It’s incredible what total frauds many of our academics have turned out to be. Currently, Maltese academics are the most efficient lackeys of the Government. Olvin Vella has always been like this – fraudulently wheeling and dealing with different government administrations to pursue his interests. Many of them are like him and I know them very well because I have worked with them for a number of years as a head of a cultural entity apart from being a previous University of Malta student. You would think that Maltese academics would provide the bedrock for progressive politics in Malta, but on the contrary: Maltese academics provide a bedrock of support for governments in exchange for jobs, roles, and positions at the University and the government (the University of Malta is controlled by a government-appointed Council).
One prime example of this corrupt academic landscape is undoubtedly Carmen Sammut who published papers against Daphne Caruana Galizia, praised Joseph Muscat, and was rewarded with the Vice-Rectorship at the University of Malta. Here, in Olvin Vella’s case, we have very typical fraudulent behavior of a Maltese academic.
Apparently, Olvin Vella was told by the Minister for Culture, Owen Bonnici that a new cultural entity for the Maltese language was to be set up. Olvin, who is President of the Maltese Language Council didn’t even inform his colleagues of the minister’s decision. As soon as the news came out, Olvin made a very ingratiating statement in support of Owen Bonnici’s decision to appoint Norma Saliba as head of a new cultural entity. Now, the Council is pushing back with a legal battle.
As for the excuse that the Council of Language doesn’t have employees and resources, this is not the government’s fault and it isn’t a political issue. The Council of Maltese Language has a CEO called Thomas Pace whose job, as any other CEO is to obtain funding for the council’s projects. For many years, public resources and funds for cultural entities were available and could have been tapped by cultural executives. Apart from the ample availability of public funds, there are also ample opportunities in the private sector. Thomas Pace has failed year after year to provide any results for the council and he blames the government and, unknowingly by doing so, is admitting his total incompetence.
Executives of cultural entities should be executives like any other executive and not hobbyists with graduate degrees who want to live a bohemian-intellectual lifestyle. Being an executive is a grueling job that requires substantial financial and management acumen, especially in the cultural industries where profit margins are cut-throat and generating revenue is very difficult. The Council of Maltese Language’s role is to regulate the language and promote it and the regulatory and linguistic aspect is something that concerns academics, publishers, and writers, but the operations of the Council should be taken over by an experienced executive. Still, the majority of the cultural industries in Malta can’t come to terms with these facts as they are filled with incompetent lackeys.
The government will exploit any weaknesses in cultural entities to push its own agenda and appoint its own incompetent lackeys. Practically, all of our cultural entities are run by Labour Party lackeys who are completely incompetent and unfit for their roles: the Arts Council, the National Book Council, the Culture Directorate, Heritage Malta, and the list goes on. This is not a problem only for our cultural industries which are currently going through some horrible challenges, but it is also damaging to our economy and the nation’s intellectual development as a whole. Our culture industries have great economic potential, but culture professionals like me who work in the culture industries full-time are being short-changed by the government’s nepotism and rampant corruption in these entities and we desperately await a time when a new government will look at our industries in a completely different manner.
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Historian and Publisher
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