Through Wikileaks we just learned that in 2008 Molly Bordanaro, the US ambassador to Malta, wrote to her government about the prospect of Labour being elected and Alfred Sant becoming prime minister.
"Labor's Sant," her Excellency reported, "can be erratic in his decision-making ... "
To many Maltese ears, calling a prospective prime minister's ways 'erratic' barely registers as criticism. Weaned on a culture in which everything is either black or white and every view is expressed in absolute terms, the nuances and hidden codes of diplomatic speak fly below our radar.
To us, an understatement is a manifestation of weakness. To diplomats, by contrast, it is the language in which they do business, the language of raw power.
So when the ambassador of the most powerful nation on earth reports that one of the least powerful might be electing an "erratic" prime minister, she is saying much more than the word suggests.
Molly Bordanaro was saying that Alfred Sant was unreliable, that this ridiculously sized island state could elect a made to measure prime minister. And that is heavy stuff.
2 comments:
Absolutely loved Ambassador Bordonaro. If President Bush took some ill-thought decisions, the decision to send Mrs Bordonaro here was certainly a good one. Much better then the happy-clappy ambassador we had recently.
'this ridiculously sized island state'
I'm just curious. Don't you agree that Malta should be an island state, or you prefer it to be part of some other country, like UK or Italy?
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