Thoughts and happenings from a life on Malta

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VERA I ♥ U

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VERILY I ♥ U

VERBALLY I ♥ U

VERMOUTH I ♥ U

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At the end of October of last year, Christmas decorations were already being put up on roundabouts along the arterial roads (see post: Merry Christmas). I was heading to the beach for an afternoon swim when I saw them adorning the perimeter of one of the Xemxija twin roundabouts (doesn’t have the same ring to it as “twin towers” but that’s what this country can afford). Holly and candle shapes and a Merry Christmas sign – all waiting for the night to fall and the electricity to flow, to flash these out-of-season greetings. Eventually, plastic dolls representing holy families, sons of god and wise men mushroomed in the turf and camped for a few months in the maelstrom of fumes and horns, screeching tyres and irate drivers. How the mighty have fallen!

Now it’s St Valentine who’s impatient to make his entrance – and an elevated one at that. A billboard is already up on the way to St Julians (the town, named after the man who slaughtered his parents) advertising teddy bears as an ideal gift for the 14th February. What exactly does this furry soft toy say to your romantic partner on the day? “You’re ever so huggable darling” or “Isn’t it time you got an all-over epilation done?”. What I’m really looking forward to are the restaurants’ special menus – essentially bog-standard meals but with over-the-top prices – that will soon make an appearance in the newspapers. You know the sort: a tomato soup starter is renamed Romeo’s Bleeding Heart; a main of chicken breast with chips becomes Juliet’s Welcoming Bosom; for dessert, Arouse My Passion,  two scoops of ice-cream with a strikingly erect wafer tube.

Suha Arafat, the wife of the late Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, is facing the possibility of having an international arrest warrant issued against her by the Tunisian government. Without going into the merits of the case, I can’t help noticing how prompt she is in trying to rope in religion to her defence. Only last week, in my post Merry Christmas, I commented that “Many on this island shuddered upon hearing the words “Islam” and “sharia”, immediately fearing  that Maltese Catholicism was facing a new threat.”  Ms Arafat is finely attuned to Maltese fears and sentiments so, with an Islamist party emerging victorious in recent Tunisian elections, she stated (as quoted in today’s timesofmalta.com), “I have the Madonna of Malta, she’s with me. I always pray to her and I know she knows that I’m innocent and she will not let me down.”

Why exactly is Ms Arafat, a Muslim, praying to the Madonna of Malta, who, as per our Constitution, is Roman Catholic?

Click here for follow-up post: An intercession by the Madonna of Malta