Tales from the Land of Serenity Part 12

‘Tales from the Land of Serenity’ came into being shortly after the horrific assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta on 16th October 2017. A well-known investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb, minutes away from her home in Bidnija. The title of these stories derives from words spoken by the Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, a few days after her murder: ‘When the MEPs visit Malta, they will do so with a sense of serenity…’

In what was an unusual sequence of events for a group of citizens affectionately known as ‘passive inebriates’, certain sections of the serene and civil population – those normally assumed to be mainly concerned with riding atop an open-top bus waving their hard-earned diplomas – became headline news in the Land of Serenity.

In an election deliberately designed to mimic those in which their own dear parents participated, what should have been a peaceful and necessary part of the democracy on which serenity is founded turned into a bit of a bunfight, except some of the buns were burning while others were dowsed in unidentifiable liquids and hurled towards the unassuming spectators otherwise known as the custodians of law and order.

These green saplings of serenity, some of whom already had their eyes firmly fixed on the role of leader one fine day, were soon transformed into an unruly mob but would no doubt be suitably punished by their Mummy or their Daddy when they arrived home after the hour of curfew once the shenanigans had fizzled out. Being deprived of pocket money and grounded for a week or more is no joke when you’ve got serious exams to study for.

Meanwhile, the scholastic radicals in the leafy ivory towers were also waking up from slumber and making noises – pooh! pooh! nay! nay! rhubarb say I rhubarb! This was translated by a team of erudite scholars to mean there was dissent – although the word itself was never used – from the perceived attempt by outside forces who had permanent residence in Castille to infiltrate the dusty corridors of academic authority and impose governmental restrictions on the absolute freedom of astute critical analysis for which the hallowed university was famed.

Those halcyon days of roses, wine and summer yore seemed a distant memory, an oft-played tune now fading in the mind. Nothing was sacred, it appeared, in the land where faith was all. But. as luck would have it, or the miracle of prayer, the construction of a new fireworks factory was announced on the even more serene (if such a thing could be possible) little sister island of Gozo. In keeping with a land oft-seen as a curious cocktail of fireworks and saints, the planned site for the manufacture of highly flammable and dangerously explosive toxic products was, of course, beside the holiest of sanctuaries – a humble little chapel of major historical importance.

But none come holier than the holy family in this land of reverential serenity. So when a barrani from the never never world of somewhere else arrived on these sweet shores and expressed no small amount of surprise at the almost non-existent debate about – (citizens cover your ears and bury your heads in the sand to block out the word that dares not speak its name) – … … a… … a… … abortion (gasp, gulp, hands up to mouths in awful shock). So when this univited intruder from the faraway kingdom of Europe arrived on these fair shores breathing words of untold blasphemy, the white-clad citizens were equally uncouth in their response.

Again unusually for this calm and placid land but the Council of Europe (wherever the hell that was) Commissioner for Human Rights was heckled by the immaculately moral majority who rebuked him sternly and reminded him that ‘Murder of innocent lives is not permitted on these islands!’

The European Commissioner for Human Rights frowned a little and looked around to make sure he was in the same terrain of serenity in which a journalist had been blown to bits less than a month before. He blinked twice, pinched himself then, hearing the sound of jubilant fireworks, was reassured that his faculties had not deserted him and there he was, safe and sound, slap bang in the middle of that Mediterranean model of serenity, fashioned from the ancient clay of dynamic limestone, harbouring just the faintest whiff of sulphur.[image error]