Nero had his circuses, but Caruana goes one better - with Calentita

According to the historian Juvenal, when the dictator Nero wanted to divert attention from policies that were proving disastrous to Rome, the tyrant gave them ‘bread and circuses'...food and entertainment which were intended to keep the increasingly critical population quiet. And, as we take out our red shirts and white shorts in readiness for next week's National Day, it is almost impossible to escape the parallels of Nero's behaviour and that of Gibraltar's own dictator and Chief Minister Peter Caruana.

"Give them calentita, a few hundred red and white ballons, and a bit of Mayoral ceremony," it is not hard to imagine the Chief Minister saying in the disdainful tones of Queen Marie Antoinette as she told her doomed courtiers to ‘let them eat cake'. "If it was good enough for Nero, it's good enough for me," one can imagine him adding.

Our Political History

Last year - with the haughty and ego-sure attitude Gibraltar has come to expect from the current tenant of No 6 (and with an almost contemptuous disregard for both our political history and the sentiments of our people) - Caruana proclaimed that henceforth  National day would no longer be a "political" event'; and, to emphasise the new status of September 10, appointed Gibraltar's first "non-political Mayor", handing this particular poisoned chalice to the unfortunate Momy Levy.

With an equally heavy-handedness, the Chief Minister also moved the venue of his new-look celebrations from Casemates to John Mackintosh Square where, the previous year, he had been roundly boo-ed by a section of the crowd. (It was at this ceremony, too, that Caruana's political ‘bouncers' refused Marie-Lou Guerrera access to the dais with the other political leaders, although she was then still a member of the newly-formed PDP executive. And it was here, too, that PDP leader Keith Azopardi did himself no favours by failing to insist that his fellow founder of the PDP join the assembled VIPs. Many thought that he should have left the dais in a gesture of protest.)

But despite Caruana's decision to emasculate the traditional ceremonies and shift them away from the scene of his previous embarrassment, last year the opposition political parties and the SDGG held their ceremony at Casemates...and attracted a considerably bigger audience than the revelers outside the City Hall - in spite of the free calentita. This year the SDGG - which, apart from its role in organizing the traditional rally, is increasingly irrelevant in political terms - has again organized a gathering Casemates where, rightly at least one of the speakers (Bossano and Azopardi will again both be there) will remind Gibraltar that our National Day had its roots in the 1967 referendum which solidly rejected links with Spain and set the course on which Sir Joshua Hassan and Peter Isola (Sen) led the Rock towards the greater autonomy that we enjoy today.

A Consummate Politician

The ‘Palomo' who remains Caruana's alter ego cannot accept this rejection of Spain, and in many ways the annual reminder will have twisted the mental dagger painfully in early September each year.  But if, as many believe, his resentment of Gibraltar's rejection of Spain was a factor in his decision to change the nature of the National celebration, the Chief Minister kept this aspect under wraps. For he is a consummate politician - in spite of his recent string of faux pas - and were that particular truth proved it would spell political suicide.

So instead Caruana turned to his own seriously-flawed creation - Gibraltar's new constitution. This, he claims has removed the Rock's ‘colonial' status and given Gibraltar ever more self-government (though the Caruanan interpretation of the ‘status' was effectively disputed at the UN by Joe Bossano earlier this year, evoking from the Chief Minister another of his fits of personal pique.) Ergo, it is no longer relevant to stress Gibraltar's links with Britain...or continue to press for self-determination. The egotistic Chief Minister is satisfied with the current situation, the personal power which he has taken unto himself through measures in the new Constitution, and the opportunities offered by the Tripartite talks to strengthen links with Madrid. And if he content we all should be content. Peter Richard Caruana knows best...

But, of course, he does not; and the political rally at Casemates will go ahead.

And this is important for, as PDP leader Keith Azopardi said this week: "A properly organised cross-party event sends a clear signal that we are united as a people on the fundamental issues of sovereignty and self-determination. That is a message worth sending once a year whatever the stage of our constitutional development and whether we are decolonised or not."

And there's one bright spot in the Caruana version of National Day. This year we again will be spared the endless procession of British MPs enjoying a ‘freebie' visit to the Rock at the taxpayers' expense while mouthing insincere platitudes or making political promises they had no intention of keeping.