our freedom irreversibly.

Just as in the sixties fundamental clerics were using their religious powers to freeze our brains, forty years later the business interest that control and finance the right wing of Malta`s political camp have just completed a disgusting attempt to freeze our brains through the sheer use of the media they control.

And it is highly regrettable that in all this they found the undemocratic support of the EU that prides itself as an ultra-sample of democracy. My stomach turned when the EU embassy sent direct mailings to my home. How dare they intervene in a domestic plebiscite` How dare they hold press conference to set the record straight always in the interest of the Yes camp when they failed to set the record straight on the multitude of blatant lies and half-truth which the Yes camp have been saying ever since Labour Government froze Malta`s application in 1996`

I am a Maltese and am proud of it. I am proud that I can call this tiny island my home and that we can define our own role in the world respecting our particular psyche.` Many larger islands just kilometres away from us (Sicily, Sardegna, Corsica) cannot enjoy this pride. I want it to remain that way. `I beg you to bring your brain back to normal temperature and think and think hard during Friday`s silent day.`

I am therefore extremely offended that my own brothers have used my own money to convince the rest of the family to sign away the privilege which many others covet but cannot achieve.

I will not even consider going to VOTE NO to prevent this betrayal. Voting No would be validating the process by participating in it. For me the whole process is un-democratic and void.` It does not deserves my participation.

I very much agree that this issue needs to be decided by a referendum. But it has to be a referendum that addresses the democratic deficit of the current one.` It has to have these four characteristics which deprive this referendum of true democratic credentials:

Presentation of the real choices, with full disclosure of studies and text of treaties, rather than the present` just saying yes or no to one of the choices.

Fair balance of resources between the two opposing schools of thought

Ability and commitment to abide and execute people`s majority choice (no subsequent referenda to force the electorate to give the decision that the government wants)

Serene environment for taking an informed rational decision away from the electoral pre-election heat.

So I will not vote in Saturday`s referendum. And if you, brother, have had your brain frozen by the media bombardment or by the foreign intervention of the EU embassy, I appeal to you to understand that through your yes vote it is like electing a government for life. You will never have another chance to out-vote the EU bureaucracy you are signing us into depriving us of the flexibility to differentiate ourselves ` a hallmark of our economic successes of the last 40 years.` You will be giving away the only natural asset that God endowed us with, that of having a geo-political strategic importance far bigger than our size.

I beg you to bring your brain back to normal temperature and think and think hard during tomorrow`s silent day.