Enough with the humble, because it isn't praise and it's not complimentary either
Mary Fenech Adami lies critically ill in hospital and the only praise the newspapers and internet commenters can come up with is that she is humble.
What sort of praise is that? It’s an insult, not a compliment. I can think of many words of praise for Mrs Fenech Adami, whose temperament and outlook I greatly admire, but they don’t include ‘humble’.
Mary Fenech Adami is not a humble woman. She is a strong one, made of steel. She is clearly as tough as they come. She would have had to be, to raise five children in the most appallingly stressful circumstances, to be married to the leader of the Opposition in times of great violence, to be the wife of the prime minister is times of great change.
Humble! Where did that come from? Her self-confidence and self-assurance are impressive. In a country where women in their 80s have the dark hair of a 30-year-old and where seeing a flock of white-haired British tourists comes as a shock to the system because we’re so unaccustomed to it, Mary Fenech Adami has resolutely refused to dye hers and has faced the public with an ‘I don’t give a damn what you think’ approach that comes from a strong ego. And incredibly, there are people who think that her lack of vanity is evidence of being humble, rather than self-assurance.
This is a woman who sticks to her guns no matter what. She didn’t refuse to live in San Anton Palace because she is ‘humble’. She refused because she is self-confident and will not be harried or bullied. She refused because she couldn’t be fagged to live in a palace with servants and just wasn’t interested. Mrs Humble would have gone along with it to keep her husband happy. Mrs Fenech Adami said, ‘Enough. I’m not budging.’ And good for her.
Mrs Fenech Adami should be championed and celebrated because she is strong and tough, not because she is humble, which she isn’t. Her quiet determination is the quiet determination of strength, not the silence of humble vulnerability.
The fact that she helps others greatly and splendidly does not mean she is humble. It means her inner strength is so deep that she has enough left over to give to others.
To call Mrs Fenech Adami humble is to demean her, to make her small, to make out that she thinks little of herself when it is quite obvious – to me, at least – that her defining characteristics are her quiet dignity and her self-respect. When she described on television how she was attacked in her own home by men who even ripped the earrings from her ears, wounding her, causing her to escape over the rooftops with her young children, what impressed me was her lack of drama, her plain description, her stiff upper lip. So tough.
Now she is insulted and demeaned by Maltese chauvinists who mistake this steely personality for something else, setting her up as the Pauline ideal of the virtuous woman (“a silent wife is a gift from God”), as with this unbelievable comment on timesofmalta.com:
Mary Fenech Adami is, and for ever will be, a very exemplary humble woman – very much nearing the ideal.
Give Mrs Fenech Adami what she is due, for heaven’s sake. As the expression goes, there are no flies on her. A humble woman would never have survived the last 35 years and kept her sanity.
God bless you, Mrs Fenech Adami. You’re one hell of a tough, strong, tenacious woman, and it’s my guess that you’re more of a man than all the men put together who are now making you out to be their ideal of humble womanhood.
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My thoughts exactly! I would never have thought her as “humble” and, indeed behind every great man, there is an even greater woman, which, in Fenech Adami’s case was Mrs. Fenech Adami.
Yesterday my husband joked about it and he was right: mur ghid lilek, he told me, to renounce to your life for mine. And he was right. That is why I admire her mostly. I do not have the strength to be a wife like her and now that I am a wife (though not yet a mother) I can imagine how impossible it would have been had she not been the great strong and tenacious woman she is.
[Daphne – Had she been born in another era, she would have been the prime minister herself, or running some large organisation. If you think about it, there really isn’t any difference between her and her husband. They are virtually identical.]
My thoughts exactly, Daphne. That is what I always thought really. She would have been the prime minister and she would have braved the storms magnificently.
Still, she did give her fair share to society and we owe her a lot too. To think that so many things we take for granted every day are the direct fruit of what the PN did back in those days, even the broadband connection to internet I am using now to name something which we take so much for granted, we should be really grateful.
The PN invented broadband? Go figure.
I must admit that reading your article on Mrs Mary Fenech Adami, I felt emotional. You are right, she is a great character who enjoys the admiration of many and many of us who have had the privilege to know her. Mrs Fenech Adami is in our hearts and thoughts and prayers in this difficult phase of her life.
I suspect they could not find an English translation to what Maltese encapsulate in the graphical “ma tiffanfrax”.
A topical translation could have been “not the Facebook kind”
Anyway, your piece delivers the best credit, words can give.
Well said Daphne!
Mrs Fenech Adami had to be a tough cookie to be able to go through all that destiny threw in her direction without cracking down – ever.
I think the adjective ‘humble’ derives from the fact that she never got too big for her boots and always remained approachable.
[Daphne – That does not make a person humble. It makes them well bred. Humbleness, too, is a show and a performance, and as such it is as ill-bred as showing off. You will generally find that it is chavs who bang on about being humble and acting humble. Humble and flash are the two sides of the same chavvy coin, and I find both offensive.]
It has to be seen within the context of the Maltese mentality, where people tend to get this fake sense of grandeur when they reach a certain status or position in life, which probably not even a multimillion-dollar worth Hollywood movie celebrity would have.
[Daphne – It is not a Maltese mentality. It is the mentality of a certain class of person, the world over.]
So a down-to-earth woman like Mary Fenech Adami, self-assured but anything but humble as you say, comes across as humble “ghax ma tkabbritx”.
[Daphne – She doesn’t come across that way. She is SEEN way, and then only by certain people. Not by me. Where I come from, that is 100% normal behaviour and nobody describes it as humble, because it isn’t.]
You are completely right. I knew her as a young girl in Sliema. I would describe her as a very persuavive person. She could persuade a stone to walk, in a very gentle way.
She is also a very sincere lady and quite hardheaded,when she knows that she is right.
I wish her a speedy recovery.
Ghaliex kellha titkabbar? I never think that a politician should “jitkabbar” and less so his/her wife/husband.
It should be a life of service and not of tkabbir.
Lomax, I’m not talking about what people SHOULD do, but what people ACTUALLY do in real life. Yes, a lot of people’s ego grows larger than life when they reach a certain status.
Mary Fenech Adami was never that type, and that’s why she is perceived as being different from people of her same stature, and wrongly given the adjective ‘humble’.
Daphne, you couldn’t have put it better!
Unfortunately only a very few can claim to have Mary Fenech Adami’s tenacity. One cannot help but admire her and feel saddened at the news of her condition.
May God bless her and see her family through during this difficult period.
Humility is not a trait of Mary Fenech Adami.
For me she is a woman of steel. The second-best man in Malta from the mid-Seventies to the late Eighties, after her husband.
She was there, always. She played no mean part in the delivery of Malta from the brink of the abyss.
She will forever be remembered for her steadfastness in the face of unspeakable adversity.
Maybe the Almighty has decided that we have had her for long enough and we do not deserve her anymore.
I do not feel she requires much of our prayers.
Rather, Malta needs hers. Badly.
Well done, Daphne – Mrs Fenech Adami is the the Iron Lady, a good example to us all. I saw that attack on her home. I saw her face full of blood, her children terrified, and her mother-in-law spend the last years of her life trying to recover. I wish her a speed recovery.
May God give her all the help and faith she needs in these difficult moments. From the little I know Mrs. Fenech Adami, she is a fantastic person, caring and strong. Once in the middle of an electoral campaign in the dark days of the 80s as a young teenager I skipped school and visited her house to help prepare some flyers and promotional electoral material. When she saw me she made me a mug of tea and gave me ‘ottini’ but kindly and firmly told me I would be always welcome at her house as long as it was not during school hours.
She did not like being followed by plain clothes policemen when shopping at the local grocer Is-Sincier, not because she was ‘humble’ but because she felt she did not need it (she is loved by everyone in Birkirkara) and she did not need the show.
For me Mary Fenech Adami will forever remain Malta’s First Lady!
please change was to is!
Humble is a literal translation of the Maltese ‘umli’, a word widely used – often improperly – in all sorts of contexts.
In the case of Mrs Fenech Adami I think the correct English translation would be ‘unassuming’ rather than ‘humble’.
You got it so right Daphne,,,,,.so what’s new ?
You have a point but in a country where many have egos the size of boulders I can also see why some would attribute humility as a quality of those worthy of admiration.
Mrs Success Muscat risks being outdone in humbleness. This will not do.
Once Hercule Poirot put it as” humbility” but he was Belgian, after all.
No further discussion about this topic required. It’s spot on like many other times.
On a different note:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110705/local/old-valletta-police-station-demolished.374030
I really can’t understand why a bunch of numpties would write on Timesofmalta.com saying how wrong the government’s priorities are. Trying to compare the pensions issue with rebuilding City Gate and Pjazza Helsien etc. is comparing chalk with cheese.
One is recurrent expenditure (implying that it’s an ongoing cost year after year after year) while the other one is a once-off investment (implying that it adds value in one way or the other and won’t cost the country a cent once it’s done other than maintenance which is a very normal expense in any part of the world.) These people underestimate the wealth generated from carrying out such projects – has anyone thought about the number of people employed to rebuild the whole Valletta entrance? Does it not follow therefore that these employees will then have money to spend in the Maltese economy? Consequently, can’t they see this as a way how to keep ir-rota ddur?
One thing they don’t realise is that the Fenech-Adami administration was hardcore capital project oriented – which is when many people in Malta saru nies. What’s wrong with some capital investments after all?
Sometimes I get the feeling that they see this as “mar nefaqhom il-gasino flok temgha lit-tfal” Simply obscene reasoning and is a very evident sign of a failed educational system.
And has anybody ever tried calling the Ministry for Education? It’s dead on the other side. No way can you get anyone to speak to you.
Kind of woman that would never complain, gentle and so protective of her family. A veritable tower of strenghth. Love her to bits.
Daphne, you have managed to condense my thoughts about this great woman in one brilliant article. Well done!
Meanwhile any thoughts, anybody, why the ‘filtered’ wifi available in playgrounds etc.. stops this site from being accessed? Then again it might be something wrong with my set up, but I have tried it both with a netbook and a smart phone.
[Daphne – It’s blocked through MITTS, right across the public sector network, apparently.]
Not entirely. There are islands of civilisation in that Maoist wilderness.
It is also blocked by McAfee site advisor….irritating.
I had the same problem with McAfee. I solved it by adding this site to the ‘safe list’ of websites within the program.
Why is your blog blocked? The other day I was in one magistrate’s inner sanctum (sigrieta, In Maltese, I believe) and the deputy registrar was surfing through timesofmalta.com and eating rabbit stew. No, I am not making this up.
All sorts of interesting things happen in sigrieti. Rabbit stew is the least of them.
I like surfing through Daphne’s blog while snorting Nescafe in my inner sanctum. It makes me high.
Then they should block timesofmalta.com. The rabbit stew eating peasant / deputy registrar I mentioned earlier who can probably influence the magistrate in some way or other was reading the comments section of the TOM while at work (and eating rabbit stew).
Yes it is -to be fair most blog sites are filtered.
Well said! She sure is one successful woman.
Aptly put .
OH how right you are, Daphne. The word “humble” offended me right away, but I would never had been able to express the feelings it stirred in me, as you did.
I did have the honour to know Mrs. Fenech Adami personally a bit in my life, through political activities, and yes the strength of that woman was felt and visible for all to see.
I do not like either the phrase “behind a great man, there is a great or greater woman”. This type of greatness is not because the woman is greater or the man is greater. They are greater together. We all witnessed the classical example of such greatness in Dr. & Mrs. Fenech Adami.
I met Mrs Fenech Adami once. It was enough. I would say she has the captivating serenity and modesty of powerful people who have seen and done great things in life.
As you say, Daphne, God bless you, Mrs Fenech Adami.
What I find remarkable about Mrs. Fenech Adami is that she is the person who supported, in his private life, the statesman who changed Malta from a declining society to a European country full of enthusiasm.
She never stole the scene from her husband; she never made the news for any reason. She never interfered in politics. She was always there, but you wouldn’t even notice her, and the attention remained always on the nation’s leader.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, but that’s not praise. It’s actually extremely patronising and offensive. WOMAN AS PUPPET ON STRING, PREFERABLY SILENT AND INVISIBLE.]
I apologise because you find this patronising and offensive, but I assure you it is not my intention. I thought I was expressing a state of fact and I believe it was her choice.
[Daphne – It is the mindset which is offensive, though I understand that Maltese men of my generation and older (and plenty who are younger) don’t understand why and actually think they are praising women when they describe them this way. When you describe a woman as supporting her husband, that is a male-centric view of looking at it. The woman in question does not see herself as supporting her husband, but as living her own role in her own life, and if pressed, she might even tell you that actually her husband supports her because he’s the one who brings in the money. But the real point at issue is when women are praised (almost always by men) for supporting their husbands, the implication being that they have made a heroic sacrifice because looking after home, husband and family is so bloody awful, when it is quite obvious that it is not awful to them and they actually enjoy it. There is another implication: that women who work or have interests outside the home 1.do not support their husband, 2. do not look after the home, 3. short-change their children of adequate care, 4. are selfish. Yes, it is definitely offensive to praise women for dedicating their lives to ‘supporting their husband’. The whole point of being married or in any stable relationship is just that – support, MUTUAL support, not unilateral support.]
I honestly do not remember her campaigning ahead of general elections or in the EU referendum, but I may be wrong. I also do not remember her discussing politics.
[Daphne – That’s fine. The point is that this is not something to praise, the implication being that had she talked politics or campaigned she would have been an interfering busybody. It is merely something to observe, that’s all.]
What I mean is that she never usurped the attention from her husband – I see nothing wrong with someone leaving the podium to the leader. Also, being the wife of a politician does not mean that she had to necessarily do politics or go into public life. I think she actually followed her choice. Do I have my facts wrong?
[Daphne – It is bad manners for anyone to steal the limelight from somebody else, particularly one spouse from another, like those husbands who cannot bear to see their wives engaged in conversation at the dinner-table because they must dominate the conversation themselves. So yes, Mrs Fenech Adami behaved properly. But sometimes, political leaders actually use their wives for attention. They are part of the campaign. Leaders without spouses are at a terrible disadvantage.]
I picked this up a bit late but wish to comment on your reaction, Daphne. I think that anybody who puts her / his spouse’s / family’s interests before their own deserves praise. Mrs Fenech Adami deserves praise for being so strong for her husband and family during the very difficult times they (we) endured. The fact that she did so without fuss and without seeking any sort of rcognition is truly admirable, NOT because she’s being a ‘good wife’ but because she is showing that beautiful (and, sadly, rare) side of a human being called selflessness. Similarly, if a man makes life / career choices which give priority to the interests and well-being of his wife and family ahead of his own (natural) hunger for success and popularity, he deserves similar praise. It is not about the gender of the person. It is not patronising for someone to say that they admired Mrs Fenech Adami for standing quietly behind her husband.
[Daphne – “It is not patronising for someone to say that they admired Mrs Fenech Adami for standing quietly behind her husband.” Yes, it is – extremely patronising, rude and upsetting, even to the women involved. Women whose role is solely that of wife and mother are not ‘standing behind their husband’. They are standing at his side, performing an entirely different role that has absolutely nothing to do with his career most often, and most often, too, they don’t work because they don’t want to do so, or because they wanted to do so but came from a generation that rendered that impossibly difficult. Your implication is that the men who have all these silent wives standing behind them would never have made it without them. Wrong. They would have made it, and even faster without a wife and children to distract them. The wives of politicians are not there to give silent support. They are there to round out the image of the politician and they make him – if he is a man – more palatable as a party leader. Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant all became prime ministers without silently supportive wives to cook supper and hold their hands. But without wives, we didn’t really like them. The (effectively) single man doesn’t go down that well in a leadership position. Your other implication is that men whose wives work have no support from their spouse, and that in order to be supportive, a wife must be financially dependent. Wrong again. Also, the man who sits at home doing the housework while his wife supports him financially is neither praised nor described as supportive. He is denigrated as a bum and freeloader and his wife is described as an idiot for letting him freeload off her. You will have noticed, I imagine, that the only people who praise women for standing silently BEHIND their husbands and SUPPORTING them are men of a certain age.]
“Daphne – It is the mindset which is offensive, though I understand that Maltese men of my generation and older (and plenty who are younger) don’t understand why and actually think they are praising women when they describe them this way.”
It’s not only men who have that mindset. About a year ago I phoned our local council to ask them how in God’s name they expect us to put our rubbish out for collection only between 9 and 11 am, or risk a fine, when at that time most people are either at work or school.
The lady on the phone replied, rather sarcastically, “Ma tistax tohrogha l-mara?”
Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.
-Margaret Thatcher
One reason why Mary Fenech Adami was such an asset to her husband.
Tangent:
http://multimedia.lastampa.it/multimedia/costume/lstp/63296/
Kate got Number 1 top.
Any update on her health?
She is a great woman. That’s all I’d like to say.
My 2p worth…
I think she knows her place. I was never impressed by her sense of style…or posture. At times I thought she looked very peasant-like. Although I know you don’t think this is a fair description of Mrs Fenech Adami, I can see why many would say she’s ‘humble’. It could boil down to a non chalant attitude toward the more ‘refined’ things in life, as in truth that’s all petty stuff… but impressions do count and this is what started this whole debate after all! The kaboccu’s tie had the same effect :)
In a non patronising tone, I have to say that I think you read too much into the article. I don’t think the journalist meant any disrespect…s/he simply wanted to convey what the majority (yourself excluded, we now know) think of Mrs Fenech Adami.
Surely all will agree that she’s strong…she had a tough gig and the crowd will salute her with a standing ovation…I just hope it won’t happen any time soon!!!
She’s a good soul and my prayers are with her and her family in this time of need.
Some people tend to equate self-confidence and self-assurance with abundant volume, both in terms of decibels and word-rate, when it’s actually the other round.
I agree that Mrs Fenech Adami is strong, confident and that inspires me to think of all manner of admirable qualities.
I can agree to her also being humble however I am not at all certain if the manner in which I see her as being humble is in anyway similar to the way in which the paper in question may have intended to define her.
To my mind, humility is one of the greatest of gifts as it makes possible for an array of other superb qualities. Fortitude; patients; kindness; understanding; wisdom and so many other admirable virtues that served her well in those very difficult times in our nation’s past. She is indeed a very special woman and more.
If the word ‘humble’ was used to suggest anything less than this, then I fully agree with Daphne here. This woman is a tower of strength and a woman of steel. She is part of a generation that many today do not understand and who as a result; they may even feel intimidated by her.
I doubt many really appreciate the way that we as a nation truly benefited from Mrs Fenech Adami’s strength and wisdom.
Her role should not be underestimated or relegated in any way to anything less than heroic.
I have to say that this woman truly inspires me.
I wish all the best for the family.
Who have you squeezed dry and antagonised today, woman ?
————————–
Mr FRANS H SAID
Yesterday, 22:38
”My father died when I was 13, my mother did not have any income, but we still managed to move forward. I managed to study and achieve a good position because I wanted to. Today’s children are over pampered, especially by their mothers who are keen to squeeze their menfolk dry, even though, more often than not it is the very women who antagonise the men.”
Comment in The Times. Bloody unbelievable.
[Daphne – Amazing. His mother had no income. And yet they bought the things to keep them allive. Go figure. As for the rest, women stand silently behind men all the better to squeeze them dry.]
“Women stand silently behind men all the better to squeeze them dry.”
That sounds incredibly rude.
Ah Daphne you missed out, as I did, on the fact that Mr Said ”managed to study and achieve a good position.” Iz-zikkola, bully for him hej, ghax miskin, xorta ma tghallem xejn. Bet you he’s just the type to bully his female colleagues at work, and then return home terrified his wife will ”squeeze him dry”!
In all probability that guy is not allowed to use the bathroom at home, not unless his wife okays it first.
Mrs. Fenech Adami has passed away.
She’s gone.
If this evening an annoyed fairy was to float over this tiny island and sprinkle some hypocrite identifying dust, half Malta would shine so much that the sun would seem a tiny insignificant night lamp.
RIP Mary Fenech Adami – With all you have done and been through the acroynm couldn’t be more appropriate.
May Mrs Fenech Adami rest in peace
I don’t think Mary Fenech Adami stood behind Eddie, she stood beside him.
Lord grant her eternal peace.
Spot on as usual
The word “humble” has different nuances of meaning as applied to Mary Fenech Adami nothing derogatory was ever intended. It evidently referred to her Christian attributes of humility and genuine total absence of brash arrogance despite her exalted position as the treasured wife of Malta’s Head of State and as a selfless courageous mother when the lives of her family members were imperilled by senseless thugs. In this moment of truth let us recognise her above average good qualities out of genuine appreciation and not out of any misguided “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”.
Probably journalists described Mrs Fenech Adami as “humble” for want of a better word. I would say that they wanted to describe her as unassuming. As the wife of Dr Eddie Fenech Adami she could easily have taken a hard-to-approach role.
The quantity and quality says a lot.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110708/local/mary-fenech-adami-s-condition-deteriorates.374535
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/video-b-kara-mourns-mary-fenech-adami-as-nation-pays-her-tribute
‘To call Mrs Fenech Adami humble is to demean her, to make her small, to make out that she thinks little of herself when it is quite obvious’ …………..
I am sure that all those who described Mrs Mary Fenech Adami as ‘humble’, did not do so to demean her, to make her small ……. and what not ……. They simply wanted to mean that she was always modest in her behaviour, attitude and spirit, not arrogant or full of pride.
They could have said ‘unassuming’, if that is what they mean. ‘Umli’ is used incorrectly in Maltese as well.
Very well said, Daphne……she was one of a kind.
May the Lord grant her Eternal Peace.