Saturday, November 15, 2008

I, Saviour Balzan, Is Clever

It is nice to think that an opinion set forth should be a decantered goblet of wisdom poured from a sage vessel of learned introspection, rather than the verbal equivalent of soiling your trousers when all you meant to do is break wind. In an ideal world, a thought expressed could be a distillation of education, wit and intelligence.
And yet, there comes a point while reading a recent Saviour Balzan column that brings to mind one of the best-known scenes from the biopic of Iris Murdoch, Iris. In the latter stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, Murdoch is comforted by life-long partner and husband, John Bayley, who tenderly recalls her vast body of written work, which she struggles any longer to comprehend. In a rare and dramatic moment of lucidity, her memories flood back and in sad, stilted measures, she proudly intones the words: “I … wrote … books.”
Now, she may have been completely gaga at that stage, but that scene demonstrates dramatically what even a mind withered by disease can achieve. Some will say that Murdoch was cheating in the first place, because not only did she bash out a few books in her time, but unlike Balzan she had probably read a few as well, without having to resort to the Internet for basic general knowledge.
All this being a roundabout way of saying that it never ceases to amaze how the pig ignorance of certain Maltese journalists forces them not only to filch material from the Internet in lieu being cultured, but also to think they stand any chance of getting away with it.
One might imagine that Balzan would have been too old to properly enjoy the cartoon Dogtanian in the mid-eighties, but it is evident that is where most of his knowledge of 17th century French royal intrigue comes from if his article on Richard Cachia Caruana is anything to go by. Well, Dogtanian and, of course, Wikipedia _ the refuge of every journalist in a hurry.
Just to back up a bit, Balzan attempts in his column to cast Cachia Caruana as the sinister behind-the-scenes operator _ a narrative so hackneyed and past its sell-by date that, oh my word, is that Smells Like Teen Spirit that I hear in the background? But witty to a T, he ploughs on with his distressingly idiotic attempt to draw a parallel between Cachia Caruana and Cardinal Richelieu.
Not that Balzan introduces the parallel that simply. Which is where his wicked and dimwitted scheme of plagiarism goes so terribly awry. For more, read ahead:
“People call him RCC. I prefer to simply call him “Cardinal Richard”, like Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu. Consecrated as a bishop in 1607, he later entered politics, becoming a secretary of State in 1616.”
The similarities between the two figures are striking, now that Balzan mentions them. Not, however, as startlingly identical word-for-word as the biographical notes on Richelieu provided by Balzan and Wikipedia.
A tip here for the aspiring plagiarist (as opposed to the pathetic, failure of a plagiarist that is Balzan): Change the odd word here and there, or Google _will_ catch you.
Also, try not to show off with additional detail like the date of Richlieu’s consecration as bishop. When even your mother is surprised that you have learnt to tie your own your shoelaces, you should not expect us to believe that you know _ off the top of your Cro-Magnon head _ that:
“[Richelieu’s] chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Hapsburg dynasty. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve this goal. His tenure was marked, among others, by the Thirty Years War.”
Again, as an aside, the parallels with Cachia Caruana are eerie.
The problem with Balzan’s article though goes beyond the mere impudence of thinking that copy and pasting out of an offline encyclopedia could pass for erudition. The cack-handed stupidity of trying to shoehorn this historical analogy falls even on the merits of Balzan’s own poorly written article.
He insists on never actually referring to Richard Cachia Cachia by name _ preferring like some loner ham-radio enthusiast to refer to him cryptically as RCC _ which tends to undermine his attempt to describe the villain as a dark and secretive master of shade and deviousness.
His (stolen) crib notes on Richelieu also do little to preserve the wretched, still-born baby in a shoebox misery of his argument:
“Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King’s “Chief Minister” or “First Minister”. As a result, he is sometimes considered to be the world’s first Prime Minister, in the modern sense of the term. He sought to consolidate the monarchy and crush domestic factions.”
Unless the mention of the monarchy is some unfortunate reference to queens, it is again hard to see the relevance of all this. Other than, that is, 2,000 words-plus don’t just write themselves and it will be a cold day in hell when Balzan actually has to write his whole column himself.
The said conceit behind this piss-poor hatchet job on Cachia Caruana truly begins to unravel before your eyes, when Balzan (again pilfering liberally from his fount of all knowledge) reminds us that:
“Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet l’Éminence rouge (“The Red Eminence”), from the red shade of a cardinal’s vestment. Well, RCC is undeniably l’Éminence grise.”
Well quite. And if he were not so lazy and easily distracted to read past the introduction of the Wikipedia article, he might have learnt that the term “éminence grise” was actually applied historically to quite another person altogether.
The clue is in the term really. François Leclerc du Tremblay _ Cardinal Richelieu’s right-hand man _ was a Capuchin friar who wore grey robes, as Wikipedia helpfully notes.
Is that, therefore, what Malta is doomed to? Opinion by plagiarism, penned by individuals whose very existence serves purely to act as a flesh-and-blood adjunct to electronic knowledge.
Next time you see that ruddy-faced goon staring out at you open-mouthed from his column portrait, just remember that:
“Richelieu is also a leading character in the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, as well as the film based on the same, in which he was portrayed as a main antagonist, and a powerful ruler... even more powerful than the King himself, though events like the ‘Day of the Dupes’ show that in fact he very much depended on the King to keep this power.”
Well, that settles that then.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, we get your point - Balzan padded his artcles with bits taken from wikipedia (Naughty Saviour -smack smack!).

Now can we have you views on the real subject of the article- namely that RCC has far too much power for an unelected apparatchick?

vlad said...

Thank you for your comment. Always good to know somebody is reading.
To answer your question, there is little in the article that specifically addresses in factual terms the nebulous claim that Richard Cachia Caruana wields some kind of invisible grip over the running of the Maltese government _ which is not to say that it may not be true.
Frankly, this blog does not exist (which it only does barely, anyway) to cast judgment on these cloak-and-dagger issues. Rather, it seems more interesting that one of the country’s most prominent journalists passes off this stale bit of rumour-mongering and shoddy plagiarism as some kind of genuine service to the general public.
It might be acceptable from somebody else, but since Balzan has made smug and unceasing moralizing the staple of his output, what excuse is there for this column? Statements like the one that follows say more about Balzan’s assumptions, as he himself appears to admit, than the details of Cachia Caruana’s political biography and his importance as a close confidante and adviser to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and his predecessor:

“My impression is that his idea of democracy is annihilating internal and external opposition and making any opponents irrelevant.”

That sentence could equally have been applied to Josef Stalin, which should tell you something about the stratosphere of hyperbole that we are dealing with here.
If Cachia Caruana currently continues to engage directly in Maltese politics, that is the issue which needs to be addressed, and any journalist worth his salt should be able to do their job and dig where needed. Balzan’s article does not perform that task, instead opting for a half-baked, stupid and _ on point of fact _ profoundly inaccurate historical parallel.
As for Cachia Caruana’s formal role as Malta’s diplomatic representative to the European Council, it is worth pointing about that this is not by definition an appointed position.
And just to go slightly beyond the remit of my intended reply, there is, of course, for anyone that does not live on the moon, a clear subtext to the issue of Cachia Caruana’s lack of electability in Malta. Again, that should have no bearing on the issues that pertain to his role as a leading force within the Nationalist nomenklatura, but it should be borne in mind that everyday reality and attitudes will sometimes compel individuals with political ambitions to seek to achieve them by alternative means.
Having said that, yes, Saviour Balzan is very naughty and deserves whatever mockery comes his way.

Anonymous said...

Sure, he may have over-egged a rather fancifully flavoured historical analogy omlette a little and maybe he should have disguised the wikipedia quotes better but essentially I don`t see anything wrong with the article. Strictly speaking, I would hardly define using quotes from wikipedia as plagiarism anyway.

Admittedly though, it was a small case of some shoddy journalistic practice in part of an opinion piece.

However, the main thrust of the article asks some valid questions though no, it does not quote any official, attributed sources. The process of informing people about what they will not learn through formal channels is too important to be dismissed as mere "rumour-mongering". The freedom to speculate about the motives and machinations of those in positions of power is a cornerstone of any serious democracy.

Or perhaps you prefer the stale political media culture that feeds you your daily fix of dire party propaganda press releases for cowed PBS newsreaders to parrot out like the lobotomized drones that they are on the 8 o`clock news.

Oh, and if you miss the Punch and Judy Show that is the 8 o`clock news then you can always read The Times. They will have the same press releases translated in practically the exact same form they were fed into the political party fax machines the previous afternoons. Don`t worry about them missing a party press release here or there or, god forbid, making editorial judgement calls on the news value of party press releases. All the unhallowed and unhinged horrors of unholy hell will descend on any member of the supposedly independent media establishment who elects to include one party`s press release but not the other`s.

I expect that you could watch PBS and read The Times and happily go about your existence barely even aware of the existence of the Richard Cachia Caruanas, Karl Roves and Alistair Campbells of this world. Just as they, and it seems you, would like to keep it.

I think it is also unfair to accuse Saviour Balzan of "moralising", unless you widen the defintion of moralising to include bemoaning a state of lawlessness, clientism and complaceny that continues to exist in your country to the detriment of the majority of its people.

Finally, everyone refers to Richard Cachia Caruana as RCC. That is how he is known. Deriding Saviour Balzan for referring to a public figure by the term he is most commonly known by is scraping the bottom of a barrel which, in truth, was not very full to start with.

Whatever his shortcomings, at least Saviour Balzan attempts to impart to his readers a true perspective on where the real power in Malta lies. Who else is going to do that? Answer me that if you can.

vlad said...

By arguing that Balzan is not obliged to actually name Richard Cachia Caruana, because everybody knows that he is known as RCC undermines your broader point somewhat.
Cachia Caruana is either well-known and notorious, or he isn't.
Balzan is either lifting the veil to reveal the puppetmaster, or he's trotting out some hackneyed analysis that self-appointed political pundits have been exchanging since heaven knows when.
The article in question neither adds nor subtracts anything from the sum total of what people think they know about Cachia Caruana and what their views of him are.
What it does do is make Balzan look silly for lifting indiscriminately from a website in a cringeworthy attempt to make himself look erudite. At any rate, as I said before, this Mephisto line (a la Mandelson) is as old as the hills, which makes it particularly mystifying why it was written this year, a good two decades since PN came to power (disregarding Sant interregnum).
I have no beef with Malta Today's general remit to attempt and shake local journalism up with some good old-fashioned muck-racking and simple straightforward observational reporting, but Balzan's column fell in neither category. If it did _ or if it weren't so feebly based on a fatuous contrivance _ then I would be the last to grouse.
If Balzan was attempting "to impart to his readers a true perspective on where the real power in Malta lies," then he fails quite miserably by any standard.

Anonymous said...

The very point Saviour Balzan`s article seeks to address is that while Richard Cachia Caruana may be well-known in political and media circles, his murky role in the actual governance of the country is perhaps less than common knowledge to the general public.

That notwithstanding, Cachia Caruana is hardly unknown to the wider public, if not least due an attempt made on his life and the ensuing trial.

I think the issue of whether there is any real significance to referring to him as RCC is something of a whiffy red herring anyway.

After all, I may refer to my computer as a PC but, by goodness, that does not mean that I suspect my computer of taking part in all manner of dark and dastardly Machiavellian plots to usurp power from democractially elected leaders.

But who are political "pundits" supposed to be appointed? Isn`t this very blog itself a form of punditry?

On the one hand you decry a lack of democratic consensus in the appointment of "political pundits", who occupy roles that are not traditionally appointed while on the other you brush aside the issue of who is effectively running the country, a role which is traditionally subject to appointment by the electorate in a democratic country.

Yes, maybe Saviour Balzan`s article did contain a few instances of lazy journalism but I felt your analysis of it was mean-spirited and overly pedantic.

Did Saviour Balzan`s article shed new light on this issue? Perhaps not so much but sometimes just reminding people of issues pertinent to the running of their country is worthwhile in itself.

Inspector Cucumbero has spoken.

vlad said...

Oh, Inspector Cucumbero certainly cannot be accused of not speaking.
As for mean-spirited, there would be little point to this blog (and there is little point to this blog, in fact) without an unhealthy dose of bile.
Not to drag this out beyond bearableness, but by "self-appointed pundits", it should be clear that I was not suggesting political commentators ought to be selected by a government panel. Malta unfortunately abounds with individuals who believe themselves to be divinely inspired founts of wisdom and are not shy in semi-literately reciting their cretinous and tedious views in public _ usually in the pages of The Times. Anyway, the reference was throwaway and hardly deserves the reflection that I'm devoting to it.
As for myself, I reject all charges of punditry and will not hesitate in initiating legal action against anybody that tries to tar me with that brush, Inspector or no Inspector.
I am simply tired of guff and crap columnists. To quote that famous line from the movie Network, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Or at least I was in 2006, when I could be still be bothered to maintain this blog properly.

Fredu said...

Ultimately there's no two ways about it. RCC is a slippery customer worth investigating. Properly. Sensibly. And with a tightly pegged nose.