Pilates of the Mediterranean -Reflections on God, Politics, the Media and Society

The Pilates of the Mediterranean. Reflections on God, Politics, the Media and Society by Fr Joe Borg is an analysis of contemporary society with particular emphasis on Maltese society. The book presents a collection of 73 short essays about these subjects and more.

The title of the book is adopted from the title of a commentary he wrote in The Sunday Times of Malta this April.

“Pilates is one of the characters of the Passion narrative that I dislike a lot. He is worse than Judas and the Pharisees. Had he done what was expected of him the malicious work of Judas and the rest of the Jewish leaders would have come to nought” commented Fr Borg. He added that several people heading a number of state institutions together with many in civil society, the Church, industry and the rest of Maltese society prefer to wash their hands, Pilate-style, than do their duty come what may.

The book is based on a selection of commentaries chosen from the hundreds of commentaries that the author published in The Sunday Times and timesofmalta.com over the years. Fr Borg chose the best and most relevant to today’s situation in Malta. He re-wrote a good number of them to reflect developments.

The book proposes a vision for local politics based on the concept of Malta as our common home. It discusses the rise of cynicism, post-truth politics and, most of all, the tsunami of corruption under which public administration is floundering. Fr Borg expounds on the politically and socially explosive potential of the Christian concept of God and of the most important celebrations in Christianity, mainly Christmas, Lent and Easter. For him the Church is an outward-looking and all-inclusive community that should be compared more to a rainbow than a club. His love for the Church is shown in many commentaries but, at the same time, he does not shy away from criticising the institution where he feels such criticism is due.

The media receive particular attention, something to be expected from one of Malta’s best practitioners and academics in the field. He studies the media sector in a holistic way and outlines how it is radically changing the way we live and re-structure society. His writings manifest a concept of an inclusive and just that shuns the thruway culture and the neo-liberal economic system which spawns the inequalities we see around us.

The book also includes two long studies by Rev Prof George Grima, former Dean of the Faculty of Theology and by Prof Juanito Camilleri, former Rector of the University of Malta. Both make a critical appraisals of the reflections presented by Fr Joe Borg.