It's a beautiful day

When I interviewed Yousef Lamlum in March, he described Muammar Gaddafi as "a bad dream", who wrecked Libya and brought misery on his people.
Mr Lamlum, lives in Malta, having escaped the oppression of a regime that would not let him and his family go because one of his brothers, based in London, was critical of Gaddafi.
It was March, and Nato bombings had only just started. Rebel forces had advanced, fallen back and a stalemate looked likely.
But Mr Lamlum was hopeful. The most important thing was that Libyans had broken the fear barrier and this meant there was no turning back.
Today, Mr Lamlum like many other Libyans can look back and truly say that his country has woken up from a very bad dream that lasted 42 years.
It is indeed a beautiful day for him and the Libyan people as the regime that ruled with an iron fist crumbles in front of their eyes.
It may take another few days before calm and stability return to Tripoli where pockets of resistance still exist but the more important question now is what comes next.
It will be a future which the Libyan people themselves must design. But in all this the European Union and the United States can play a limited but important supporting role to ensure the transition is smooth and orderly.
The beautiful day that Libyans woke up to must not be allowed to turn into a sour experience for ordinary people. The long wait is over but a long road still lies ahead. The energy, the enthusiasm, the determination and the personal sacrifice employed over the past six months must now be channelled into building a new democratic Libya.

God drives a Tiguan

God has come a long way since driving around on a donkey, I thought to myself this week while driving behind a Volkswagen Tiguan with a number plate that said 'God'.
For the uninitiated in cars, Tiguan is the German car maker's sport utility vehicle. God is probably finding it tough to get around these days and that is possibly why he chose a four-wheel drive to go round Malta's streets.
The vision of this 'God' in front of me while driving along Aldo Moro road in Marsa reminded me of the days when I used school transport to get back home. At one point in secondary school we had a bus driver, who used to swear his head off incessantly. It earned him the nickname 'il-midghi' - the one who swears.
He acknowledged the obsessive amount of swear words he used and many times tried to bite his tongue only to let loose at the next corner when a driver tried to jump him. But quaintly, despite the swearing that mingled God, his mother and her son in a litany that included the odd sexual organ here and there and a couple of vivid halucinating descriptions of where to fuck off, on his dashboard was a sticker proclaiming his love for the Virgin Mary.
The public display of faith is an interesting facet of a society born and bred in Catholic tradition. Some do so out of tradition, others as some form of good luck charm to ward off evil, some do so simply for the artistic or cultural value of the display and yet some do so because they truly believe they should expose what they believe in.
I am not sure what category the Tiguan and the il-Midghi fall in but in all this I sense a yearning to establish one's identity, whether as part of a community or as an individual. The outward expression of faith may even be in complete conflict with the person's behaviour but who cares. After all life is full of contradictions and in true Catholic fashion, God forgives.
But for those who believe in God, or who like me are on this eternal journey of understanding, the question keeps popping up: who and where is this God?
Is he the one driving the Tiguan? Is he the one that allows Fukushima to blow up? Is he the one who is present in the beautiful yellow butterfly that fluttered in the field next to where I live the other day?
They are the same existential questions I asked when still a secondary school student and which came back to me while driving behind God's Tiguan. I do not have the answers but I possibly worry less about them today as I concentrate on the here and now. The afterlife can wait!

Compassion, anyone?

A mechanic can tell what a car has been through by descending into the garage pit and inspecting it from below. It may seem an obvious statement but these wise words were uttered by a friend of mine, a Dominican priest, who worked for many years in Brazil.
"You need to go underground to understand communities and individuals," he told me, drawing from years of experience in the Brazilian favelas.
Understanding the causes of yesterday's riots at the migrant detention centre in Safi is as important as cracking down on those who created the mayhem.
What the migrants did was wrong and will do little to help their cause. But understanding the frustration of able bodied men who are locked up for a maximum period of 18 months (it may be less) after escaping a harrowing war in Libya is a necessary mental exercise that society must perform.
Malta is justified in sending back migrants who do not qualify for any form of UN protection back to their country of origin. The fact that they have been working or living in Libya for some years should be irrelevant to their cause in these instances.
However, the issue at stake here is whether to keep these migrants detained in closed centres until arrangements are made for their departure. What is the difference between releasing them now after their presence has been documented and in 18 months' time?
It should not make any difference to the State because the fate of the migrants has already been decided. The only difference immediate release will make is to the well being of the migrants. It will reduce frustration and lower tension.
But somehow, the word compassion seems to disappear when the discourse revolves around migrants, it seems.

Absolution for an 'honest parent'

The Church Response Team in 2003 had investigated Fr Carmelo Pulis on sexual abuse allegations made by a care worker who caught him in a compromising situation with a 15-year-old boy.
In what appears to be a very quick decision, the Response Team acquitted Fr Pulis and told him to "continue taking care of the children like an honest parent".
If this isn't gross misjudgment by the Response Team headed by retired Judge Victor Caruana Colombo, I do not know what is.
Only weeks after the Reponse Team absolved Fr Pulis in 2003 the 'honest parent' was investigated by the police and charged in court on a number of sexual abuse cases, including the one involving the 15-year-old boy.
The 'honest parent' has now been found guilty by Magistrate Saviour Demicoli and sentenced to six years in jail. Commenting on the particular incident involving the 15-year-old boy, Magistrate Demicoli said Fr Pulis's behaviour was highly disgusting and contradictory.
The Response Team's time is up. It has proved to be inefficient (it took seven whole years to reach its conclusions after it opened a second investigation in 2003 on allegations of sexual abuse), ineffectual and far from reassuring as to the thoroughness of investigations conducted.
Sexual abuse allegations regarding priests should be referred to the competent civilian authorities for investigation and prosecution like any normal citizen. Unless the Church believes it is above the law.

If ever they will...

Lawrence Grech does not hug his daughter. He shuns emotional engagement with her. A simple pat on the head of his daughter, a sign of encouragement for ordinary fathers, becomes an emotional ordeal. Lawrence Grech fears that physical proximity with his daughter may be tantamount to abuse.
It is this indelible scar left on Mr Grech by years of sexual abuse at the hands of three priests that shocked me most when reading the court judgment this week that sent Fr Charles Pulis and Fr Godwin Scerri to jail.
The judgment is rife with sordid details of the despicable acts the priests performed on innocent, vulnerable children. But it is Mr Grech's testimony of his fear to hug his daughter that has struck me most, being myself a father.
It must have been horrible for Mr Grech to have suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to take care of him but it must be painful not to be able to embrace his daughter out of fear that the monster may return. It is unfair on any parent to be denied the joy to embrace his children.
Lawrence Grech suffered. He carried his pain in silence and when he decided to speak out in 2003 it was the start of a very long and difficult journey. Some believed him. Many questioned his motive. Others dismissed him as an angry man.
But he did not falter. He survived unlike others who passed through the same ordeal he went through and ended up on the rocks as a result of the stolen childhood they experienced.
Justice may have been served by the Magistrate's Court this week but the scars will take much longer to heal, if ever they will.