GUEST POST: What will they go back to?
Sent in by Matthew S:
What will they go back to?
What will they go back to once they’ve gorged themselves at the last state banquet, had the last limo ride, been given the last gun salute and waved goodbye to the armed security detail? Do they really think that this road goes on forever? Nine-lives Karmenu Vella and George Vella might make it seem that way but even dinosaurs like them have an expiry date.
When people get old, they tend to go back to where they they started -their first loves and interests- but they can only do that if their loves and interests are still intact.
If in the quest for power and money, one sells one’s soul, forgets one’s interests, shreds one’s dignity and dumps one’s wife and children, there won’t be much to go back to.
The religious man goes back to church, the solitary man goes back to his pipe and books and the family man surrounds himself with his grandchildren. What will our great politicians and hangers-on go back to when the fireworks are over?
Does Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando really think that Lara Boffa is going to be there for him when his nervous system starts going ir-Rażżu’s way?
Does Michelle Muscat think that the media is going to keep fawning over her and treating her like a fashion icon?
Does Konrad Mizzi think that his children are going to bother coming all the way from China to visit him?
Does Manuel Mallia think that the millions he has hidden under his bed are going to change his nappies once he becomes incontinent?
When you sow fear, chaos and paranoia, that’s exactly what you’ll reap.
Late in his life, Dom Mintoff was still babbling on about Henry Kissinger coming to get him (I once heard him myself). He also used to go around shops in Tarxien and ask – well, more like demand – to use their telephone, without paying of course.
That’s partly because he was a miser (do you remember the time his electricity supply was cut off because he wouldn’t pay the bill?) but it probably was also because he believed that America had had his communication devices tapped.
Until not long ago, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici was still on Smash TV, rambling on against the European Union, presumably to an ever dwindling audience. One of his last public appearances before being admitted to hospital was of him walking down a street in Valletta holding a plastic bag and looking dejected, forlorn and totally out of place (Daphne has the photograph somewhere).
John Dalli could have finished his stint as a commissioner and retired gracefully but look what a mess he made for himself. Lorry Sant even had human rights court cases chasing him 25 years after he died. We could go on, of course, but it’s so sad and pathetic that we’ll almost start to pity them.
Why do dictators often fall seriously ill when they are overthrown? Because it’s impossible to transition from 40 years of absolute power to the highlights of your day being going to the supermarket, feeding your cat, hanging out with your grandchildren and writing notes in your diary.
Power is too often wasted on megalomaniacs. Niccolo Machiavelli taught politicians how to gain and retain power but he forgot to teach them about the ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’ part. Good politics is not a game for the wily but for those who enter in good faith, do what they have to do, don’t overstay their welcome and leave with a light heart. Those are the true hallmarks of a good leader and office-bearer.
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‘he believed that America had had his communication devices tapped’
I have been told by more than one person that he held interviews, well monologues if you prefer, with people he wanted to say something to, at the back of his garden under a tree so as to be out of reach of the hidden microphones placed inside his house.
Which is why Dr Eddie Fenech Adami is now so peacefully enjoying his books, children and grandchildren.
And Gonzi likewise.
So is Lawrence Gonzi.
And why Lawrence Gonzi will always have my utmost respect.
Right… after artificially and inappropriately prolonging his political career by taking a totally inadequate Presidency, you mean?
He retired solely because of dwindling health, and well simply because he had run out of offices (unless he runs for bishop that is).
And so is Dr. Lawrence Gonzi, statesman who really worked hard for their countries, deserve to enjoy their retirement.
Which is why Varist will go back to his skip.
Mahmug u baxx.
You want quotes, Varist? Here’s one.
“But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.” (Mathew 15:18)
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-11-30/local-news/PN-undergoing-hymen-restoration-surgery-to-become-a-virgin-again-Evarist-Bartolo-6736126620
Same with Dr Lawrence Gonzi.
As well as Lawrence Gonzi
Lovely piece of philosophy, insight and truth. Sic transit gloria mundi. If I remember well, one knight of St John has Cinis, Humus, Finis as a epitaph. How true.
Thank you Matthew S.
Excellent piece. There are a few politicians like that. All Nationalist. Enjoying their retirement with a clean conscious that they did their bit for the country. I guess the only bit spoiling that retirement is to see the country go back to the pits in spite of all the sacrifices they made.
And, if I may add, do these people ever bother to think as to how others, including their children and grandchildren, will remember them after they are gone? In today’s world, where everything is committed if not to paper to the internet and to digital archives, this is a matter which should concern people with even a minimum of a moral benchmark.
Even leaders who did a wealth of good in their lives, but were perhaps slightly unpopular in connection with some aspect of their leadership, have had to face the wrath of their people. One is reminded of Pope Pius IX. As John Julius Norwich writes in his book “The Popes” (Vintage (London) 2012, p. 403):
“All his life he had been alternately loved and hated, respected and despised: and in 1881, three years after his death, the pendulum swung again. It had been decided that his body should find its final resting place in the patriarchal basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura; but since Italy was by now in the grip of a furious wave of anticlericalism inspired by her Prime Minister Agostino Depretis, it was thought safer for it to be transported by night. Unfortunately, word of the intended operation had somehow reached the Roman mob, which almost succeeded in hurling the coffin into the river. By the time it was carried into S. Lorenzo it had been dented by stones and was heavily spattered with mud. Pio Nono, it seemed, was as controversial a figure as ever he had been. He still is.”
As Shakespeare says, through Mark Antony, “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”
Ergo Gonzi
It’s a question of whether you are there to serve the nation, or whether you operate under the principle that the nation is there to serve you.
——–
With the former, it never leaves you, with the latter, many of those that leave alive and escape prison, enter another: where a retinue of hangers-on eventually immobilise them into vegetable state.
——–
A clean conscience will look forward to the simple pleasures of life.
A clean conscience will permit sleep at night.
——–
Mintoff knew what Joseph Muscat was capable of since he laid it all out to him.
Good politics is not a game for the wily but for those who enter in good faith, do what they have to do, don’t overstay their welcome and leave with a light heart. Those are the true hallmarks of a good leader and office-bearer.
Dr. Lawrence Gonzi is a great example. Will people be able to say the same about Muscat?
What a nicely worded and eloquent collection of nonsense and drivel.
I can name just as many despots and tyrant that died of old age still holding on till the very last minute. After all knowledge is power and a frail body does not necessarily equate to a frail mind.
Oh, so Mintoff was just imagining that his phone was being tapped. No, wait, on second thoughts, it was just a ploy to save on calls.
Hallina Matthew S, tridx… u gej bil-Machiavelli wkoll.
Sunday BS moment I see. No one said it better than the fellow below:
“Il Potere logora chi non ce` l’ha” – Giulio Andreotti
Michelle Muscat will go back to supermarket shopping in that high fashion centre, Burmarrad, wearing a baggy track suit and her hair rollers.
The best she can look forward to is a discount card from Scotts supermarket, unless the Saids genuinely regret voting in her husband, courtesy of a vote for amanuel Mallia.
And Lawrence Gonzi.
But all they ever learned through parents, church, friends, school and TV is that only the material things count.
Everything else, other than pleasure, does not exist.
Being a four dimensional human being is alien to them.
Two good reads on this topic:
http://www.bookdepository.com/On-Violence-Hannah-Arendt/9780156695008
http://www.bookdepository.com/Gorgias-Plato/9780199540327
How so very true all of it.
Believing they have done so much good to people they tell themselves the pioneers of heaven . Hell awaits them .
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2014/06/a-salutary-lesson-for-those-with-delusions-of-grandeur/
How very sad but true. All the wicked people I’ve ever known all ended badly, some even more quickly than expected. They create Hell on Earth for others – only to end in one themselves.
Gebel fl-ahhar jiltaqa ma’ gebel. It is useless going to your ex-wife begging forgiveness when you treated your wife and children like shit.