A line-up of nodding dogs
Everybody is speaking about whether candidate X, Y or Z would make a suitable leader for the Labour Party. Sorry, Norman Hamilton, but it’s the topic du jour. Yet in the discussions of their various attributes, nobody seems to be asking the single most vital question. Are candidates X, Y or Z natural leaders or natural followers? You don’t become a leader simply by being elected to the leadership. You’ve got to have what it takes to lead. Those are qualities you are born with, and which are nurtured or weakened during one’s progress through life. They are not qualities that can be learned.
Yes, there’s grooming to be done – the most notable results in our experience being with Gonzi and Fenech Adami. But those who groom must have the right raw material to work with. You can be taught the methods of leadership, but these alone will not make you a leader. Similarly, those born without the gift of creativity can be taught how to draw through repeated practice of technique, yet they will never make inspired and inspirational painters.
Some people are scathing because the Labour Party calls its top man ‘the leader’. It puts them in mind of simple-minded people who need to be led, usually by the nose. In this, they are wrong. In English political terminology, ‘leader’ is the correct term and ‘head’ is clumsy and incorrect. Schools have heads. Political parties have leaders. The Labour Party, for all its escalating hostility towards Britain and the British in the second half of the 20th century, has referenced – historically, at least – British politics. The official party name is resolutely Anglophone, and like Britain’s Labour Party, Conservative Party and Liberal Party, it has a leader rather than a head. The Nationalist Party, on the other hand, has historically been far, far more anti-British than the Labour Party was under Mintoff – just rather more polite and subtle about it. The party’s historical main influence (obviously, and to people like me, off-puttingly) was Italy, and so the Nationalist Party has a ‘capo’ or ‘kap’, which absolutely doesn’t work when translated into English. The political parties of the Anglophone world have leaders.
They have leaders because the individuals in question are there to do precisely that: lead. This seems to me to be the single most overlooked factor in the current debate. Are we talking about whether Joseph Muscat, Michael Falzon, Evarist Bartolo and Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca are natural-born leaders? No, we are not. Instead, we are talking about their track record, their university degrees, their work as MEP/deputy leader/secretary-general/failed Minister of Education, and their 15-year projects drawn up in 10 days. This is all just so much useless hogwash. If you’re interviewed for any top corporate post, it’s not just your track record, your wishes and your plans that will be taken into account, but your personality and your leadership skills. If you’re one of life’s nodding-dogs and people-pleasers, you’ll never rise higher than middle management, if that. This is because nodding-dogs and people-pleasers are not leaders.
We shouldn’t be looking at Joseph Muscat’s academic qualifications or his track record as an MEP. Those are about as relevant for the post of party leader and future prime minister as minced beef and tomato sauce are to the making of a raisin cake. We should instead be trying to picture him inspiring television and radio audiences, or crowds of 50,000 at the Granaries, at mass meetings which are in turn broadcast to even greater numbers. We should try to imagine him giving a rousing speech, which sounds as though it is coming straight from the heart and with conviction. We should picture him instilling confidence and trust in Labour Party delegates, members and electors. We should whip up a mental image of him inspiring zeal in those people, in the way that Lawrence Gonzi inspired zeal in his. We should try to visualise Muscat having a ‘difference of opinion’ with other party officials. Will they respect him, or will they undermine him? Will he lead with conviction or will he (1) try to please everyone, (2) throw a tantrum and stamp his feet, or (3) smile and then stick the knife in?
Does he have what it takes to gather people behind him, or will they crowd behind him semi-reluctantly, dragging their feet, ‘for the good of the party’, daggers at the ready? Try as I might, I can’t imagine Muscat in the role of an inspiring leader. He is one of life’s nodding-dogs, one of those irritating people who you find in practically every office, sucking up to the boss and currying favour, and in most classrooms, actively working for the title of teacher’s pet.
The same can be said for the other three: Falzon, Coleiro Preca and Bartolo are more nodding-dogs. They’d make excellent adornments for your rear-view mirror, if you like that kind of thing. Falzon has nodded his way through the last 16 years, and nodded right through this last electoral campaign. Bartolo has nodded so hard that I’m surprised his head hasn’t come off (maybe it’s on springs, like that toy puppy I had as a child). His many deficiencies, inconsistencies and attempts at staying on the right side of the party line lest something bad happen to him were highlighted superbly by means of clips from years-old broadcasts on TVM’s Dissett, the day before yesterday. I don’t think anyone watching that show, unless he is politically blind or a blood relation, would have thought: “Wow, that’s what I call leadership. Go for it, Ev!”
Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca? Forget it. Her performance on that same edition of Dissett was a fatally defining moment. She repeated word for word the script of an interview she gave to The Sunday Times – literally, word for word. She must have rehearsed it lest she fluff her lines, and then trotted it out twice. Did she imagine that people who read The Sunday Times don’t also watch Dissett? Unbelievably, she repeated once more her assertion that the Labour Party wasn’t responsible for the violence of the years when she was secretary-general. The party didn’t commission the thugs, it didn’t shelter them, and it didn’t organise them, and she would have been the first to resign if the party had anything to do with them. This is like saying that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party had nothing to do with the violence perpetrated against Jewish shopkeepers by their neighbours in the late 1930s. Of course they did.
Let me explain this to Mrs Coleiro Preca very carefully and in simple language. The Labour Party might not have placed advertisements in the Situations Vacant columns of the newspapers, calling for thugs and violent hit-men, but it created the conditions in which that kind of violence grew and in which the violent flourished. More to the point, the violent were not arrested, reprimanded or prosecuted. Their victims were.
Let me explain something even more carefully to Mrs Coleiro Preca, who imagines that she has leadership qualities when she couldn’t even assess the situation around her in 1984, or interpret it correctly. When one of my friends (a woman, if you please) was beaten up so savagely that she spent weeks in bed unable to move, the men who did it emerged from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was then exactly where it is now. She can’t deny this because I saw them there just a few seconds before they rushed at us. They were chatting to the Foreign Minister. The same men also came after me, despite the fact that I was vastly pregnant at the time, but I was rescued by clerks at the post office across the road from the ministry, where the Malta Tourism Authority is now housed. They slammed the post office doors shut while the men who emerged from the Ministry tried to ram them down.
That’s just one incident. I’m not going to describe to Mrs Coleiro Preca the many times that unarmed protesters were attacked by policemen for whom the Labour government was definitely responsible. Just one anecdote will suffice, I think. On the same spot where a year later I would be rescued by post office workers, I sheltered in the doorway of an empty house (my grandparents’ house, as it happened) and sobbed in fear and disbelief as I watched a policeman, who had spittle foaming up around his mouth, smash every window and windscreen of every car parked on that stretch of Melita Street between Merchant Street and St Paul Street and, when he had finished, climb up onto them and jump up and down on their roofs, causing them to collapse and dent. All the while he was shouting (madly, might I add) political slogans in favour of the Labour Party.
Sure, Mrs Coleiro Preca personally didn’t hire him or organise him, but so what? She was secretary-general of the political party that formed the government, the people who were responsible for the police force. The occasion was the archbishop’s meeting in St John’s Square at the height of the church schools’ crisis. There was an open-air mass, attended by whole families and young children, and a speech. Afterwards, parts of the crowd – families, not militant students – moved up Merchants Street and were met by a line of armed police. The order to charge was given, and the next thing I knew there were children screaming, pushchairs being flung about, hysterical parents running all over the place, and those mad thugs in uniform chasing everyone, and I ended up in that doorway watching a mad policeman thrashing cars like he was high on cocaine. Can Mrs Coleiro Preca talk her way out of that one?
Alfred Sant was a miserable failure as a party leader for a variety of reasons, but chief among them – the most fundamental reason – was the fact that he has no leadership qualities to speak of. His predecessor had no leadership qualities either (and still doesn’t). Mintoff, love him or despise him – and I belong in the latter category – was a natural-born leader and that is why he was able to get away with all that he got away with, to the detriment of the country and its people. If you are a natural-born leader you can even get away with mass murder, as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao did. They were cruel people, but born leaders. Natural-born leaders do not always have the right ideas and are not necessarily a good thing for those they lead. Sometimes, they can be a force for evil. But this does not mean that you don’t have to be a leader to lead. You do have to be a leader. Otherwise, you just can’t swing it.
Only one of the Labour Party’s leadership candidates manifests the psychological qualities of leadership, and this emerged clearly in an interview with The Sunday Times last Sunday. I’d better not mention his name lest I be accused once more of having a hidden agenda in trying to sabotage his chances by being perceived as favouring him. Apparently, Labour Party delegates reason in a convoluted manner that is beyond my comprehension. My accusers said that if I want to see George Abela elected and Joseph Muscat flushed away, then I should criticise the former and praise the latter. But the words would just stick in my throat.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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‘Old sins cast long shadows’.
By your reasoning, only Joseph Muscat, from the aspiring candidates, has relatively clean hands and probably that is why he has been bruited as the new leader. Perhaps with wise grooming he might fit the bill; but who is in a position to groom him, from THAT lot at Mile End? I am being a bit of a devil’s advocate, here, mind.
I agree with you Daphne, Mintoff was a natural leader because like the evil leaders you mentioned he knew how to use people’s emotions to his advantage.
@ DCG – A few weeks ago the Times ran an opinion poll asking who would be the preferred candidate to lead Labour. At approx 400 hits, George Abela was polling 46% of the vote with Michael Falzon around the 20+ something per cent. At approx 6000 hits, Dr. Abela remained at a constant 40% mark with Dr. Falzon at 27%.
It may be argued by some that the Times is read by more pro-PN readers – as if most PN readers do not wish well to the country at large. It is clear that your accusers have a twisted mind and their brains are still not yet well-focused. Please do not let this deter you from speaking (or rather, writing) your mind as I am sure it won’t.
Like many others I’m also convinced of George Abela’s qualities and that he should be Labour’s obvious choice.
It’s only a matter of time before – famous last words – is-sewwa jirbah zgur.
Daphne – Good article. Just one slight error – It was 1986, not 1984.
As for the friend savagely beaten up, I clearly remember the case. If I am not mistaken, she was beaten up with a chain in a rubber pipe, though I might be wrong about that detail. More interesting is the fact that her brother-in-law is none other than … – Oooops, better not say it, because it might ruin his chances in a few weeks’ time! (Though that wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?)
As for MLCP saying that they (the MLP) didn’t send thugs out in the 1970s and 1980s, how do they explain the fact that the thug who threw that large glass Optrex bottle directly at us through our grandparents’ closed balcony window in Valletta, received a constant stream of people like Mintoff, Lorry Sant, etc on his deathbed after being shot at, I wonder? Surely they knew that he was a prominent Labour thug – even occupying a minister’s office to accept bribes (only from the people who would give in, though) which were taken as the norm to get licences, etc to keep a business going.
Daphne – We can’t expect much better from people like MLCP, etc. Just read on …
Around late 1984, a group of students forming part of ASSP (Assocjazzjoni Studenti Skejjel Privati) went to present a petition regarding the closure of private schools to the then President of Malta.
The “woman” herself simply whacked the person presenting the petition to her across the face with the petition papers themselves. (Ironically, such person was the grandson of a previous president, purposely chosen to present the petition, I believe.) The President of Malta then went on charging through the crowd (very unladylike, I must add) waving her fists in the air. Meanwhile, riot police armed with batons, shields and other such things which were part and parcel of everyday life in those times, closed in on the students – some of whom were very young – who then dispersed to avoid being injured by the police. (As opposed to being protected by them.)
With such behaviour from the President, one could expect no better from the police. Sadly, we knew no better in our youth, and such incidents were usually expected.
No, MLCP, the MLP were not responsible, were they? I don’t think that they ordered the President to act that way, but then, she was an MLP member, wasn’t she?
@Amanda,
“Very unladylike” who? Agatha Barbara? Come on, surely you are joking. The one who boasted she was so busy “ma kelliex cans tbiddel il-qalziet ta’ taht”? Come on, weren’t you proud to have a president like her whose language would make a sailor blush?
David Buttigieg – If you remember that then you are not too young to remember the Labour thug I memntioned in other posts …
Reading this very interesting insight into those glorious years under the Labour Party’s government, I had some nasty recollections of when I started… (cough cough)… WAS SUPPOSED to start attending a Church school way back in 1984 (they were shut down for over a month, remember? I wonder by whose order….?)
I remember very cleary slogans on newspapers stating “Jew b’xejn jew xejn!” – surely it showed that the government of the time was VERY worried that parents preferred investing their hard-earned savings (and I mean HARD-EARNED – my father had about 1000hrs of forced overtime during the Labour saga for which he never got a cent) in order to educate their children in proper schools with proper teachers and getting proper education (sive Ms Mallia’s comments on the Minister of EDUCATION’s distinguished – cough, spit – education to get an idea what kind of education state schools offered).
I remember more high lit occurrences such as (why not?) the very peaceful pilgrimage (by Labour supporters. Bil-haqq! The labour government was not responsible. errata corrige: by people who were waving RED flags with an emblem that LOOKED VERY MUCH like a burning torch with the Maltese Flag in the background and with ‘Malta Labour Party’ written around it) toward the Archbishop’s chancery, which ended up in the destruction of every piece of sacred artefact in there, vandalism of all kinds and desecration of the Eucharist from the chancery’s chapel.
There was a time when our school bus was stopped two villages away from school, we students (I was 7 then) were forced by the thugs to remove our school blazers and ties and walk all the way to school (only to get there and find the whole place as if it had just been hit a meteor), or else see the bus smashed. If I remember correctly, that torchy emblem was visible even in this case. Must I remember more?
Anyway, to the matter at hand. If Labour wants to contradict its own slogan of Bidu Gdid and elect some nitwit whose ideas are perfectly in line with the (unfortunately) well-known and deeply-rooted Labour mentality, then they might as well sign their party’s death sentence. If, on the other hand, they truly wish to offer the electorate a PROPER alternative to the Nationalists’ prosperous government, then they had better do some archaeological work in order to find their brains. And use them. (If they are still in working condition, that is.)
@Amanda
You reminded me of an incident which occured sometime in 1980. A group of us were walking out of Valletta at around 9:00pm, and one of us (a labour supporter incidentally) was walking backwards fooling around. As we came near VGB our then-not-yet-president walked out of the ministry and my friend crashed into her. The amount of colourful swearing in Maltese we heard that night was flabbergasting, and no it wasn’t from my friend’s mouth that it came out.
Adrian Borg – I wonder if she slapped him, too!
Combinaguai – You’re right! I had completely forgotten that the President in question was once also the Minister of Education. What an embarassment, to say the least … Her gesticulations in front of San Anton Palace that day are still very clear in my mind.
Looking back, you could actually see the funny side to it, despite the terror we felt at the time because of the riot police’s reaction to our presence. (Don’t forget that her reaction was completely unprovoked. It was a silent protest, and the youth presenting the petition to her was one of the quietest and most polite around.)
As for your references to the Curia, you could take a look a my comments about the incidents in this blog, under various posts, the most recent of which is under “How to bore the public.”
Combinaguai – Your comment about Labour thugs attacking your school bus brings to mind an incident a friend told me about. She said that she was once waiting for her school bus (she must be about your age) in Naxxar Road. A group of red-flag-waving women on their way to some coffee morning got off their “kowc-tal-kofi-morning” and attacked some of the (young) school children – pulling their hair and ripping their uniforms. Pretty scary sight, I would say (the women, as much as their actions).
Are you all too young to remember the time women and children went to Valletta in front of Castillja to protest against the water shortage and the way they were attacked . Right there in front of the Policemen on duty outside Castillja !
And wasn`t it KMB who praised the dockyard thugs who attacked the Curia and the Times.
Labourites praise Sant as he `cleaned up` the MLP – that means there WAS something to clean up.
Oh joy! Joe Debono Grech has just been re-elected to parliament.
@Amanda,
Well for the record I am 33 and as to Agatha Barbara, I don’t remember that much personally but certainly remember being told about them. Sorry but I honestly don’t remember that low down thug – I believe all you said about him ofcourse!
Joe Debono Grech wow.
Joseph Chetcuti bigger wow….
Holding hands with Anglu, Poodle e bella compania.
Dik bidla !! U halluna
Maltatoday published an excellent set of reports about the abuses of the 80s. You can find them here:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2002/reports.html
Marika Mifsud – I remember that water protest clearly. A relative of mine who happened to be there was savagely beaten up too: his spectacles were smashed in his face, giving him two black eyes, and his fingers were all slashed right through to the bone after he hung on to a “pregnant” window at Castille while being beaten up. All that at a peaceful protest against to continuous water shortage in Sliema.
Incidentally – AS was the president of the MLP throughout all these happenings. He did not have to wait until he was prime minister to clean things up. The very least he could have done was try to clean it up beforehand. If that was out of his control, then had he any morals he should have resigned from his post as president of MLP.
Gelliant Guttfright – Now that certainly isn’t what I would call “bidu gdid”. I remember him as one of the most agressive speakers in my youth. His voice – especially with that aggressive tone – still gives me the shivers.
I remember a friend telling me that one day he was near the Palace in Valletta and Agatha Barbara got out of the Presidential car and was overheard telling the soldier who snapped to attention saying “Iz-z..p dejjem bil-kju fejn il-Bank Centrali!”
@ Gelliant Gutfright
‘Oh joy! Joe Debono Grech has just been re-elected to parliament.’
The very same one who in his heyday told us his door was open to the ‘Laburisti biss’. I honestly thought we saw the back of him, but no such luck.
Oh Joy indeed ….and Oh rapture!!
One day i will write a book about that Church School Crisis… and I hope that Michael M will join me. there will be so much to narrate….
Hi All!
How does that expression go? See Rome and die? Well if I had to die today I’d be very happy for mine eyes have beheld Toni Abela in all his glory at the uni canteen…Ah, how can I regale ye all? Let me count the ways…
Well I was at my table cramming food in my mouth and food in my brain (harhar lecture notes…cos I am sitting for finals soon, but I am deviating) when lo and behold one of the Messiahs of the MLP appeared before me in all his glory.
It was great to observe such a rare sight at the uni canteen for such high and mighty personages do not usually have their elevenses with the uni rabble, the hoi polloi…what word am I searching for? Ah yes, the hamalli! So Toni Abela chose to mix with us lot, looking around to see if anyone of us have noticed his grand gesture. I am sure he was waiting for some podium or other to materialize before him and give us one of his winking, gesticulating performances. But alas, no one prostrated him/herself in front of him begging for one. We were too busy checking out the eye candy…
Oh my God, what memories you are evoking!! The episode that I will never forget was in October 1979, when I was 15yrs old coming out of a house in B’Kara where I used to go for typing lessons lugging a heavy Imperial Typewriter and witnessing the scene of the “aristokrazija tal-haddiema” ransacking Dr. Fenech Adami’s house. The memory of that night and the terror I felt will never be erased from my mind as long as I live.
@ Meerkat
we were feeling an essential ingredient was missing. Still have’nt managed to farfar the zokkor from halqi, as you may very well see/read!
Francis V (or anyone else who can enlighten me) – One of the MaltaToday articles you attached focuses on the then SMU. One of the SMU officers mentioned is a Joseph Brincat. He wouldn’t be the same Josie Brincat of today(current inspector / sergeant / whatever), would he? Just wondering, because if so, then it would be hard to believe, because he always strikes me as being a gentle, sincere person during his TV appearances.
As for the drawings of the SMU officers with helmets, shields and batons – Oooooh, what awful memories they bring back! One in particular is of a (21st September, I believe) concert / festival at Floriana, which I attended with my youngest sister and a neighbour – We were probably aged between 11 and 14. Before we knew it, SMU officers were all over the place, releasing tear gas for no reason whatsoever. All I remember after that is frantically trying to get out, with all of us getting separated in the process. (Though luckily we all made it safely back home.) Funnily enough, we kind of knew what to expect, having experienced such incidences throughout most of our childhood.
@ combinaguai
what was this essential ingredient, prithee?
Meerkat – How you would have managed to enjoy your food in the presence of such an insipid man defies my imagination
Shannon Andrews – That’s another incident we almost all forgot. My, what memories everyone’s bringing back! (As for lugging around a typewriter for typing lessons, what can I say? I clearly remember those – Try explaining them to today’s generation.)
@Amanda Mallia – the J Brincat you’re talking about definitely was NOT Josie Brincat.
Andrew Borg-Cardona – Glad to hear that. I thought as much, but wanted to be sure.
Oh God. I thought i would never again have to remember such things. I remember the tear gas incident in Floriana very well. I was about 17 or 18. It was horrible. I remember gagging so much with tear gas that i had a throat siezure. i still managed to carry my brother , in an even worse position than i was, away however. Looming out of the smoke i saw a police helmet, then a baton, coming straight at me. Ma tajtux cans. Hooking my fingers under the helmet i managed to tear it off whilst the guy was hitting me repeatedly. I kicked and hit like a dervish, coughing my lungs out all the while, getting badly beaten in the process, but somehow one lucky kick connected with the policeman’s goolies and he doubled down to the ground.Picking up my brother I ran away. Some time later, I met the same policeman “celebrating” our victory in 1987. I am ashamed to say that i went straight up to him and hit him, with all i had and screaming at him that he was MLP, what was he doing here? Thankfully my friends dragged me away just in time. We had had enough brutalisations at the time.If i had some kind of weapon however, i would probably have killed the guy. I look back with shame at this incident. Yes, it was self defense at the Xaghra tal-Furjana, but Post May 9th 1987, in Valletta, I was wrong to do so. THe other incident at RAbat I will never forget. The doctor took out 12 lead pellets from my arse, and one is still there in my back near some bone somewhere. It makes its prescence felt fir-rih isfel……and during election time. I also remember the time we had to dismantle San Alwigi from everything and sleeping there with the Jesuits untill the police evicted us. We owed the Jesuits someting so we slept for some time in a nearby house, keeping watch over college. It was attacked several times, and we, wimply idiots that we were, promptly went to the school gates to offer a token of resistance. THe Police were always there however. A forthright inspector made sure the school was never attacked.Looking back, we youth of the that time used to believe so much in values that today hold little sway. We genuinely beleived we were fighting for our country, for freedom, for a better way of life. We were imbued with an idealism that is so lacking in youth today. We had principles, immature ones at that, but still principji. Whenever my employees, most of them post 1984 babes, ask me about those times, and they do, they cannot believe we went through what i mentioned and what you, fellow bloggers on Defni’s blog, mention.We have a duty to explain this history, for its my generation’s finest hour i my opinion, although not so glorious a time. Its our history, its us, its what made us in what we are today. But we will never forget, and I will never vote labour. I will talk, and interact, and discuss, because I have many Labour friends. But I will never support that party.Oh yes, I also was a fourth or fifth former when Defni’s angular frame used to emerge from the Sixth Form door. THe sixth formers, especially the female ones, were our eye candy at the time………a novelty that we were to be part of some years later. Thats when the jew b’xejn jew xejn dawned on us. The memories were bad, and good, and the passage of time mellows the telling of these stories. But the violence of Fusellu, il-pupa, L-indjan, Ic-caqwes, il-barbagann and the prime thug of them all, Lorry Sant, was a real and present danger, just as the comfort and the “kwiet” we have under the Nationalists is today. I thank you for reading these poor words, but i relish this blog for the space it gives us to do so.
@ Meerkat.
Pray answer this one important question: How was the great Toni attired? Did he once again don this ghastly suit?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/?p=303
@ Mario Debono
Great post. I too was present at some of the shameful events mentioned by you and others similar to them where violence towards anyone daring to protest seemed to be the order of the day. I remember other ‘famous’ Labour thugs… il-qahbu, it-toto’, il-qattus….the list goes on and on.
Mario Debono and all the rest…..yes! please relate these stories! As a 1982 kid I also remember the disaster in Rabat – I was not present in the crowd mind you! I was on the roof of a house in the centre, and I remember the commotion, the shots and the ‘smoke’, plus some relatives coming inside in tears. I also remember the ‘incident’ reports and the ‘gas tad-dmugh’ tiela u niezel on Xandir Malta.
Today, I’m so grateful that I was born then and not earlier! I’m lucky to have only spent less than 7 years of my life under these people.
Unless the MLP goes through a complete reform and apologizes for the violence and injustices, I don’t think they can ever gain my trust. What worries me is that people my age or younger, who were ‘MLP-reared’, totally dismiss these ‘incidents’. Some even go further and say that e.g. the PN had no right to go into Zejtun to provoke people! (that’s what they where told clearly!) These people, if not the party, should acknowledge this ugly period.
There should be a website to people like you who where effected by the injustices of the then government. Why not? After all, MLP supporters (with less ‘incidents’ to point their finger at) have their own!
http://www.maltapolitics.com/vjolenza.htm
Apparently, one of the SMU police in Rabat was none other than Norman Hamilton’s brother-in-law, who today has the audacity to whine about the “discrimination” he received post 1987. Discrimination my foot. He has no idea was discrimination is. Rather than discrimination he should speak about the loss of privileges he enjoyed at Xandir Malta, the Maltese equivalent of the Russian Pravda.
Hehe Just take a look at this photo:
MLP insists people should not be sidelined (They have the cheek to say it in GA’s presence)
Not one woman in sight (Is this a case of ‘gendered ritual expulsion’?)
And just look at Anglu Farrugia growling. I couldn’t stop laughing
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080417/local/mlp-insists-people-must-not-be-sidelined
– 15th October 1979.
Our anniversary. Beautiful autumn day. Why not celebrate, and spend the day in Valletta. That’s what I told my better half. I skipped work. Whilst we were at the cinema some crazy fellow entered Mintoff’s office at Castille (don’t ask me how with all the security around) and took a shoot at him. When we stepped out of the cinema all hell had broken loose. Thugs were on the rampage. Going out of Valletta was a nightmare. Words fail me. Not owning a car at the time, we ran all the way to Blata ‘l-Bajda and picked a lift from there. At the end of the day ‘The Times’ building was in ashes, Valletta looked like Sarajevo after the first onslaught.
Nice anniversary. One to remember.
– 21st September (not sure ’84 / ’85, I believe ‘85)
With a child hanging to my neck we went to the celebrations at Floriana arena. We decided that the best place to be part of the celebrations would be at the far end before going to Argotti Gardens. We thought (prophetically) that if any thing should happen we were more or less at a cross roads and had a better chance of escape. Dr. Louis Galea was on the podium and he started to chant that famous poem: ‘Il-kotra qamet f’daqqa, u ghajtet jien Maltija, miskin hu min ikasbarni, miskin hu min jidhak bija’
As the voice of the crowd spread across the arena, no sooner had it reached us on the other side when we saw a cloud coming our way from the Phoenicia area. Gas everyone was shouting. A kind lady who was sitting on the steps at our side with a black rubbish bag under her to avoid ruining her dress jumped to her feet, grasped the bag and gave it to us. Cover the child she said and run. Looking back it looks crazy but we placed our child in the bag and ran and ran…. To this day I do not remember how we arrived home.
– Rabat – the in/famous meeting
Again with child hanging to my neck, we choose the corner of the street on the left side of the church. A couple of streets on our left presented a good getaway if….
After a few minutes into the speech, not sure who was the speaker we couldn’t even see the podium from where we were, we sensed a commotion. A couple of seconds and shots rang out. Something hit the wall some feet above our heads, surely they were shots as wall fragments fell on us. We ran all the way around Rabat and were pushed into an open garage somewhere near the Gheriexem area. Hours later, it was around midnight, we were convinced to take a lift out of Rabat by a very kind person. On the way, just opposite Farsons, the car broke down. Imagine the fear that whilst we were trying to find a way to fix the car, mlp carcades including police cars were driving up and down Rabat road and we having to smile and sometimes even to wave at them. Still luckily we made it home.
-Tal-Barrani….
If the PN administration publish the whole roll of film that I placed in the hands of Dr. J. Abela (? then PN general secretary) alongside that already published photos in the colour centrefold of ‘In-Nazzjon’ some time later, words would be superfluous.
Just a few of my memories.
Well done to all those who were sitting on the fence and like Nero watched Malta burning.
@ Amanda Mallia
“Meerkat – How you would have managed to enjoy your food in the presence of such an insipid man defies my imagination”
Nothing comes between me and my bezzun :-)
@ eve
re Toni’s attire
Variation on a theme. Boring.
@Simon
No aplogy/reform will ever make MLP gain your trust because your a Nationalist and lets face it most of the people who speak this way are as brainwashed as the red flag waving labour delegates. What really bothers me is the hypocricy of people who fail to admit that being true blue nationalists they will never sympathise with anything labour.
Just admit it you’re nationalists and will remain so for the rest of your lives regardless of what Labour does or who leads it. You are just kidding yourselves when you say that you long for a serious opposition bla bla. Anyone who has more than the intellectual capacity of a fried egg can see this.
Some wise guy said that the DNA is different. Maybe he was right after all.
Some writers cannot accept the fact that the majority of Maltese want a true democracy with a real house of ‘representatives’. A constructive opposition,
with arguments and propositions not a destructive opposition. One well remembers
the last parliament sitting of 1998 ending with the shouts of ‘war, war, war’ from the then prime minister. But then who am I to have an idea of how parliament should be when someone who in his own words said that he ‘has more than the intellectual capacity of a fried egg’ says its not true.
me & Mario Debono – Let all the David Zammits of this world get bored to death by yourselves and others continuing to post such comments. It is very hard otherwise for people younger than us to realise the full truth of what went on. Some may hear it from their parents or aunts/uncles; hearing it from strangers makes them realise that their relatives are not simply exaggerating.
me – I could fully understand you when you more-or-less said that, despite knowing that there would be trouble of some sort, you would always make it a point of attending such activities. As I have said previously, those were the days, and we took such things as the norm. Policemen were there to be feared, not to protect.
David Zammit – You said “No applogy/reform will ever make MLP gain your trust because your a Nationalist and lets face it most of the people who speak this way are as brainwashed as the red flag waving labour delegates. What really bothers me is the hypocricy of people who fail to admit that being true blue nationalists they will never sympathise with anything labour.”
How arrogant of you to trivialise and dismiss certain events. People like myself, having gone through some terrible experiences, are certainly not brainwashed in any way. I wouldn’t consider myself a “true blue Nationalist” either (despite having voted PN from day 1), but no, I would never ever dream of even “sympathising with anything Labour”. Yes, Mr Zammit, as long as I can, I will vote them out.
I can assure you that both of us made it a point never to miss one meeting. Even when meetings were spaced by a few hours and long distances. Like when there used to be a meeting in Gozo in the morning and another one in Malta in the evening. Yes I am proud to say that we have been present in all, and I repeat all of them.
We have been through thick and thin, seen policeman (?) beating (not hitting but beating) their fellow citizens for the heck of it. Thugs beating to pulp voters just because they went to exercise their right to vote. We have seen mlp election ‘victory celebrations’. I was present on parliament opening day in ’76, when all the cars parked in lower Merchants street were either turned upside down, set on fire or brutally damaged.
Yes as Mr. David Zammit said, an apology will not make me change my mind, it is not enough. All the faces that during those terrible days let down the nation by commission or omission must leave the public scene. I would go as far as to say that even if they have been replaced by younger relatives, these too must go. The country and the mlp need a blank slate, no more no less.
Daphne,
Leaders do not get away with murder – sociopaths do…..
Many leaders are/were sociopaths.And sociopaths do not necessarily commit murder. The Labour Party had at least two sociopathic leaders within living memory, and neither of them were murderers.
@Me
Are the Tal-Barrani photos still in your possesion? You could set them up on the Internet, lest someone ever forgets.
Daphne – They were not murders, but at least one of them must have indirectly killed several with the worry he caused
amrio – No I do not have the film. The cassette of 13.5mm pocket camera film was handed over to the PN administration on the very night of the meeting.
The film contained 36 photos with the first one being a family photo. The rest were photos of what was happening inside Zejtun. Photos I took after having to walk across fields and what have you. Some of them were printed in colour, which was quite a feat in those days, as a centrefold in ‘In-Nazzjon’ some weeks later. More than half the photos were never printed. For example Cachia Zammit Street (the place of the meeting) with a centre line of tyres all set on alight. Thugs jumping through fields with what look like rifles in their hands. Two feet iron ‘I’ beams barricading the main entry to Zejtun. Haphazardly built stone walls closing off other entries. The festive celebrations complete with carcades in Zejtun.
Yes the apologist writers should have been there……I was.
@Amanda Mallia & me
Your reply proves my point…
As for ‘me’s comment about cleaning out any ‘younger relatives’, how about a quick ethnic cleansing program and a Norman Lowell style ‘mass expulsion’ of labourite families. You just lost any small element of justification you might have had – disgusting ughh.
And I assure you ‘me’ (please use another nickname since I detest referring to someone as despicable as yourself with the word ‘me’) your warped thoughts do not win or lose elections. The people at the PN HQ know that so much so that your arguments never feature in their agenda. They know that such people will still vote PN in any case.
[Moderator – I am sure that neither do they suggest nor do they desire ‘ethnic cleansing of labourite families’ (aside from the fact that Labour isn’t an ethnicity), only that the Labour party should make it a point to rid itself of people who have international affairs with elephants and climb onto aeroplanes with guns.]
Well Mr. David Zammit I use ‘me’ as Ulysses used ‘nobody’. Think about it. Do you understand, or do I have to make a coloured drawing.
Does it hurt you, I am sorry but freedom, complete freedom was the name of our fight. Freedom for ourselves and freedom for people like you to write what they feel, when they feel and how they feel. It makes me happy to see that our fight was not in vain.
You are right people like me do not win or loose an election. Thousands upon thousands of electors, for election after election, win elections. I have never claimed that my arguments should feature in anybody’s agenda. I was never expecting any element of justification. What should I justify, the fear of those years. It is you whose trying to justify those years and actions. Those are facts and history is history. As for ethnic cleansing classifications like: ‘DNA’s – ‘Those are not family’, surely I can never have the capacity to instruct some elements of the mlp.
But then again who am I to compare myself to someone who claims to have ‘more than the intellectual capacity of a fried egg’.
@moderator
The one who climbed onto an aeroplane with a gun is long gone. The one who gave a presidential pardon to a drug trafficker is still in San Anton. The one who had a company with a man convicted of drug trafficking narrowly didn’t get elected. The one who wanted to build a nightclub on a Natura 2000 valley and who feebly tried to deny any knowledge of it is holding the Prime Minister at ransom since he can’t get the ‘independent’ media to pressure him into resigning since he has a one seat majority. The one who knew of a racket of corruption at the ADT is also in parliament mind you, as is the one who offerred his resignation, which resignation was kindly declined by the PM.
[Moderator – This isn’t a football game and we aren’t trying to score points against each other, which is why you probably won’t find a single person here speaking well of Jesmond and his heroin junkie friends.]
I can see that arrogance has a new name.
@me
it may just be a first person singular pronoun….
Let the bloggers be judge.
Thats how the Ulysses principle works.
@David Zammit
Being an assiduous frequenter of this blog, you must have noticed that I do not belong to the ‘Forget-Never-Forgive-Never’ school of thought that some of our fellow bloggers share.
But to be fair and objective, you cannot even remotely compare what you mentioned to the countless violent premeditated incidents mentioned here.
I shudder to think that you heartily mean what you are implying in your last comment, my friend.
@ Daphne Caruana Galizia:
Yet another great column. Absolutely perfect. Keep them coming. No other columnist matches your wit, powers of observation and style (and somehow you manage to crystallize my thoughts and observations in your columns).
Dear David Zammit – I really admire you. I really do. To keep on writing the way you do and replying to all the postings which are always against you. And I totally agree with you when you wrote:
“Just admit it you’re nationalists and will remain so for the rest of your lives regardless of what Labour does or who leads it. You are just kidding yourselves when you say that you long for a serious opposition bla bla. Anyone who has more than the intellectual capacity of a fried egg can see this”.
That’s just too true.
David Zammit – I have never suggested doing away with all Labourites. (Or the MLP, for that matter – a good opposition is a healthy one, but unfortunately it’s just a destructive one instead.) Please don’t compare me to the likes of Norman Lowell, because I have absolutelyu nothing in common with the man or his (lack of?) principles.
I am simply stating things the way I have witnessed them (as opposed to how they have been “fed” to me, as appears to be the case with you and your ilk).
As for trying to score points, I wouldn’t go down that road if I were you. The MLP, whose past you seem to be unaware of, would surpass the PN by far.
Incidentally, it seems like you haven’t yet heard the one about a Labour MP’s sister (also prominent in her field) having an affair with a (brand new dad) PN candidate, have you? What would you consider that? 50/50? Hehe