Perversity in Iraq

The Malta Independent 

 

The first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by a US led coalition was marked with extreme instability. It was one of the worst weeks, in terms of human costs, since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

President Bush is learning through bitter experience that America`s military might, effective as it is in winning wars, is much less so in keeping peace. The expectation that the majority of the Iraqis would consider the US and its allied forces as liberators and would co-operate to install some form of democracy that would remain grateful to the US for ridding it of a tyrant, is proving totally misplaced and unrealistic.

Anyone who dares to read the history of Iraq and Mesopotamia should have known that democracy and freedom are quite alien to the culture of that land. It is clear that whilst the method and cost of entry into Iraq could have been well calculated, the cost and method of exit are much less clear and have not been properly planned. Unless handled with extreme diligence both the permanence or the exit could bring incalculable strife and pain which would make Saddam`s atrocities look mild.` It would also provide very poor credentials for President Bush`s re-election bid come November.

Events are adding credibility to the claim that upon acceding to Presidency the Bush administration was obsessed with the elimination of Saddam and neglected much more serious threats which culminated in the September 11 terrorism disaster. Chief White House counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke in his recent book `Against All Enemies` indicts the Bush administration that it not only had misplaced priorities prior to September 11th, but perhaps more seriously, it compounded such misjudgements by attempting to re-assert US dented ego by invading Iraq rather than persist in the pursuit of the true terrorists holed up in the Afghan caves.

President Bush is being forced to approach his bid for re-election with a record of misjudgements which make him unfit to occupy the most powerful post in the world. He misjudged the threat of Al Queda before September 11th (his recent defence that if he knew that terrorists were going to attack New York on that day he would have taken all precautions, is pathetic). He misjudged unproven links between Al Queda and the Saddam Hussein regime. His misjudged Iraq`s possession of weapons of mass destruction. He misjudged the timing of the invasion of Iraq which could have assembled more gradually allowing time consensus building around UN approval, and he misjudged the reaction of the Iraq people to the invading forces.

It is very doubtful whether such liability could be countered by a very rich election campaign funds chest and the fact that the American economy seems to be consolidating its growth and producing employment in good time to reach a peak by next fall.

The truth is that President Bush was planning to spearhead his re-election campaign on a tridente of solid economic performance, strong leadership in countering the terrorist threats and the successful elimination of the regime of one world`s most despicable dictators, installing instead a pro-American nascent democracy to serve as a showcase for the rest of the Middle East. Two of these three strengths are turning into political liabilities as the campaign ticks off the remaining weeks till the start of November.

The perversity of the situation in Iraq could be dawning on Bush with cruel intensity. Rather than being considered as liberators US troops in Iraq are being considered as occupiers and are being persecuted by the same people whom they liberated at very great expense. Even if withdrawal were to be possible, the fallout from an unplanned withdrawal which would leave a power vacuum to be filled by a nearly certain bloody civil war, will hardly be conducive to the image of a US pretending to use its sole super-power status with responsibility and due leadership.

Attempts to fabricate some sort of power transfer to some domestic representative body which would invite the US and coalition forces to stay over to restore law and order seem unlikely to succeed in the time frame that Bush requires them for his re-election bid.

On the contrary what is emerging with a cruel dose of perversity is that Bush is providing the best form of defence for Saddam when he is eventually charged. A disparate society as that in Iraq is impossible to keep together except with an iron fist.   

No Divorce Please - We`re Maltese

The Malta Independent on Sunday 

 

The growing minority that wish to see Malta join the rest of the world by legalising divorce are hoping that the election of a younger Prime Minister would permit the issue to be placed on the country’s agenda.

The fact that our staunchly pro-EU government has been refusing even to discuss the issue let alone consider legalising divorce, could only lead to the simple conclusion that the power of the Church in Malta is unmatched in any other country.

Malta is a civil state that acknowledges in its Constitution the right of individuals to exercise freely whatever religion they wish. Whilst the Catholic religion is acknowledged as the national religion it means not that this religion and its practice can be imposed on any individual.

Whilst the Church obliges believers to follow a ritual of events, like hearing mass, fasting on specials days etc., which rule the life of believers, the State takes a completely neutral view on such issues and makes no provisions in the civil code obliging anyone to follow such Catholic rituals.

When it comes to marriage and divorce the State behaves differently. Not only it does not provide the civil mechanism for divorce in case of purely civil marriages which the Church does not recognise, but the State has shamefully agreed to divest its authority to the jurisdiction of the Church in cases of annulment of marriages, executed both civilly and in Church, entered into after a certain date where one of the party elects for such Church jurisdiction.

It is the only case where a civil contract concluded by two adults in terms of civil law cannot be brought for adjudication by any of the parties in front of the same civil law which bound them in the first instance. Its legality is at best questionable and would in my opinion be an interesting case to bring before European Courts who are much less impressed by the power of the Church than is the case with local legislators or adjudicators.

Those who are against the legalisation of divorce bring several arguments to sustain their case. None impress me. The first argument is that the majority is against the introduction of divorce. Whilst this could very well be the case, though I have no doubt that such majority is getting smaller and smaller, divorce is a civil right which belongs to the individual irrespective of the views on the subject of the majority. By the same majority reasoning we should not provide free hospitals because the majority does not make use of them, we should abolish smoking because the majority does not smoke, and we should stop teaching Spanish because the majority has no interest in learning Spanish. Democracy is about executing the will of the majority as much as it is about preserving the rights of the minorities. Divorce is one such area where the rights of the minority, and a significant minority, are being trampled.

Another argument which prima facie tends to make more sense is that divorce would weaken the institution of the family and would harm society in general. Whilst this argument could have been true in the days when we were a closed insular society one must question whether it holds true in the current state of play. Firstly if divorce is harmful to society how is it that all present and prospective EU countries have legalised divorced and Malta would be the only exception inside the enlarged EU? Even staunchly catholic Ireland and Poland recognised the right of the minority to have a civil remedy for a failed marriage. Even if we take a wider view beyond the EU, Malta is one of two or three remaining countries without legalised divorce. Are we right and all the others wrong or is our society still ruled by the Catholic Church who seeks to impose its teachings by the force of civil law rather than by faith and conviction?

Let me make it clear that no one is suggesting any liberal form of divorce in Las Vegas style. But for couples whose marriage has broken down irreparably and beyond any reasonable doubt, who have been living their separate civil lives for years on end, who no longer have minor children to take care of, how can such couples be deprived the remedy of a new marriage through divorce?

I have looked with interest at some EU social statistics for the year 2002 to try to find corroboration or otherwise to the claim that divorce is harmful to society. The marriage rate in Malta is 5.7 per 1000 inhabitants in comparison to 4.9 per 1000 inhabitants in EU -25. The absence of divorce in Malta is not dissuading people from getting married. There is no case to assume that its introduction would so dissuade.

Birth outside marriage in Malta is 15% of all births in 2002 compared to 29% average in EU -25. One would have thought that the facility to re-marry in other countries should lead to a lower birth rate outside marriage but clearly this is not the case. I can only conclude that in other countries families are being formed without first or second marriage irrespective of the facility of divorce. If we benchmark ourselves to particular countries with strong Catholic cultures we find that the marriage rate in Poland is 5.0 to our 5.7 per 1000 inhabitants and the births outside marriage are 14.4% of all births compared to our 15%. Without divorce Catholic Malta is in the same league as divorce-permitting Catholic Poland. This hardly lends any sniff of corroboration to the claim that controlled divorce would weaken the institution of the family or that it is harmful to society.

On the eve of our joining the EU there is a strong case for the divorce debate to be put on the national agenda and to stop pretending that the growing minority that needs a civil solution to broken marriages can continue to suffer in silence according to the will of the majority. Divorce is not for the majority. Like hospitals, smoking and Spanish it is for those who need it and wish it in the exercise of a civil right already enjoyed by the 500 million with whom we will be sharing the EU same passport. If we start now we might get there by the time we are ready to share the same currency.
   

Managing Change at KM

The Malta Independent 

 
Problems which were allowed to accumulate over a long period of time can never have easy, quick or simple solutions. Successful change management ensures that problems are avoided rather than addressed, on clear evidence that prevention is less painful than cure even where the cure is correct and timely, let alone where it is belated and inappropriate.

The resistance to change from the Unions side is predictable and understandable. They have seen it before in State controlled organisation where after a lot of big talk about change through bullying tactics, the State backs down under grass-roots pressure to organise some expensive fudge which pretends to deliver change whilst essentially preserving the status quo.

In a small country where everybody knows everybody else, where voters that will be negatively effected by the proposed changes can easily bring pressure to bear on their politicians, and where members` pressure on their Union and competition between Unions for membership, make it difficult for Union leaders to be pragmatic about the changes desired by management, the Unions` reaction can hardly be expected to be anything but total resistance.

In Air Malta`s case the issue is compounded by the fact that many of their corporate ailments are sourced from past strategic decisions related to huge investments in wrong configuration unsuitable for their core needs and a large investment in an Italian airline subsidiary which never really took off.

The perception that the workers are being made to carry the burden of management `strategic mistakes whilst management is not `carrying its fair share of the adjustment pain, especially with the engagement of an expatriate CEO with a remuneration package totally out of line with Maltese standards, can only re-inforce the unions in their rigidity to refuse change. While paying lip-service to the need for change they make their readiness to implement it so conditional as to make it impossible.

All the indications are that the negotiations going on are unlikely to lead to a fair resolution of the crisis and unless there emerges from the negotiating table a source of leadership capable of twinning change with equity and fairness, we risk industrial strife which could damage the wider tourist industry when it needs support rather than obstruction.

And when I say equitable and fair solutions I mean that it has to be fair not only on the management and the employees but it has also to be fair on the shareholders, i.e. on you and me who as private citizens paying taxes to the State deserve to be given value for whatever money the State has invested and means to invest in Air Malta.

Which forces me to conclude that the negotiations are being conducted with wrong tactics. Giving employees an assurance that there will be no redundancies is neither conducive to acceptance of change nor is it economically sensible.

If Air Malta can and should be doing much more with much less resources, why should they continue to waste resources through no redundancy guarantees? Why should employees at state organisations enjoy guarantees that their brothers and sisters in the private sector cannot enjoy? Where is the social justice if we are going to leave one social sector over-protected and another totally unprotected? 

Which leads me to conclude that it is wrong tactics to try to solve Air Malta`s problems in isolation. We need to see the much larger picture. We need to create a mechanism where employers, public or private, who have to conduct Air Malta type re-organisations to save their business from financial collapse, will have the facility to place their excess manpower in a state-sponsored re-training scheme. Such scheme will give redundant employees an opportunity to find alternative employment through acquisition of new skills, whilst remaining employees accept a freeze in their pay plus efficiency changes to ensure that their employer can survive and offer back, through sustainable growth, a productive job to those that had to be shed out to the State sponsored re-training scheme.

By taking a wider view of the problem we can put on the negotiating table the missing equity component which is currently leading employees to ask with honesty and conviction ` why me`? Why are others in central government and state organisations not subject to market competition pressures like Air Malta, exempted from re-structuring when in fact they could be costing the taxpayer much more and contributing much less?