Mintoff: the electoral facts speak for themselves
The man who was referred to by a front-page headline in The Sunday Times yesterday as ‘KMB’ performed what will probably be one of his last bidillu acts and picked up his master’s human rights prize from the representives of Algeria and Libya. He stood there next to a large portrait of Mintoff and the Gaddafi prize and told an audience of bottom-lickers why his hero deserved what he got.
The award, like Mintoff himself, divided the country. I am one of those who thinks he deserves it – not for the reason that his unthinking supporters think he deserves it, but because there is no award more appropriate for one of the worst and most abusive prime ministers in European history than a human rights award given in Muammar Gaddafi’s name. It is entirely fitting, but his supporters miss the irony and his detractors don’t see just how appropriate it is. A Gaddafi human rights prize for Mintoff pretty much sums up where Mintoff stands in the human rights rankings.
The internet has come alive once more with those who think that Mintoff is the best thing that happened to Malta, for all the world as though the comfortable and interesting lives we live now are all his doing, instead of despite his doing. As one of my sisters, whose father-in-law was almost burnt alive with those trapped inside the Allied Newspapers building as a mob fired up by Mintoff sacked it and then ignited it, pointed out to these blind believers, whose mania is quasi-religious, the irony completely escapes them that they are sitting in their homes, using their personal computers and internet connections, to post comments on a newspaper that Mintoff tried to destroy despite him and not because of him. But they are more likely to believe that Jesus Christ did not exist than that Mintoff was not is-Salvatur ta’ Malta. That’s what happens when belief becomes pathological: it rewrites history.
The facts which show just how dreadful a prime minister – and how horrible a human-being – Mintoff was are not the litany of abuses he perpetrated when in power, or enabled others to perpetrate with the blessing of the state. Somebody who insists that he was the best prime minister who ever lived will take those facts and twist them. But the fact that they cannot twist is the fact of public opinion as expressed by electors repeatedly since they last made the mistake of making Mintoff prime minister in 1976. Labour has been unable to win an election since, except for the 1996 freak situation which people rushed to reverse 22 months later.
Mintoff was prime minister between 1971 and 1984 (without a popular mandate after 1981). As a direct result of that experience, the Labour Party has been unable to convince Malta to elect it to government again, bar the 1996 aberration. Mintoff worshippers are hard put to come up with an explanation as to why, in the 32 years since Labour won under Mintoff in 1976, the party has been on a losing ticket, trying to win the people’s trust and failing miserably. They are at a loss to explain why even now, 32 years later, the cry still goes up: Allahares jitla l-Labour. They can’t understand how seeing Joseph Muscat surrounded by figures from the Mintoffian past triggers off alarm-bells and revives bad memories like no narrative account can do.
Labour lost the elections of 1981, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2003 and 2008. By the time the next election rolls round, this will have been Labour’s track record, thanks to the deep dislike and mistrust engendered by Mintoff: government without a popular mandate between 1981 and 1987, followed by 26 years in opposition, with just a chaotic 22-month blip of power.
If Mintoff were such a great, good leader, his party would still be in power today. Instead, the opposite is the case. Mintoff rendered Labour unelectable for decades, precisely because he was such a bad leader that people felt unable to trust Labour again. He has such poor leadership qualities and is such an awful man on a personal level that in 1998 he put his need to destroy a man he despised, Alfred Sant, before his belief that Malta should never join Ewropa ta’ Kajin. He knew that the direct consequence of bringing down Sant’s government would be a general election won by the Nationalist Party – there is no way that Labour could have won, with all that confusion and ineptitude – and this would mean EU membership for Malta. But he didn’t care, because his need to bring down Sant came before his duty to the country, as he saw it, in keeping that country out of Europe. In Mintoff’s world view, it was never Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox. Like the textbook perverse narcissist that he is, it has always been jiena l-ewwel u qabel kollox, and everyone who has lived or worked with him will be able to tell you that.
So let him take the Gaddafi Human Rights prize he so richly deserves, and let him take the money which, as Malta’s most miserable miser, he doesn’t need. Perhaps he’ll use it to pay the ferryman in Hades.
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I fully agree with your remarks. May I add to your list that I was made to pay a highly unjust price for the broadcasts on tv/radio I conducted from Sicily in the name of the PN. This was the result of continuous threats and political harrassment by Mintoff and his intolerant boys thrown to me, and for which also my family suffered the consequences. I was in fact deprived of my right to return to my home and Country as a free citizen for six years 1981-1987. Human rights award, what a misnomer!
[Daphne – Yes, Richard, and that’s why I have to laugh (it really is the only possible response) at all those Mintoff-obsessives using their right to free speech, their computers, their internet connection and a newspaper Mintoff tried to eliminate to tell us how great Mintoff was. It just goes to shore up my suspicion that the inability to think rationally is part of what keeps people voting Labour.]
As everyone knows i don’t always agree with Daphne on several issues however I have to say that this analysis hits every nail right on the head. There’s no denying the fact that the Mintoff factor still scares thousands of people away from Labour like an albatross around the party’s neck.
Daphne, I bet you’re wasting too much energy on Mintoff. I saw your blog entries on timesofmalta and now you have also written on it here. Mintoff was always a very controversial figure (to say the least!), and thus controversary will always take centre stage when Mintoff is discussed. What interests me today, and I would guess, also the vast majority of the Maltese population, is not some idiotic prize given to Mintoff, but how are we to pay for the new hiked up utility bills the government is proposing, and what effect will this have on the Maltese economy coupled with the global economic recession which will inevitably hit us. It is here that we must focus our energies!
[Daphne – The one does not exclude the other.]
Gaddafi Human Rights Prize! What’s next, the Hu Jintao Prize for Peace and Justice?
How ironic. The man under whose regime the constitutional courts were locked up for a couple of years or so, gets a human rights award. Uncle Mwammar sure has a weird sense of humour. Are we absolutely sure this is not some candid camera joke of some sort?
Silvan Mifsud
Lest we forget – You should have come to the Dockyard in the 70s when Mintoff, surrounded on a truck by his buddy boys in a public gathering in Gavina Gulia Square, in his usual vulgar language, called all the Dockyard employees a bunch of weak men without “meat balls” His followers cheered and jumped for joy and those who booed were beaten up. You should have come to the Yard when Nationalist Fortu Selvatico, a member of the Management Board elected by the workers themselves was beaten up and not allowed to enter the yard to work.You should have come to the Yard when it was brought to a standstill for SEVEN months with a ban on overtime whilst we Senior Staff manned the pumping stations and were rewarded by having our salaries reduced. And as for Mintoff’s successor KMB, all I can say is thank God I had already retired when he led the cowardly attack on the Curia. Oh yes we have alot to thank Mintoff for,for ruining the lives of so many…….
Human rights be damned (if I was rude I would have said “be bu…red).Thanks for nothing Dom.
Excellent article, Daphne. I’m sure the ferryman will be happy to do us all a favour and take him across for free, if necessary…
Hah. Okay maybe Mintoff is not exactly the kind of candidate for human rights prizes. However, let us not forget the “dnub il-mejjet” fables invented by the Church at that time under General Gonzi (yes the uncle of our PM) to force voters not to vote labour. Let us not forget the burying of labour sympathizers in rubbish dumps. Clearly the human right for free vote was trampled upon and even more so, human dignity was trampled when fellow countrymen were buried in the “mizbliet”. A priest even had the nerve of asking whether my grandfather was a labourite during confession. Clearly this religion is just a husk. St. Paul would have given them a good verbal trashing if he saw them doing this.
This same Church today, has the nerve to ask us to give them donations after so much pain suffered by many labourite families. I’m not saying that Nationalist families didn’t suffer. Of course they did. However, it is unfair to say that only the nationalists suffered. I wish to point out that, we would be still under the yoke of religious fanaticism and ignorance where it not for daring persons such as Dominic Mintoff. I’m not a socialist but I admire courage and determination in all its forms.
[Daphne – Hey, but guess what? It turns out that the Church was right, after all. The mistake it made was in confusing religion with politics. It should just have said: here is a man who will wreck the country and divide it, and history will have proved it right. Oh, and don’t make the mistake made by the rank and file of the unthinking: the Labour Party’s war in the 1960s was with the Church, not with the Nationalist Party. So I can’t quite get your point.]
Prosit!We seem to have forgotten his…Min Mhux maghna…kontra taghna!!! Now,that`s sowing hatred and he managed to divide a Nation!
Black Monday was imprinted in my late brother in law`s mind till his dying day!!!!
I have said this before here. Mintoff got exactly what he deserves. It had to be a foreign country to pay him back for the havoc he wrought on his country throughout his active political life. Peace my foot. Has everybody forgotten the Christmas eve televised broadcasts ? Anything but messages of peace. As my grandfather would have exclaimed : ” Dio non paga il sabato”.
[Daphne – He’s such an ahdar that he always reserved his biggest battles and dramas for December, to ruin everyone’s Christmas.]
What a ghastly award! Human Rights Indeed !
@Aidan. What a crowd of people he will find waiting for him! The people who he worried into a premature death will be baying for revenge, and i’m sure God will close one eye and look the other way whilst they give him what he deserves. When his time comes,as it will, may he rot in Peace.
[Daphne – They won’t be on the same side of the River Styx.]
Jesus – the man’s cheek knows no bounds… I assume this pathetic excuse for a human being is referring to you and abc…
Joe Grima (21 hours, 57 minutes ago)
Hatred? The most glaring example of class hatred in this country is incapsulated in a couple of well known right-wing columnists who pollute the pages of the English-language press every week. What about political hatred and retribution today, in October 2008. We see it, feel it. and we try to fight it against immense odds. Perhaps, to right wing columnists and their ilk, that is justifiable. Is it?
[Daphne – The sad man is still labouring under the delusion that the Nationalist Party is right-wing while Labour is left-wing, instead of a weird hotchpotch of extreme right-wing views stirred into the worst of totalitarian socialist thinking. Yes, sure, I’m as right-wing as they come. It shows that this ridiculous man, last seen as a politician thumping the side of a truck behind Lorry Sant at a mass meeting, thinks politics is about labels, not about policies. He’s as big a pinnur as his new hero Joseph – whose campaign was pushed forward by Joe’s brother Godfrey: first he sees the light and gets himself a show on NET TV, then he sees the light again and goes smarming after Muscat. And his ex-chick Lynne Zahra, mother of his child, is even now championing Dom Mintoff on timesofmalta.com, saying that she has worshipped him since she was 13. Looks like the woman always had dreadful taste in men. When I was 13 the sort of men I worshipped were found on Jackie magazine pin-ups.]
To all the idol worshippers and Mintoff Salvatur ta’Malta clan: Hitler Caucescu and Stalin still have admirers today but they are remembered for all the evil they did by the rest of the world.
Mintoff is a self-centred person who never respected anyone, not even his close aides. But then some people were happy and felt privileged when getting a scolding from il-kbir.
Let him stash the money he won away; I’m sure he would not spend a penny of it – good luck to his heirs.
Excellent article.
Don’t hold your breath, Mario. I’ll probably be paying Charon long before Mintoff, if his fellow dictator buddies’ longevity is anything to go by. Just look at Ghaddafi himself. Longest serving head of government, looks like a shrivelled fig version of Michael Jackson, but still going at it.
Spot on Daphne. The only slight flaw in your logic which Mintoff worshippers may use, is that this ‘award’ seems to have been won also by Nelson Mandela, who, I think, should not be put on the same par with the other winners of this prize including our beloved pseudo Saviour.
Shortly after the 1981 election I wrote a letter to the Times which was printed as a(n opinion) piece under the title of ‘The Democratic Right to govern’ by ‘Sim’. In those days we used pseudonyms for fear of retribution, there was no such thing as freedom of expression. I concluded my article by pointing out that unless Mintoff called for fresh and fair elections immediately, it would mean the end of the Labour party’s being elected for a very long time (words to that effect). I have to admit that I got that prediction spot on, despite being only 22 years old at the time.
No one who is right-thinking and who lived through those times could possibly ever consider voting for the Labour party. Better the mediocre fare we get from the PN than that.
Ahem, amrio, let’s not get into that one shall we? Have you ever seen anyone from l-Ewropa ta’ Kajin winning the Ghaddafi Award?
Only those who have a poor understanding of democracy can ever praise Duminku Mintoff.
You’re right Daphne. Maltese has just the right adjective for this man: “ahdar”.
Why all this fuss about Mintoff being rewarded with this highly coveted award! After all wasn’t it he who was:
1. professur tad-demokraziju
2. leader of a party with principles based on hniena
3. a man who discussed beforehand with the people every project he planned
4. the one who brought in foreign doctors when our doctors decided to strike (ghalkemm xi ilsna hziena jghidu li kienu locked-out)
5. the good soul who wrote a very sincere letter to Miss Strickland in which he declared that he had striven all his life to persuade, just after the Times of Malta arson
Altru haqqux il-premju ta’ Gaddafi!
I wish all the above were true, but the contrary is so much stuck in my mind and engraved in my bones, that no amount of history re-writing will manage to delete it. If Mintoff deserves any award for human rights championship, then everybody deserves a Nobel prize for anything.
Brothers & Sisters of Malta and Gozo
Rejoice because our cousin Gaddafi gave a wonderful proze to our BIG DAD dOm mInToFF (no toffee, please!). Mintoff wronged me when:
1. He chucked me out of the Alma Mater due to his stupid conclusions about humanities.
2. He ruined my weekends when he did not allow me to enjoy them by participating in PN mass meetings (he got used to greeting us with face-behind-masked policemen, with dogs standing for action.
3. He annoyed the whole nation with his continuous nonsense.
4. HE impoverished my thinking, my feelings, my pockets, my IT flair, my rights, my lifestyle, my options, my wishes, my dignity!
5. He stooped so low when he let loose his wild supporters, whom he allowed to abuse the peaceful protion of citizens.
6. He stupidly kept govening this country against the people’s will.
7. His mind reflected his dull mind and his blurred vision of Malta’s needs.
8. He preached social justice while allowing transfers, vindictive acts, unfair situations and provoked unemployment.
MINTOFF SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWARDED THE ‘TAL-KORPI GUY INTERNATIONAL AWARD’
For all his bluster and his riches, Mintoff always remained at heart the angry penniless boy from Bormla looking up to ‘the English’ with admiration and envy.
He spent all his life trying to be one of them – went to study and live in England, married an Englishwoman, addressed mass meetings against a backdrop of the Union Jack with a huge “Be British” slogan blazoned across it and tried to turn Malta into part of the UK, which would have made him officially British (and a member of the House of Commons to boot). As PM he transferred his office to Castille, which during his childhood, had been the office of the British Services for whom his father worked.
His Integration project was thwarted by Mabel Strickland, Borg Olivier and Archbishop Gonzi and he never forgave them. He used his ascendency over Labourites to turn his personal feud, especially with Gonzi, into a public one and dragged the entire country through decades of strife that, after 1981, brought us to the brink of civil war. The physical destruction of the Progress Press was also, politically, the final retaliation for the role that The Times of Malta had played in defeating his plans to make Malta an English county.
It was tragic that Mintoff’s hang-ups were coupled with a charismatic personality (at least among Labourites). As a result, the fate of Malta was, for a long time, heavily influenced by the self-esteem issues of an unhappy irascible man.
[Daphne – Your analysis is perfect, Antoine. This has always been clear to me and to my family. Unfortunately, it is not necessarily clear to others who also have self-esteem issues, and who don’t know enough about human behaviour or the facts of Mintoff’s life to be able to put together the pieces of his really quite straightforward jigsaw puzzle. Mintoff didn’t marry just any Englishwoman. He married a duke’s grand-daughter whose surname was de Vere-Bentinck. Out of respect for the poor woman’s memory I won’t say why he did it, or why he proceeded to behave towards her as he did, but it was all part of what you describe. He has been driven by hatred and self-pity all his life, and no amount of money or revenge ever filled that yawning hole of inadequacy. In this, he is no different to all the tyrants and despots who wreaked havoc in the 20th century. They were all twisted by the perceived rejection, exclusion, poverty or inadequacy of their roots.]
@Daphne – A duke’s great great granddaughter on her maternal side. Her mother was a de Vere Beauclerk descended from the 8th Duke of St. Albans who was an illegitimate descendant of Charles II, Stuart of the Royal House of Scotland through a laison with Eleanor Gwynne. Charles II was the son of Charles I and Henriette Marie de Bourbon daughter of King Henry IV of France and Maria de Medici. Charles I was the son of James I of Scotland and the VI of Britain, the son of Mary Queen of Scots. Mrs. Mintoff’s father was a Bentinck of Dutch extraction. So Mintoff, the populist married a woman descended albeit illegitimately from the Royal Houses of Scotland and France via the de Medicis of Florence. Not bad for a kid from Bormla!
[Daphne – Gay men are always so much better at this kind of thing, and I say that with a smile.]
@Daphne. Also worth mentioning is that the de Vere family are descended from the Earls of Oxford who date back to the 12th century in England and were signatories to the magna carta. The de Veres were part of the Norman gentlefolk who conquered England under William the Conqueror and who married the de Guises, a noble French family that intermarried French Royalty. Marie de Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots was a member of the Guise family. So Dom Mintoff son of a Royal Navy cook from Bormla not only married someone descended from Royalty but Royalty of the oldest lineage going back a thousand years. Dom Mintoff’s daughters and grandchildren and his future “stock” is of royal lineage – even more Royal than the Queen herself who after all is descended from the House of Hanover that usurped the British Crown from the Stuarts relatively recently. Think about this the next time you try to look down your nose at Mintoff because you come from a “familja pulita” from Valletta.
[Daphne – Sigh. Missing the point as always…our choice of spouse does not change the fact of our birth. Whoever Dom Mintoff married, he will always remain an unhappy and embittered guttersnipe from Bormla, and I will always remain a secure, self-confident and well-adjusted person from a familja pulita from Valletta. And I only put it that way because you clearly have a problem with it yourself. It is precisely because of this that I never felt the need to marry somebody I didn’t love and who I found unattractive, while pursuing a relationship with my brother’s wife to whom I was attracted, purely to make myself feel better and prove my status and worth to the watching world. Mintoff was no better than the classic gold-digging, status-seeking woman from the gutter who sets her cap at a ‘catch’, except that the only gold he was after in this case was her lineage because she was impoverished. He wouldn’t have married a rich woman anyway, because when women have their own money they tend to control their own lives and not be kicked around, something poor Mrs Mintoff could never do. Mintoff’s daughters may have had the descendant of British dukes for a mother, but they have a Bormla guttersnipe for a father. You can’t boast about one while ignoring the other – and to their credit, they do neither. As is the case with most children, their mother was clearly a greater influence than their father. They are her daughters in terms of general bearing, not his. Only fools or those of dubious morality would admire a man for marrying in the way that Mintoff did, and for his reasons, purely on the grounds that he grew up in a slum but snagged an aristocrat.]
I disagree. The “integration project” was Mintoff’s typical tactic of asking for the impossible, thus having the perfect excuse to manifest his burning hatred. Had he been sincere in his aim, he would have asked for Dependency status, which would have suited us perfectly, not integration.
[Daphne – He’s such an ahdar that he always reserved his biggest battles and dramas for December, to ruin everyone’s Christmas.]
Then he appeared on Dardir Malta on new year’s day to remind us to “nissikkaw ic-cinturin.”
@Daphne :)!
@Daphne. I hope you realize that my contributions above are firmly tongue in cheek! Sometimes I think that you take yourself a little too seriously. I don’t know anything about a relationship with his brother’s wife. That’s news to me. Please elaborate if you can without being sued. As for his daughters from what I hear they are both very well adjusted now. His dung slinging rebel daughter Yana Bland is head of a successful charter school in Texas and has done very well for herself. As you say they took after Mrs. Mintoff who by all accounts was a very nice lady. As for Mintoff himself well….that’s another story.
[Daphne – Nobody knows anything about it – that is, apart from parliamentarians of the time and some others – because everyone felt sorry for Wenzu Mintoff and kept their mouths shut. Because he hasn’t exactly reciprocated other people’s kindness and civility, I feel myself at liberty to explain, when I would never have dreamed of doing so back then. It is typical of Wenzu Mintoff that he would spend years spitting poison over me while still expecting me to keep my mouth shut about this story to protect him, which I shall no longer do. Some time in the early 1990s, I would say around 1992, when Wenzu Mintoff, then a Labour MP, fell out with Labour over Lorry Sant’s excesses and defected to Alternattiva, keeping his seat of course, Lorry Sant stood up to threaten Wenzu, waving a brown envelope around and suggesting that the contents would derail Wenzu and his political career. The speaker demanded to know what the contents of that envelope were, had it handed to him, took a look, got his explanation, and then ordered that the photographs be placed under lock and key wherever it is that such things are placed securely in parliament. What happened to them after that is anyone’s guess.
Word soon got out as to what they were, but I just put it down to vile gossip, not to be trusted. A couple of days later I got a call from somebody who Wenzu Mintoff and I both knew, and this person said, could he bring Wenzu round to talk to me later on that evening? Of course, I said yes. Wenzu didn’t yet think I was political poison and I still saw him as a man of principle who had stood up to Lorry Sant and left the Labour Party, instead of…..well, never mind. We sat in my kitchen and he explained how, when Lorry Sant began waving that envelope around in parliament, claiming that it contained explicit photographs that would embarrass him, he could think of just one possibility: someone with a long lens had caught him in flagrante with a girlfriend under some bush (and he wasn’t married anyway) in a compromising state of undress. Then when he saw the photographs, he realised that they were all of his mother starkers in his uncle Dom Mintoff’s summer house, taken when she was younger and he was a child. I have to say I felt really, really shocked and upset – not at the carrying on of Wenzu’s mother and Dom Mintoff, because adults do as they like and then face the consequences, but that Wenzu had to find out that way, through Lorry Sant waving photographs around in parliament.
As we sat in that kitchen, Wenzu was still trying to come to terms with the implications: “So that’s why she was never at home on Wednesday morning” – Mintoff never went to the office on Wednesday morning. And then an even scarier thought: which one of them is my father? His reason for coming to see me and to tell me about it was to ask me not to write about the subject for decency’s sake. Sadly, his behaviour towards me since has been so indecent that almost 17 years of keeping my mouth shut for his sake is more than long enough. And no, it isn’t libellous. All of this was said in my own kitchen, by him, in front of a third party. I must say it does go a long way towards explaining why he has turned out to be such an ahdar.]
Sybil – “nissikkaw ic-cinturin”
What an apt expression, coming from the infamous one who wore only big-buckled belts in those days. (He ‘s now changed to his “drainage-inspector-complete-with-matching-green-wellingtons” outfit.)
Well, it would go a long way towards turning a new leaf in Malta if Wenzu Mintoff would join us in dancing over Dom Mintoff’s grave.
@Daphne. I remember the Lorry Sant incident with the envelope very well. I assumed that they were pictures of Mintoff with some starlet, maybe Charlotte Rampling not of Mintoff with his sister in law! Moyra Mintoff sure put up with a lot! I have not followed the story with Wenzu Mintoff, I thought he and Toni Abela were pretty principled people who came back home to Labour after Alfred Sant cleaned out the Augean stables.
I do not agree fully with what you said about the elections ‘won’ by Labour. You said that Labour lost the 1981 etc. elections. What about the 1976 one? Remember what happened during the counting of votes for that particular election. Remember the court case filed by the Nationalist party alleging corrupt practices. Remember when the composition of the Court presiding over that particular case was changed when it rejected a preliminary plea brought up by the Mintoff government so that the case finished up withdrawn. I would suggest that one should be very carefully before one can say that Labour won the 1976 election. To my mind the only election which Labour won on its own steam was the 1971 one. In 1976 and, of course, the 1981 one, they used ‘the power of incumbency’ to the maximum in their favour with the disastrous results which all of us can ‘appreciate’.
[Daphne – So the party’s electoral track record is even worse. And what sort of win was it in 1971? Where is Fausto when we need him?]
With reference to the 1976 elections during which corrupt practices were much in evidence, may I indicate a publication issued by AZAD with the title The Poll of ’76 by Francis Zammit Dimech. This was a study offered and financed by AZAD Publications of which the undersigned was editor. In this study one could read about most of what happened prior to and during the polling days of that general election. The aim of the publication was to offer constructive criticism and adequate measures so that such abuse and malpractice would never happen again. But, yes, that election provided much cause for concern!
Wow Daphne,
Your revelation is shocking to say the least! Knowing how vile Lorry Sant was (I hate him more than Mintoff) I always wondered what that photo was but to be honest thought it was of Wenzu with his pants down so to speak.
This is much worse as it shows 1. Lorry Sant was even more despicable than I thought (if that’s possible), and on Mintoff’s part, adultery is one thing but with your sister in law???
I actually do feel sorry for Wenzu to have found out in that way! I wouldn’t wish that on anyone! Having said that, seeing his behaviour today, especially in your regard your revelation is more then justified but I honestly do admire your strength of character in keeping it under wraps for so long despite Wenzu Mintoff’s behaviour in your regard!
Coming to think of it I wonder if old Dom knew of these pictures and whether Lorry Sant used them to lever pressure on Dom?
[Daphne – So the party’s electoral track record is even worse. And what sort of win was it in 1971?
A measly SIX votes to the late Notary Abela of Zebbug was what eventually clinched the MLP victory in 1971.
[Daphne – I had heard that but I couldn’t believe it. Six votes made all the difference to Malta’s destiny and to the lives of an entire generation. Unbelievable.]
[Daphne -. It shows that this ridiculous man, last seen as a politician thumping the side of a truck behind Lorry Sant at a mass meeting, thinks politics is about labels, not about policies. He’s as big a pinnur as his new hero Joseph – whose campaign was pushed forward by Joe’s brother Godfrey: first he sees the light and gets himself a show on NET TV…….]
For the sake of fairness, his NETTV program sure helped the IVA campaign in its day and if I remember correctly, it was the very last program aired on NETTV just before the stroke of midnight brought to an end the campaign.His guests at the time included Laurence Zammit and Cikku Stivala of NSTF if I remember correctly.
No one called him a “ridiculous man” at the time. He was not the only ex-Mintoffian seeing the light either at the time.
[Daphne – Those who see the light once are not ridiculous. Those who see the light twice are. What’s he going to do if Muscat turns out not to be to his liking – throw himself back on Gonzi? No dignity or self-respect.]
H.P. Baxxter Monday, 27 October 1907hrs
Ahem, amrio, let’s not get into that one shall we? Have you ever seen anyone from l-Ewropa ta’ Kajin winning the Ghaddafi Award?
Those from l’Ewropa ta’ Kajjin win other types of awards from Gheddafi., such as very lucrative contracts to help build up his desert land.
[Daphne – What’s he going to do if Muscat turns out not to be to his liking – throw himself back on Gonzi? No dignity or self-respect.]
Most probably suck up to whoever replaces Gonzi in due time.
:)
[Daphne – I had heard that but I couldn’t believe it. Six votes made all the difference to Malta’s destiny and to the lives of an entire generation. Unbelievable.]
You bet. Poor Nutar Abela remained with the “tikketta” of “tas-sitt voti” for the rest of his life.
“David Buttigieg Wednesday, 29 October 1138hrs
Coming to think of it I wonder if old Dom knew of these pictures and whether Lorry Sant used them to lever pressure on Dom?”
Dom’s type would surely have been flattered that everyone and his pet canary knew just what a “macho” he was. He never hid the fact that he always got what he wanted, even if his “object of desire” belonged to someone else., and he rode roughshod over people’s feelings including those of people close to him. Pity that innocent parties always ended up bearing the brunt of his crudeness, selfishness and larger-then-life ego.
[Daphne – Yes, I think that having a sexual relationship with his brother’s wife was not the result of a passion he couldn’t control – and what sort of man wouldn’t control it, in that scenario? – but an act of aggression against his brother. The man is a textbook case of narcissism, in the psychiatric meaning of the word, and not general parlance.]
Yes Sybil, but business is business, and the European defence industry is desperately looking for markets. But human rights awards are another matter.
re The Mintoff photos, it goes to show that one cannot be a complete bastard in public life, and a straight gentleman in private. The one follows the other.
Since this seems to have turned into a “Revelations” topic, can anyone confirm what I was told by a foreign intelligence source, viz. that Ghaddafi was at Verdala Palace during Operation EL DORADO CANYON (April 1986 bombing). And perhaps someone could shed some light on the goings-on at the Fort St Angelo “pleasure palace” used to entertain foreign dignitaries (i.e. North Koreans and Libyans)?
[Daphne – You lost me there. Maybe they used the party’s Pom-Pom Girls. Everyone else seems to have done so.]
Old hands like me and Daphne will tell you that the only minister Mintoff couldn’t control was Lorry Sant. Think about it. Lorry was a robber baron who took over people’s lands at will, whenever he wanted, however he wanted. He had a cadre of bully boys who enforced his every whim, and he even threatened Mintoff with violence, let alone with those dirty pictures. But what a weapon those pictures were. I believe that Lorry would have used them on Mintoff to get his way over and over again. Imagine if he released them. The Salvatur would have been found to have feet of clay besides a stiff third foot. Imagine if they were released before an election. I almost feel sorry for Wenzu, but when I hear his voice on the radio, full of bile and bitterness, that sentiment dies. I don’t want to delve much into the past and see what decisions were taken by that despicable Lorry Sant that might have been the result of those photos being on the verge of being made public.
[Daphne – The big mystery at the time (and still) is where and how he got hold of those pictures in the first place. Maybe the photographer kept the negatives, which fell into the wrong hands.]
@David Buttigieg. I believe you make a valid point. Lorry Sant was probably using those pictures to blackmail Dom Mintoff all along. That’s why he literally got away with murder. Lorry Sant probably tried to use them again with Dom Mintoff to get Wenzu Mintoff to shut up but by then Wenzu Mintoff was probably estranged from his uncle which led to Lorry Sant resorting to brandishing them around in Parliament. Remember that Mintoff appointed KMB as leader to outmaneouver Lorry Sant who had his eyes set on the leadership. Also remember that KMB had started to take action against Lorry Sant after the 1987 election defeat – Lorry Sant was suspended from the MLP when KMB was leader. Alfred Sant finished off the job that KMB started of cleaning the party of its violent elements that were centered around Sant. Although Dom Mintoff deserves criticism for many things at the end of the day it was Dom Mintoff who used his personal stature to push through the constitutional amendments that ensured the PN victory in 1987. As I have said before Dom Mintoff is not a black and white character. He is a very intelligent democratic socialist whose intentions of helping alleviate the plight of the working classes were the best. He was way ahead of his times in many of his attitudes and believes. How many of his “sitt punti” are now considered to be obvious when at the time they were seen as subversive communism? The tragedy is that Dom Mintoff turned a blind eye to violent elements in his party and even used violence for political objectives. That was his dark fascist side. Now we have a better understanding of why he allowed Lorry Sant to do what he did. Lorry Sant found his Achilles heel – and what an Achilles heel it was.
[Daphne – Fester, nothing Mintoff did was for the sake of others. He is a narcissistic – read up on it. Everything he did was for himself, even if it seemed to be for others, or was promoted by him as being that way. Read Antoine Vella’s succinct summing-up of his personality and motivation, somewhere above here. It’s perfect. All his on-paper goals could have been achieved without any fights, wars, trouble, damage, chaos, economic turmoil or having the country riven in two with hate – and with nobody dying, either. The Nationalist government revolutionised the economy, turned Malta into one giant middle-class – albeit with working-class values – and made us European Union citizens, all without any blood being shed and with peace and prosperity all round. That’s because Fenech Adami was a far greater leader and a better human-being than Mintoff was, and without his personality flaws. He didn’t use power to work out his psychological problems. It says rather a lot that you rank Mintoff’s stature, achievements and leadership skills higher than those of the man who taught us that life in Malta could be normal.]
The Big Mystery, as you call it, is probably no mystery at all. The pictures were Mintoff’s, taken at his behest, I suspect. Then they were found by some underling who was more loyal to Lorry than Mintoff. Remember the tee shirts ” Lorry Sant Prim Ministru Ta’ Malta ” that were being worn for a brief time by his henchmen? That was a reality that may well have become horribly true, and those photos would have made it possible. We were spared even greater excesses then, because with dear Lorry as Prime Minister instead of possibly the Upturned Bristle Brush, we would have had triple of what the same Brush dished out. Those photos actually explain a lot. I even venture to say that Lorry controlled the Labour Shock Troops, you know, the same troops that wrecked the Curia. Remember, he was a Drydocks employee. These Shock Troops delivered a chilling message to us with their violence, but the same chilling message was being delivered to KMB, Mintoff et al. Am I running away with my imagination here? It seems to be so clear to me. Lorry was the one who got his hands dirty, but was also the king-maker. All because he had those photos, therefore he had a hold on Mintoff, and KMB by proxy. Who knows what else, what other dirt and smut he possessed? Come to think of that, I know someone who was very close to Mintoff, a dogsbody so to speak, who then went over body and soul to Lorry. He has a farmhouse in Delimara as well, and his nickname is “one cent”……was he the guy who took and supplied the photos. I wonder, I wonder……oh I do SO LOVE a good MLP mystery shenanigans story. As for the Pom Pom Girls, whatever happened to that guy who was supposed to have partaken of their innocence, some Stephen or something. You know the stories, of sex on the Macina Ramparts …….wonder what became of that hot potato.
Kinkiness and Violence. The MLP has a lot to answer for.
@Daphne. Don’t be ridiculous – I never said I ranked Mintoff as above EFA. EFA is the most successful Maltese politician in my lifetime for all the reasons you outline. I just find this black and white caricature you draw of Mintoff insulting to everyone’s intelligence.
[Daphne – It’s not a black-and-white caricature, but a factual description. People go on about what Mintoff achieved. What exactly did he achieve? Can somebody give me a list that stands up to scrutiny? The bottom line is that Malta would have been better without the Mintoff experience, and with the Mintoff experience it was dreadful. Sure, if you lived in Malta’s equivalent of a sewer you might have seen him as Eva Peron, but he wasn’t the solution for people who lived like that – Fenech Adami was. We can see that in retrospect, but it doesn’t stop people performing the futile exercise of looking for good things to say about Mintoff. Why? Why look for good things to say about him? He has written his own lament. It’s not as though you’re talking to somebody who heard about him third-hand here.]
Right you are, Daphne. Hell, even independence and “Helsien” could have been achieved without all that “British go home” claptrap. And we’d have got better post-1974 arrangements, like many ex-colonies did, if he hadn’t made enemies of everyone in the British government.
Bah, I could write reams of stuff on the bastard, and I tell you, it’ll be the death of me. I’m just hanging on long enough until he’s dead. And then it’ll be a bottle of Taittinger Millésime Brut, Boney M, and a good long honest-to-God slash over his grave.
[Daphne – There’s going to be a queue at that grave. Without security, it’s going to be desecrated every night. You know what the ultimate irony is? He’s going to want to be buried at the Addolorata.]
Muad’dib Monday, 27 October 1608hrs
Hah. Okay maybe Mintoff is not exactly the kind of candidate for human rights prizes. However, let us not forget the “dnub il-mejjet” fables invented by the Church at that time under General Gonzi (yes the uncle of our PM) to force voters not to vote labour. Let us not forget the burying of labour sympathizers in rubbish dumps.
Correct me if I’m wrong but mizbla here does not mean rubbish dump, but a burying place that was not blessed?
[Daphne – The English language has it as unconsecrated ground. I have no doubt that there is an equivalent expression in Maltese. The use of the word ‘mizbla’, which translates as rubbish-dump or more correctly, midden, was chosen for political reasons: to heighten the drama and to create the impression that bodies were thrown onto a midden, something that neither health and safety legislation nor sheer humanity would have permitted. “They chucked my father’s body on a dump” sounds a lot better, if better is the right word, than “my father was buried in unconsecrated ground”. The curious thing is that all this anger and resentment comes from people who profess not to give a damn what the Catholic Church thinks. So why did they care where they were buried? I wouldn’t care a jot if I were to be buried in unconsecrated ground. I would actually find it preferable to the horrible jungle of hideous tombstones that the Addolorata has become. We all end up in a dump, anyway – every few years the graves are cleared out to make way for new coffins, and it all gets chucked into a communal pit and the coffins are burned. But nobody ever talks about that. It’s too unpleasant. Roll on cremation.]
@Daphne. There you go again unaware that you are totally blinkered and unable to see Dom Mintoff objectively. You need to try and see him from the perspective of the people he represented – the poor, the working class, the marginalized and disenfranchised. If you are able to do that you will come to a more objective understanding of him. Understanding him does not necessarily mean admiring him or even liking him. It means just that – understanding where he’s coming from. Antoine and your interesting psychobabble is just part of the picture. Remember Mintoff could have stayed in England if he wanted to after he graduated from Oxford. He didn’t. Keep in mind that he wanted integration with the U.K. to allow the Maltese to enjoy the better economic conditions of the U.K.at the time. The PN at one point advocated the Italianita of Malta which was an attempt at integration with Italy. At the time of integration, Mintoff was also trying to appeal to Constitutionalist Party voters who were die-hard pro-British – his meetings with the Union Jack behind him should be seen in this context as well.
[Daphne – Oh, please. His motivation was no different to Eva Peron’s: hatred, envy and the desire for personal advancement, dressed up as the saintly wish to help the poor. The only differences are that one was a woman who spent the money she used her power and position to acquire, and nobody is ever going to write a musical about Mintoff.]
@Daphne. I understand what you went through and my heart goes out to you and others who suffered under the worst of Mintoff’s excesses, I lived through those times as well – 20 punt and all the rest of it.
Do you think that EFA would have come along with his center left policies without the existence of Mintoff? EFA was able to shift the PN leftwards and appeal to the center left of the political spectrum because of Mintoff. Prior to EFA, the PN’s social policy was ridiculous, in fact if my memory serves me right Mario Felice helped sink the PN’s re-election efforts in 1976 by saying that he would abolish income tax. Without income tax there would be no free education, health, social services etc.
Just as Mintoff helped the PN by allowing someone like EFA from the center left of the party to take over as leader, EFA in turn caused the MLP to shift away from the extreme left to the center. Without EFA there would have been no New Labour and Alfred Sant who cleaned up the party and made it electable again.
@Daphne. I wouldn’t be so sure about that last point. For all we know the people who brought us “Gensna” may already have the lyrics ready and are just waiting to write the last song!! “Oh what a circus, oh what a show…” comes to mind.
[Daphne – Gensa, oh my God. We really need that 1980s ‘experience’ that somebody on this blog suggested at one point. I went to a Communist Hungary ‘experience’ in Budapest last year, full of memorabilia from the times, including phones that didn’t work, and so on. What struck us was that, apart from the Lenin and Marx stuff, it wasn’t much different from what we knew.]
Daphne: This song could be worked into a musical about Mintoff’s life. Mary Spiteri could even play Agatha Barbara.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q10kJC_HtJQ
Oh but they did write a musical about Mintoff, or at least his magnificent deeds. What did you think they were going on about in the last act of “Gensna”.
(“Il-Gens Malti.” Another one of KMB’s gems)
@Uncle Fester
Made it electable? Cleaned up the party? From the likes of Anglu Farrugia and Alex Sceberras Trigona perhaps?
@Daphne. I remember when I visited the States in 1980 as a 15 year old and being amazed at a colour T.V. and bringing home bags of Hershey bars for all the relatives and friends and then making sure we only ate one bar a week to make them last! I remember my aunts who lived in Sliema coming to have showers at our place and washing their clothes at our house. I remember taking 6 A Levels to try and get into university and without a hope in hell of doing so. I remember one kid at my school who contributed to this column getting 4 straight As and still not getting into medical school. And then I finally remember getting the hell out. Of course it was like being in the Eastern bloc, unless you belonged to the party elite who had colour TVs, got into university etc etc.
@H P Baxxter. Do you think I ever listened to Gensna in its entirety? I may have many weaknesses, but being a masochist is not one of them.
H P Baxxter – “And then it’ll be a bottle of Taittinger Millésime Brut, Boney M, and a good long honest-to-God slash over his grave.”
Which song would you dedicate to that despicable, decrepit fool? Rasputin? (Malta’s greatest love machine … :) )
[Daphne – Yes, I think that having a sexual relationship with his brother’s wife was not the result of a passion he couldn’t control – and what sort of man wouldn’t control it, in that scenario? – but an act of aggression against his brother. The man is a textbook case of narcissism, in the psychiatric meaning of the word, and not general parlance.]
His way of showing to all and sundry just who was the dominant male in the family.
“Mario Debono Wednesday, 29 October 1801hrs
I even venture to say that Lorry controlled the Labour Shock Troops, you know, the same troops that wrecked the Curia. Remember, he was a Drydocks employee. These Shock Troops delivered a chilling message to us ……”
You forgot the influence of the likes of Wistin Abela, Joe Debono Grech and Joe Grima on those violent elements. The worse were Wistin Abela’s “Zwieten” though.
The reason Mintoff pretended to care for the poor so much is to play them against what he saw as the “puliti” who he hated because he knew he would never be one of them! He pretended to do so much for one class just to get at another!
They will probably bury him in an unmarked grave! Still, I hope I won’t be made to throw up at his funeral like I nearly did at the funeral of that Barbara, by the sight of a certain buffoon pretending to cry his eyes out!
“Uncle Fester Wednesday, 29 October 1958hrs
@ Of course it was like being in the Eastern bloc, unless you belonged to the party elite who had colour TVs, got into university etc etc.”
I became acutely aware of that sort of similarity when , in the the seventies, I had occassion to stay for a while both in East and West Germany and later on met several people who over, the years, had managed to flee Eastern Communist Europe to the free west.(In those days, Germany was still divided into two by the (in)famous wall). The similarity between drab East Germany and Malta was unbeliveable., shortages of most essentials, black and white grainy tv ,dreary nodescript shops selling cheap shoddy goods, people speaking in hushed tones about their complaints, whilst looking over their shoulders in fear of retaliation.
People leading an insular existance in Malta in those days never quite realised just how near we got to ending up like another East Germany or an Albania run under the dreaded Hoxha. In those days , the likes of Nicholai Caucescu were invited to Malta and given honorary University degrees whilst many thousands of Maltese boys and girls were denied a university education. “Raid on Entebbe” was censored so as not to upset the then cannibalistic dictator of Uganda Idi Amin ,and we were declared offical blood brothers to Libyans. The only safe place to read the “Times” or l'”In- Taghna ” publicly without risking a beating was on the early morning ferry to Goz which used to be full of Maltese goverment workers travelling daily to Gozo , all victims of scores of vendicative transfers .
To Dr Joseph Muscat MLP Leader;
THAT, was life under Mintoff for the majority of Maltese, and as long as you keep surrounding yourself with old Mintoffian cast-offs and lauding the old man, you will keep reminding us of those dark days. That is why we would rather face high utility bills, a spiralling cost of living and higher taxation then vote MLP, any day.
[Daphne – I was in Budapest in 1985 and noticed the similarity too. Travelling out of Malta to non-Communist countries in those days meant a dramatic psychological ‘shock’ as you adjusted from the grey drabness to colour, life, plenty and freedom. That process of mental adjustment, and the sharp contrast between our reality and reality outside our ‘prison’ affected me so deeply that even now, 21 years and a zillion trips later, I still wait for that old feeling to hit me when I get off a plane, and am momentarily surprised when it doesn’t. The Labour Party succeeded in convincing its followers that there was nothing untoward about our situation only because they didn’t read, travel or even watch much television. They didn’t realise how badly off we were, or make the connection with who was to blame. A couple of years ago I read a big feature about contemporary Albania in The Sunday Times (London). The writer described how the questions he was asked most frequently there were: ‘Is Albania really so different from the rest of Europe? Are we really backward? How backward are we? They have no means of comparison, no experience of anything else, and neither did most Maltese in those days.]
Gensna?? I remember far worse … Some 6-year old winning a song festival, with a song which goes something like this: Le Le ma nichdek qatt ja art twelidi, kull fejn immur niftahar bil-helsien, u jekk xi hadd imaqdrek isib lili, diviza nkun ghalik ghax Malti jien…”
A Camilleri Wednesday, 29 October 2240hrs
Gensna?? I remember far worse … Some 6-year old winning a song festival, with a song which goes something like this: Le Le ma nichdek qatt ja art twelidi, kull fejn immur niftahar bil-helsien, u jekk xi hadd imaqdrek isib lili, diviza nkun ghalik ghax Malti jien…”
A good friend of mine swears that he used to see big, beefy, hairy “aristokrazija tal-haddiema” types wiping tears from their eyes with the backs of their hands whenever they heard that particular socialist gem.
Sybil – They still play that song in meetings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2WzCHO7B9k Enjoy it!
@Sybil and A Camilleri:
That six-year old kid was Joseph Armani (he of “Hu Pjacir/Ride Me), unless I’m very much mistaken.
[Daphne – Ah hahahahahaha. Unbelievable. What next – cookery lessons by an ex Pom Pom Girl on Super One?]
Uncle Fester Wednesday, 29 October 1958hrs
I remember one kid at my school who contributed to this column getting 4 straight As and still not getting into medical school.
Who are you Uncle Fester/ Do I Know you ? I was one such kid, in fact I think you are referring to me! Off with the Adams Family mask, please.
Gensna……i remember the utter mess they caused at Hagar Qim with this paen to socialist triumph. It ran for days on end. I can still hear the giant reams of sound generated by huge loudspeakers. We used to hear it in Zurrieq. And we used to see buses of peroxide-blonde women (I promptly nicknamed them Ghaqda Qhab Laburisti) on their way to this opra. I also remember that the MLP club three doors up from my home used to be the sort of dressing-room with Ray Azzopardi prancing about outside in ochre tights and a codpiece organizing everything ……oh, what memories of my puberty this brings.
Used to make me sick though….all those sickly sweet stupid lyrics, meaningless of course, and utterly and historically incorrect. How the hell did we tolerate all that ? Daphne, Fester, David…..have you ever asked that question?
[Daphne – We didn’t tolerate it.]
Mario Debono Thursday, 30 October 0136hrs
Uncle Fester Wednesday, 29 October 1958hrs
Gensna……i remember the utter mess they caused at Hagar Qim with this paen to socialist triumph. It ran for days on end
Anyone remembers how the original Triton fountain in Floriana got seriously damaged during offical celebrations of a socialist activity way back in the seventies?
Daphne….i beg to disagree. We did tolerate it. We had no choice. Its all you could hear on Xandir Malta.
Bet there are still many faux yellow haired Bormla types who hear Gensna all over again.
Mario Debono: Why would someone like Mintoff be afraid of those photos being seen?
@ Corinne The only thing I can think of is that those photos may have diminished his stature at the time, or what’s left of it now. They would certainly have damaged him politically, because the Maltese were more prudish then. They may have made him an object of ridicule. It wasn’t just some floozie he was having fun with, but his brother’s wife. He would have been hard put to brush his way out of it. His own party would have demanded some form of explanation, egged on by whoever would have made the photos public, that is, Lorry. They were/are two despicable men and I daresay hated each other with a passion. At the end of the day however, Lorry didn’t have the balls to challenge his boss. Don’t you remember the refrain….Mielah Lorry Sant? Mielah in Maltese slang means someone without the ability to father children, but it also meant impotent, without the wherewithal. Call me a fantastic theorist, but I think Lorry had Mintoff by the balls for quite some time during the 70’s and early 80’s.
[Daphne – That ‘mielah’ taunt is so primitive. And I find it interesting that other cultures taunt the woman for being barren, but ours taunts the man for being ‘mielah’ – which incidentally is agricultural/peasant language, because salty earth is barren. Whenever, whatever, however, everyone is going to think less of a man who sleeps with his brother’s wife: it crosses all accepted boundaries of decency at a very fundamental level, and this is universally accepted. Mintoff would have known that this is the one thing that would have shocked and dismayed even his most fervent supporters. It’s not the adulterous sex itself he would have worried about, but what his choice of partner would have said about his character, personality and lack of common decency, to folk who would have grasped this much even if they grasped nothing else about what he did and said.]
How can you be such a vile bitch, hateful cheap disgusting witch, all you did in this article is rekindle the excessive hatred you have for Labour, its followers and Mintoff.
Although he had his faults, he managed to bring Malta back from the doldrums when in 1971, Malta was broke and 60,000 of its children sent away as immigrants, leaving the well off fascist like your family in Malta to reign supreme.
How dare you try to undermine the actual facts about the interdet. It shows that no one from your family suffered the humiliation of being buried in a rubbish dump!!!!!
Incredible the hatred I read and the story about poor Wenzu………….don’t you have any sense of dignity in your veins, witch.
How I wish for Joseph to bring the Labour party back were it belongs so that we get rid of all you right-wing parasites…………….ghal llum daqsekk………wara naraw.
[Daphne – I am publishing your comment because it encapsulates perfectly all that those who vote against the Labour Party find so deeply abhorrent about its attitude, mindset and thinking. There is no way on earth that your Joseph can get rid of me without a return to the methods of his predecessors, given that I do not work for the government or for a state corporation, but in private enterprise. And I am not right-wing. Your party is, but you are too damned stupid to know that. Oh, and unconsecrated ground and a rubbish-dump are not the same thing. Buy a dictionary and use it. Members of my family suffered far worse fates under Labour when alive and aware of what was happening than being buried in unconsecrated ground when dead and not in this world. Congratulations, you are a wonderful ambassador for your party. No wonder you vote Labour. You don’t even have the intelligence to see that people like you can do their best to strip people like me of our livelihood, but the bottom line is that I will remain what I am and you will remain what you are, material possessions and livelihood notwithstanding. And that is why I am here today, doing what I do, while you are where you are, still in your gutter, despite 16 years of ‘socialism’ and, sad to say, 21 years of civilisation. Not even those 21 years of civilisation could make something of you.]
G.Cassar.
Well done G.Cassar. Keep on writing the way you wrote above and people who were thinking that Labour supporters have changed for the better, shall quickly realise that they have not changed at all and are still the scum of the earth.
[Daphne – They’re not all the scum of the earth, of course, but too many seem to be hodor like this person.]
How interesting calling me stupid when I thought you are such an open minded, free speech loving person!!!! Is that all you can come up with. Fenech Adami already used the same rhetoric after ’96, that the people are stupid voting Labour in power. You are such a predictable person that I had started writing a reply before you even wrote this piece of twaddle.
So you still persist with calling the interdet something insignificant, say like Iran calling the Holocaust inexistent………..prosit!!!!
What about all the bombs before the elections of ’87 and the hate mails………the instability in the country and the victimisations after the results………or we tend to forget and blame everything on Labour.
And by the way………..the best example of intelligence came from your own son when he showed all Malta what an ill mannered SOB he is!!
[Daphne – My use of the word ‘stupid’ was as a factual description, not an insult. I am ‘free speech loving’, which is why I abhorred the Labour Party when it governed and regard it with deep suspicion now. A typical example of somebody who does not understand free speech, on the other hand, is a person who prays for the election of his/her favourite party leader so that he may exact revenge on those who don’t like that party. Yes, people were stupid to vote Labour in 1996, but they weren’t too stupid to realise their mistake immediately and went hurtling to the polls to reverse that decision after just 22 months. That’s why lots of people who don’t usually vote Labour boasted they did so, back in 1996, but nobody will admit to having done so now. I do not say the ‘interdett’ is something insignificant. I point out that it was not a battle between two political parties – neither of which my family supported at the time, incidentally – but a battle between one political party and the Archbishop of Malta. Those who didn’t care about what the Church said shouldn’t have bothered about what the Church did – but clearly, Labourites of the time wanted to have their cake and eat it. The Church can only interdict those who are its members. The people of the time had a simple solution: leave the Church. But they didn’t have the guts to do it, despite being progressive socialists in name. I, on the other hand, cannot be interdicted by the Church because I neither come under its jurisdiction nor give a monkey’s cuss what it thinks about me. And I am not a progressive socialist. Your words about bombs and hate mail are beyond ridiculous, when you consider how much damage was done to this country by supporters of the Labour Party, how many people were beaten and shot at, and how many buildings were ransacked or burned down. My son is far from being ill-mannered – at the risk of rubbing your nose in it, somebody from his sort of background can never be ill-mannered, but somebody from your sort of background will never understand why. As to whether his mother is a bitch, you’re free to think so. I don’t support the Labour Party, so you needn’t fear the consequences and can do what I do, and use your real name, instead of cowering behind a false name to hurl insults – though I do admit that if I were as stupid and inane as you are, and again those are factual descriptions and not insults, I would use a false name, too.]
@Mario Debono. I don’t know you Mario, or if I do I know you by sight. I am referring to someone who contributed to this column who had to go abroad to Italy to study medicine and is now very successful in the field of music. He was by far the most all rounded talented kid in my class at school – got straight As at A levels and was a whizz kid when it came to anything to do with music. I am sure that he was not the only one who got denied entry to medical school because of those famous 20 punt. There was another kid in class with me who was very bright in the sciences who tried to get into medical school with top notch grades and was denied. His father, a working class man, had to swallow his pride and lay marble in Lorry Sant’s villa for free to ask a favour from him to get his son a scholarship to study medicine in Italy through the Italian Cultural Institute.
[Daphne – You mean Aidan Zammit Lupi. I know every last detail of that sorry saga because we’re cousins. His family went through financial hell keeping him in Italy at a time when nobody in this country had any spare money except those who brown-nosed Labour and its thugs.]
I have read all comments and the occasional insertion by Daphne and I humbly conclude that the vast majority are downright painfully one sided (except the one by G.Cassar which is totally on another side of the scale).
If Mintoff was so abhorrent, then what shall we say about the Maltese voter who re-elected him to power for the second time? I am inclined to think that this guy must have done something good which is worthwhile to remember, like for instance Sea Malta, Airmalta, Dowty, SGS, Marsa PS (which although bought second hand is still delivering power), children’s allowance, pensions, bonus, etc and all this was done in the midst of a world wide crude oil crisis (1975) which was much more severe than today’s because there was no available supply. The atmosphere of great political tension was also a drawback which I also do not agree that it was his full making. I will never forget the ammunition, arms and guerilla stuff found in Qormi……which by any means imaginable could not have been framed up. I always thought that some people might excuse the bombings on the pretext that people who are bullied will resort to anything but to me this is not acceptable as otherwise I would start thinking that suicide bombing in the middle east is also acceptable.
My intention when writing this piece was to ask everyone to be more moderate. When I say Mintoff is not all bad, likewise I mean EFA is not all good and saintly. I am going to remind the following episodes to stress my point. I can never accept the fact that when the Nationalists gained power, all bombing around the island stopped. If the labourites were setting up all the bombs, it would have made more sense to set up bombs when the PN was governing in order to create disruption. On the contrary, disruption was always created during MLP governance. I also cannot forget EFA promising that he will put to justice the Karin Grech culprits!! A similar promise was made regarding the Raymond Caruana case. And the presidential pardon to Joseph Fenech? A guy who was not believed even by the jury acting in the trial he was pardoned for.
I hope I have not offended anyone but I think the above should prove, even maybe mildly, that nobody is totally bad while another person is depicted close to a living saint.
Please allow this one last comment regarding the burying of corpses in unconsecrated ground or rubbish dump which to me is besides the point. We must not forget that this was done in the sixties when the church had a very strong influence on people. Had the church done something similar recently, nobody would have given a damn. But in those times, this gravely effected families. Some families were torn and some still are to this very day. Labour followers could not confess. This was a time when people left their belongings to the church so that the priests would pray for their souls to reach heaven. It was a very case in point when the PN stood “gallarija” like Joseph Muscat is frequently described to act by Daphne. If we just play it down, it would be unfair to all the families and people that suffered that humiliating burial.
[Daphne – This blog is not TVM and is not required to be ‘balanced’ under the supervision of the Broadcasting Authority. There is a preponderance of anti-Mintoff views because most people on this blog hate and despise the man as a result of direct experience of his governance. I’m quite sure there are Mintoff fan-blogs about: browse and you’ll find one. Nobody is playing the 1960s interdiction down. We are just reminding everyone that it was not a battle between the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party. It was a battle between Mintoff and Archbishop Gonzi. While nobody is playing it down, rather too many people are playing it up. They forget, because their education is so poor, that the first 20th-century politician to be targetted by the Catholic Church was not Mintoff but Lord Strickland. The difference is that Strickland was a gentleman who didn’t drag his supporters into his difference of opinion with the Church, turning it into a wholesale war.]
@Daphne That’s exactly who I am speaking about. I remember that while I was working at an insurance agency (my sponsor secured through family connections to get into university) Aidan’s Dad John (may he rest in peace) came in and was surprised to see me there and asked me what I was doing and was telling me how Aidan had been denied for medical school with 4 As at A Level. The hurt in his eyes said it all. I remember thinking to myself if someone with Aidan’s brains can’t get into medical school what chance do I have of getting into university! Those were depressing days.
[Daphne – As we said, it was no different to life behind the Iron Curtain, except that we had passports and couldn’t really use them.]
Well, I was denied entry into Medical School three times. I was denied by the infamous 20 punt, despite having sat my A levels three times in order to get straight “A”‘s in one session. That was my first brush with Dottor Sant, incidentally, when he headed the infamous Students selection Board. With hindsight, I am better off like that because an incident thought me I was not cut out to be a doctor, but something else.
Most of my friends made pacts with the devil and trotted off to the New Lyceum, and got into med school. Being an incurable romantic I decided that it would have been disloyal to the Jesuits to change sixth form school. The rest, as you can imagine, is history. Bristle Brush et al saw to that. There were others like me, however, and they all had to study abroad or do something else.
The MLP alienated whole generations with its policies in the dark years of the “jew B’xejn jew xejn”. What amazes me is how the current leader attended the same school as I did, and it left no mark on him. Sad, isn’t it?
Oh my oh my, something has hit a nerve. Thanks for taking your time to reply to my letters.
First let me clear the air. I only write under a false name because my father has been given 12 transfers since 1987 and I don’t want to be the cause of another 12.(seeing all the hate mail in this blog of yours!!!!!)
I am proud of my background, I am not ashamed to be a socialist, I am a professional who attended the University under a Labour Government, free of charge and with stipends that Mintoff introduced. Remember?????
So you still go on about the interdet being a Labour excuse to provoke Gonzi and his marshmallows….wonderful!!! Laqwa li il-PN gallarija!!!
Insomma kif jghid il-Malti” Kull par ghal paru” and you fit in perfectly with the “I Hate Labour Mob” in your blogs.
‘Your words about bombs and hate mail are beyond ridiculous’……I rest my case, you are such a hypocrite, a one sided excuse of a journalist that makes me want to vomit. Just have a look at Karin Grech’s family and tell them this to there face…………Shall I say more.
[Daphne – You didn’t hit a nerve because almost none of mine are exposed. If my father had been given 12 transfers, I would be publicising the matter and standing up to be counted, not cowering behind a pseudonym. You say that you are proud of your background, and yet you don’t say who you are – bit of a contradiction in terms. You didn’t attend university free of charge. You attended university thanks to the phenomenal taxes paid by people like members of my family, whose own sons and daughters were denied entry because they weren’t ‘workers’. Elsewhere on this blog you’ll find mention of one of my cousins, who despite a string of straight As – much rarer then than now – was repeatedly denied entry to medical school. His parents, whose taxes went towards funding your ‘free’ tertiary education, spent the next few years crucifying themselves financially so as to fund his medical training in Italy. The sad thing is that their taxes were wasted in your regard, because despite your ‘free’ tertiary education and the sacrifices made by those other people who paid for it, you still can’t string a sentence together without a slew of errors. Mintoff did not introduce stipends. The post-1987 government did. What Mintoff introduced, after the destruction of the university system, was the student-worker scheme: study for six months and work for six months, cleaning beaches or stuck in a stockroom staring at the walls of some ‘sponsor’s’ warehouse. Not only are you barely literate, but you also lack eloquence and retain the vulgarity of your roots. If you wish to vomit, please be my guest: you can march at the head of the upcoming ‘manifestation’ and deploy your sick-bag. My guess is that your father got those transfers because he’s just another one of those bums who think they got a job for life under Labour and refuse to do enough to justify their pay-cheque. They can’t be sacked, so they’re just moved along and moved along, from one department to another. Perhaps when Muscat is elected we’ll see him as director of some corporation.]
As for the Mintoff years, this is what used to happen.Its just chilling, isnt it? Lets we forget what we went through. How is it possible to trust Labour? G. Cassar is the epitome of what they are, a sorry, vindictive, kinky lot.
You would be hard pressed to imagine it could happen today, wouldnt you?
Prison warder gets compensation for 1982 police torture
Former prison warder Anthony Mifsud was today awarded €186,349 in compensation after a court found that his human rights were violated by the police when he was beaten in a police cell.
The case goes back to 1982 when Mr Mifsud, then in his twenties, was arrested and questioned by the police following the escape of two prisoners – Louis Bartolo and Ahmed Khalil Habib – from the civil prisons.
He had subsequently been accused of corruption and complicity in the escape, but was acquitted after having been kept in jail for three years under preventive arrest.
Mr Mifsud had claimed that during his arrest, before being taken to court, he was tortured by (then) Superintendent Carmelo Bonello and Superintendent Joe Psaila, among others. He claimed he was repeatedly beaten and kicked to the extent that he started coughing up blood and could not eat.
He said the officers also put a gun to his head and threatened him unless he signed a confession.
The court found that the police officers had violated Mr Mifsud’s fundamental rights not to be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. It ordered the Police Commissioner, former Police Commissioner Laurence Pullicino and former Supts Bonello and Psaila to pay total compensation of €186,349
@Mario Debono. You went to St. Aloysious and I went to De La Salle. What did you end up doing with your life? I was lucky enough to have a British mother which allowed me to get into school in the U.K. at home student rates and opened horizons I could only dream of.
On another note I didn’t realize that Joseph Muscat went to St. Aloysious. I think that he will turn out to be a good leader for the MLP. He has started off well. I know Daphne will hate me for this but still that’s what I think. Don’t forget that it is in the PN’s interest to use people like Daphne to keep the wounds that our generation suffered fresh. Much in the same way the Labour media never stopped speaking about the suldati tal-azzar to keep that voting bloc loyal to Labour even although it was obvious that EFA was a new type of PN leader.
What do you make of Lawrence Gonzi? From my view at a distance of 5000 miles and 20 plus years of absence from Malta he looks like a pygmy compared to EFA. Just by way of example. When EFA was elected in 1987 his first piece of legislation was the very symbolic passage of the Act that made the European Convention on Human Rights a part of Maltese law. It represented the aspirations of our generation and was a clear signal that change had come about in Malta. What was Lawrences’ first piece of legislation after his first ever general election? Passage of Malta’s membership in Partnership for Peace which was never a part of his party’s electoral manifesto and which was passed while the MLP was still without a leader and without any sort of consultation. The difference between him and EFA could not be greater. One represented hope, the other represented a government that had been elected against the odds and had no real vision.
[Daphne – You have a schizophrenic outlook, Uncle Fester. Torn between hatred for the Labour Party and resentment for everybody else. The Nationalist Party does not use me to do anything. Nobody does. Some people like you think this must be the case because they find it inconceivable that anybody would write about these things purely because they wanted to. This is a culture where people keep their heads below the parapet and either keep silent or use pseudonyms like Uncle Fester, remember, even if they live across the Atlantic. You mentioned Aidan’s brains a couple of comments back. Maybe the difference in your intelligence is the reason why he sees the situation clearly, past and present, and you don’t.]
@Daphne. There is nothing schizophrenic about my outlook. I do not hate the Labour Party, never have never will. I hate that extremist element that represented the worst of Labour in the 70s and 80s. I find much to hope for in its more moderate members. I recognize that Labour has come a long way in 20 years and you don’t see it as having come far enough. I have confidence that 20 years of PN rule has changed Labour just as 16 years of MLP rule changed the PN, you don’t. Although I would not claim to be as smart as your cousin, neither am I lacking in gray cells. Let’s try to keep this civilized, can we? No flying off the handle, okay?
[Daphne – You’re the only one flying off the handle, introducing comments like ‘the Nationalist Party uses Daphne’ into an otherwise civilised discussion. That’s what I mean about schizophrenic. Maybe I should have said ambivalent.]
@Daphne. I would agree wholeheartedly with ambivalent. As Martha Stewart would say: “It’s a good thing!”. (Smile!)
Please people, this talk is embarassing me :) I may have been a good student at school, but 25 years later the thought of those A Levels sends chills down my spine!
Thanks for the attention you’re giving to my story – Daphne and Uncle Fester, you are really too kind.
Regarding the scholarships offered by the Italian Cultural Institute at that time: they were offered by the Italian government but were regulated by the Maltese authorities. Because I was on the MLP blacklist I was refused any financial aid, although there were loads of funds unused! The scholarship was available and still it was held from me. Things got a little better when MLP lost power and I was able to get some help. The bulk of the burden was still on my family, though.
I have sometimes thought of moving back to Malta but I can still feel the pain and fear that Mintoff put into my childhood. I don’t want my daughter to grow up in a country where half the population still doesn’t get it…
Sure, here we have Berlusconi and the Lega (how correct Daphne is in describing the MLP as having more right-wing tendencies than the PN), but I’ll take my chances. Governments come and go in Italy.
Dearest G.Cassar,
Jut for the fun of it I will reply to your points too!
You say you studied “for free” at university under a labour government? Lucky you, all you need to do is compare the number of students before and after 1987 and see that skill and intelligence had nothing to do with it!
In my case your beloved Mintoff closed down my school and tried to deny me an education. He tried to get me to go to a crap school like the one you probably went to. (I studied underground like so many of my friends) You see with Mintoff and the likes of you it’s not about raising everybody’s standard but rather trying to bring down the standards of the successful people he and his haddiema were so envious of (like you still are today because no matter how many degrees you claim to have you will remain what you are – Mintoff, Lorry Sant, Wistin Abela and co remained the worst “baxxi” possible all their miserable lives for example)!
As for the “interdett” it makes me laugh to see that twits like you don’t have a leg to stand on! The fight was with the Church but having said that, somebody with your mentality probably thinks government should control the church too!
One final thing – the famous bombi stopped exploding after 87 for a simple reason – before 87 violence was condoned and actively encouraged by the government. Whoever planted the bombs knew he would easily get away with it. After 87 the situation kind of changed you know!
As to silencing people like Daphne?? Shows who you are so clearly!
@Daphne@Uncle Fester – “You mentioned Aidan’s brains a couple of comments back. Maybe the difference in your intelligence is the reason why he sees the situation clearly, past and present, and you don’t.”
… Aidan’s also got the decency to use his own name as opposed to a pseudonym. (Sorry about your name being bandied about, Aid, but I’m sure you don’t mind.)
@Amanda Mallia. Yawn!! You also forgot to mention that I am gay for good measure.
[Daphne – No fighting in class.]
@Daphne – LOL!!!
Apologies for coming so late to the party, but a random question popped into my head yesterday – when Mintoff kicks the bucket, as a former prime minister is he entitled to a State funeral?
[Daphne – The only people who are entitled to a state funeral are those who were heads of state. Agatha Barbara was given a state funeral, an exercise in hypocrisy if ever there was one, and a reversal of what Shakespeare had Mark Antony say about Caesar – that the evil men do lives after them, but the good is oft interred with their bones. In Malta, what happens is that the evil you do is interred with your bones, and then people rewrite history so that you come up smelling of roses. That said, the government has discretion and can decide to give a funeral with all attendant pomp and ceremony to anyone it thinks deserving of one. Let’s hope it doesn’t bow to pressure to give Mintoff the full works with a procession and mass at the cathedral. It will be the ultimate hypocritical irony. If the cockroach wants to go by what he preached, he should settle for a cardboard coffin and a patch of unconsecrated ground. But he’s so stingy he’ll probably agitate for the pomp and ceremony so that the taxpayer foots the bill and he saves the money, even if it means having the archbishop shake incense over his coffin at St John’s.]
1. Hi everybody seems like sparks are flying!!!!I start by excusing myself for the ‘not so good use of English’…I really feel intimidated writing amongst so many well written posts…..
Well it is great that after a very good first debate by our political leaders one can continue the debate on such blogs!! Why not?
Freedom of speech is something that we have as a right – in a democratic country like ours. So well done for people who write and want to have their say for a better world!
The reason I am writing here today is because I was so disgusted by many of the posts left on this blog!!! It is ironic when our leaders speak of “unity and lets work together” but the followers are inciting hatred towards one an other just like what happened exactly in the same years you are all talking about!! Its a shame …really.
I can not believe that so much hatred still exsists in a country so small – No wonder Malta is in the state it is in; hatred is still splitting it up and reading these posts just show me that there seems to be no resolve.
We are living in the past!!! We have to forget it….move on… be positive and believe that we can together in UNITY have the best country in Europe.
I do understand that all of you have gone through some kind of injustice – being red or blue – but hey wake up !!!!
Reading through the posts I was shocked – if this was a life debate it would surely have come to blows; the insults and other disrespectful name calling is just unaccepted….visualising the scene – I compare it to a dual just like in the wild wild west! Cowboy style
I know that we Maltese are strong and hot blooded – but from the well written English in all of the posts shows that they have all been written by “educated people” – even University graduates!!!
One last thing – Daphne – I envy the powerful position that you hold. You are a writer with coloumns and articles on every piece of paper in the Maltese islands. Do you realise that?… it is a shame though that you have to write about “quasi forgotten episodes from the past”! As a woman, mother and a well known figure in Malta you should be using the gift of writing to promote a prosporous vision for our children and lead by example!!
I will leave you with the slogan used by the PN at the moment “iva flimkien kollox possibli”.
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
Catherine Ponder
Author of ‘Dynamic laws of prosperity’
[Daphne – Sunshine, if you’re disgusted by the comments about what happened, just imagine how much more disgusted you’d have been having to live with all that. You might even have been driven to – oh, dear – say something about it. Please don’t be naive. The Anglu Farrugia I see before me as deputy leader is the very same Anglu Farrugia who chucked me in a filthy cell for 27 hours and then forced me to sign a confession he wrote. The Alex Sceberras Trigona I see as today’s ‘international secretary’ is the same one from whose foreign affairs ministry in Merchants’ Street thugs used to run out to beat people up. Every time I walked past that door it was thick with thugs. I could go through the whole list but I can’t be bothered. You think what you what to think but I’ll give you a piece of timeworn advice: when you sup with the devil, use a long spoon.]
Thanks Daph, pretty much what I thought, however, you said
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t bow to pressure to give Mintoff the full works with a procession and mass at the cathedral’
Nothing would surprise me…
[Daphne – I fully expect the works. There’ll be an utterly tasteless champagne party over at our place, so you’re welcome. We can watch it on tv and spit at the screen. I’ll save our old television for the purpose.]
@ Daphne When Giorgio Borg Olivier passed away in 1980 and Mintoff was in power he got a state funeral didn’t he? What’s sauce for the goose…. To deny him a state funeral would be petty and unbecoming and I don’t think Fenech Adami/Gonzi are like that. For all you die hard blinkered partitarji out there – MPs in Malta like MPs everywhere have great personal relationships for the most part when they are off duty – and that’s the way it should be. They’re representatives of the same people who have different points of view as to how to run the country not mortal enemies locked in a combat to the death. Lighten up a little, Daphne, will you – you sound more and more like that Sister Immakulata of the Seven Wounds that you disliked so much at school because she was doctrinaire. You’ve grown up to be a carbon copy of her substituting party politics for religion. Be a little more like Sister Perpetua below:
http://www.entertainmentevents.com/video/late_nite_catechism_2/2/broll.asx
[Daphne – The idea that one opinion is as ‘valid’ as another is a dangerous one. There are absolutes in right and wrong, which is why we have a criminal code. Borg Olivier had a state funeral because he deserved one: the man never harmed a fly. The point you seem to miss here is that in the interest of consistency, Mintoff should insist on going as he lived: and the appropriate burial for somebody who lived that kind of life and fought those kind of wars is not a state funeral with bishops and processions and cathedrals and pomp and ceremony, but a cardboard coffin and unconsecrated ground. He made a point of not standing on ceremony in life – indeed, he made a point of denigrating it – so he should hold fast to his principles, such as they were. It’s not the religious aspect that concerns me – after all, the Catholic Church holds funerals for Mafia bosses, so why not Mintoff, even though the hypocrisy of a church funeral for somebody who is famously a non-believer is a farce. The involvement of the state, though – that’s something else. The state is welcome to hold a funeral for this man, but state funerals are supposed to unify people in grief. This one will divide the people once more – half the population will be lining the streets, the other half will be cracking open the champagne and cheering. I suppose, in a way, that is an appropriate send-off for the man – divisive unto the end. Do you honestly think the violence of the past, which is very much present in the suffering of somebody like Anthony Mifsud, is a suitable subject to lighten up about? I’ll crack jokes where appropriate – the present state of the Labour Party, and its leaders. Interestingly, the people who nag on about lightening up are inevitably those who are living somewhere else, and who can look at life in Malta through a telescope and think, hmmmm, interesting, then go back to doing whatever it was they were doing. The fascinating thing is this: you’re the one who left because these people you pretend to admire made it impossible for you to stay. So please, don’t bore on.]
@ wers DLuv
“I can not believe that so much hatred still exsists in a country so small”
Your question should be, why is there no MORE hatred, considering what many have gone through. You are forgetting that many lives were destroyed by the Labour Government. For example the life of Aidan Zammit Lupi, who posted above (the AVATAR guy right?) and his family, I remember well what torment he passed through, three ‘A’ grades and he was deprived of a place in Medical School!, as well as several friends of mine with four As and left out of Engineering, all now exiled overseas, having had to seek careers away from Malta. There were some of us, like myself, who kept quiet and played the game, I got into university with three Cs, taking Aidan’s place, ashamed but saving my own skin like many others, prostituting my principles in the process, even though I was experiencing at first hand the suffering his family was going through. Though the ones of us who kept silent suffered as well, because it is very difficult to keep silent when you see gross injustice around you. Don’t underestimate the suffering some people, such as Daphne , went through. Some families were destroyed for ever.
So I suppose the question is not why there is too much hatred today, but why there is too little.
“There’ll be an utterly tasteless champagne party over at our place, so you’re welcome.”
Can I get an invitation? I’ve always wanted to meet you, and all. This is one party I wouldn’t want to miss. I’ll bring some good champagne.
[Daphne – Let me know where to send a card.]
wers, dLUV:
“I can not believe that so much hatred still exsists in a country so small”
You have Mintoff to thank for that.
“We have to forget it….move on”
You can move on without being amnesic. The shameful parts of history must never be forgotten. There will be other potential Mintoffs in the future – hopefully people will not be as blind and “forgiving” as to let them carry out one atrocity after the other.
And just remember that we’re talking about our own experiences. This isn’t some obscure chapter from the ancient past. Some of those criminals are still around. Some of them might even read this blog.
[Daphne – If you can bear to do so, watch the Xarabank programme that was broadcast tonight, via di-ve.com. I’m still seething, and it was nothing new I heard.]
Aidan Zammit Lupi – “Some of them might even read this blog.”
I would say that they probably DO read it, and regularly too. What excuse would there otherwise be for normal people to defend such atrocities, or ask others to ignore them, when the facts are staring them in the face?
I have to rest my case here – it seems no one understood what I was on about at all! ( for those who have not please read above) I thought the mentality in the Maltese was changing;NOT!
Well I think its getting worse -the education system and means of media – freedom of speech that differs since the times that everyone condones have advanced drastically! So I would love to believe that the mentality did too – well it did not!!????
STRANGE!
Please look up what the definition of Fanaticism is:
Napoleone Bonaparte once said;
‘There is no place in a fanatic’s head where reason can enter’.
For all those thinking I never went through injustices (because I was too young then) well you are right. I only had to go to school ‘bil mohbi’ at some basement in Lija and being chased by what we used to call “ZUNZAN” – besides my brother (being a canvasser at that time) coming home after being beaten at tal Barrani and other places – my other brother beaten by the people mentioned above and not allowed education( was that late 70’s?? ) my father being ‘borded out’ and not working for over 5 years because of psychological raesons……..what has changed is ME. The way I look at the future – my childrens future!
Good luck Malta.
[Daphne – You didn’t have to tell me you were too young then. I’d already guessed accurately at your age on the basis of your naive reasoning and way of writing, though I know plenty of people of that age who reason sensibly and argue rationally (the two are interlinked). A small piece of advice: I wouldn’t quote Napoleon on the subject of fanaticism, if I were you. Peace and love, babe….]
wers, dLUV:
Please make an effort to understand. Criminals must pay their dues. Can young people be so spineless as not to be bothered by the violence their families had to endure? Let those responsible run free and do what they like – they will crush the country again if given half the chance. Fanaticism has nothing to do with this. It’s about justice. It’s about safety. And it’s ALL about reason.
Fortunately Malta has changed, and your children have a little less to worry about. That is largely thanks to the thousands of people who rebelled and made it impossible for the tyranny to continue. These people made their voices heard, often at a huge personal expense. Read through the comments on this page if you want some direct testimony.
If history ever repeats itself, you will be offering “love and forgiveness” to your persecutors while they laugh and trample over you and your children’s future. Do you really think that Mintoff and his henchmen have a conscience and are sorry for what they did? Do you think that they have seen the light? They’re still around and “No Regrets” is one of their favourite expressions.
“Daphne, you wrote: – “You didn’t attend university free of charge. You attended university thanks to the phenomenal taxes paid by people like members of my family, whose own sons and daughters were denied entry because they weren’t ‘workers’. Elsewhere on this blog you’ll find mention of one of my cousins, who despite a string of straight As – much rarer then than now – was repeatedly denied entry to medical school. ”
With all due respect, I cannot understand something though. Why was such an undoubted injustice carried out on members of your family and this gentleman referred to, when others, whose parents were Nationalist MPs (and striking MAM doctors)were not denied a university education in the years between 77 and 87? I can think of one right now who is a doctor and a PN MP as well, and who graduated in those years.
[Daphne – Your guess is as good as mine. Aidan here had three As at A-level and was denied entry to the Medical School, while Zizzu here who is the same age and was at school with him – apparently – got in with three Cs. Maybe we should ask Alfred Sant, chairman of the selection board.]
Some people might remember that I represented the students and spoke at a huge mass meeting in Dingli Street, organised to protest against the MLP attempt to close the private schools. Does that answer your question, Sybil?
Anyway, there were loads of other people who unjustly didn’t get into Malta University during that period. The 20 point system was started around 1981 but it was never completely clear how it was applied. Most of my fellow 5th formers moved to the government lyceum. Others apparently found “sponsors” to help them get in.
I must also specify that years later the Injustices Commission investigated my case, and found out that I should have been accepted even with the 20 point disadvantage. The only reason I did not press charges against Alfred Sant and his selection board accomplices was that I was too busy studying abroad by that time.
@Daphne – “Your guess is as good as mine. Aidan here had three As at A-level and was denied entry to the Medical School, while Zizzu here who is the same age and was at school with him – apparently – got in with three Cs”
This is how we did it in those days. First we’d secure the 20 points; then we’d add a string of 1s in the O level Matrics in Arabic and Maltese by going to particular teachers who would put their hands up girls’ skirts in return for free lessons. Then you’d get your History and Philosophy Matric A levels by sucking up to corrupt teachers who gladly parted with the exam questions for a few quid. Then you’d have your hundred points to get in through the back door while those suckers who studied the subjects that mattered stayed out. Now it’s all happening again. This time the corruption is still going on. This time its “interviews” that determine your “suitability” for the medical course. The rules of the game have changed but the corruption goes on.
[Daphne – And let’s not forget the ‘time window’ during which the Maltese A-level requirement was waived for entry to the law course, so that the grandsons of Malta’s sleaziest and most amoral Nationalist Party lawyer-politician could get in….only to fail and end up running a Valletta sandwich bar instead.]
[Daphne – Your guess is as good as mine. Aidan here had three As at A-level and was denied entry to the Medical School, while Zizzu here who is the same age and was at school with him – apparently – got in with three Cs. Maybe we should ask Alfred Sant, chairman of the selection board.]
As far as I know, the whole system was pretty straight forward (although extremely unfair towards Church-school sixth-formers), and ran on a system of a set number of points for every grade you got at “O” level and “A” level, plus those twenty extra points for being a pupil-worker or a worker who had a sponsor. I also think that students who were full-time workers before entering Uni, got additional points, and what’s more they earned their regular wage throughout the course.
Hence we would sit for extra “O” levels to garner as many points as we could, plus an extra “A” level here and there to. I was a pupil worker and my got sixth form education at the New Lyceum, obviously choosing the latter over St. Aloysius because of the twenty point debacle, which was the height of unfairness, buy hey, what does one do about such things? If you can’t beat them, join them.
I applied for University with eleven O levels to my name (all As and Bs except for a C in French, and an F in Arabic), and four A Levels (3 As and 1 B). I was accepted (fourth of fifth out of a list of forty).
Now, when I counted the number of points I got, I realised that I would have been accepted into Uni even had I not had those twenty points which came from being a pupil-worker. In other words I took no one’s place when I was accepted. But….I would not have gotten in without the twenty points if I did not have my extra “A” level.
In other words, the important thing at the time was to play the (mediocre) system and whoever was coming up with those bright ideas at their own game, which I managed to do, happily enough.
There were at least five students from St Aloysius, who were accepted into the same course I was. The way they went around it was this: some of them worked for a year after completing sixth form, some getting jobs as trainee nurses or lab technicians, whilst others got sponsored by the AFM. They then entered Uni as workers (not pupil-workers), and kept getting their respective pays throughout the course. Another student did not resort to this, but entered with four “A” levels to his name.
[Daphne – You describe it accurately, but leave out the crucial interview stage with the University Selection Board. You also fail to mention – because you would have been unaware of them – cases in which some of those with all the requirements were still denied entry because of political blacklisting. This was not because of voting Nationalist, but because of having done something that annoyed the Labour government, or just coming from a blacklisted family.]
[London Area – This is how did it in those days. First we’d secure the 20 points; then we’d add a string of 1s in the O level Matrics in Arabic and Maltese by going to particular teachers who would put their hands up girls’ skirts in return for free lessons. Then you’d get your History and Philosophy Matric A levels by sucking up to corrupt teachers who gladly parted with the exam questions for a few quid. Then you’d have your hundred points to get in through the back door while those suckers who studied the subjects that mattered stayed out. Now it’s all happening again. This time the corruption is still going on. This time its “interviews” that determine your “suitability” for the medical course. The rules of the game have changed but the corruption goes on.]
Just to point out that I never had exam questions fed out to me by corrupt teachers, or hand stuck up my skirt. If that is the way you got into University, then speak for yourself. Not everyone went through the same motions.
[Daphne – I think he was being sarcastic. And yes, there were plenty of people who got in that way. There is still at least one Maltese-language teacher whose private-lesson students have a near-miraculous pass rate, and who is much in demand because of it. Incidentally, this near-miraculous pass rate has nothing to do with his teaching skills or his pupils’ abilities.]
[Daphne – You didn’t attend university free of charge. You attended university thanks to the phenomenal taxes paid by people like members of my family, whose own sons and daughters were denied entry because they weren’t ‘workers’. Elsewhere on this blog you’ll find mention of one of my cousins, who despite a string of straight As – much rarer then than now – was repeatedly denied entry to medical school.]
What you do not realise is that we worked full-time for six months out of twelve every year since we were sixteen, having to fit in our studies with our jobs – menial jobs for just LM 35 a week, whilst the full-time “tal-post” workers, took day-long breaks and did other full-time jobs during the time they were supposed to be sweating it off at their real job, which we did instead of them.
No, we didn’t get our education for free – we worked for it. It was we who paid for it with our hard work, which we did for a very miserable monthly remuneration.
On the contrary today’s University students are REALLY being paid for by the tax-payer, and in addition to that getting a stipend for absolutely nothing, when the counrty can ill afford it.
[Daphne – No, Moggy, that’s where you’re wrong. You forget that I come from that generation and I know exactly how the system worked. The university is funded by taxes. The people who paid those taxes then, as now, were not the ones who earned Lm35 a week. Incidentally, you have that wage-figure quite wrong. The minimum wage was less than Lm35 a week and student-workers got much less than the minimum wage. It would have been closer to Lm35 a month, not week. I earned Lm35 a week in those days as a full-time employee, and it was the normal rate. You may feel you were entitled to your education as a result of that hard work for low pay, but this is not the same thing as saying you paid for it. You certainly didn’t. Even if you did earn Lm35 a week, and not a month, the tax on that would have been around Lm5. Lm5 a week hardly pays for medical training, though it might pay for a few scalpels.]
[Daphne – And let’s not forget the ‘time window’ during which the Maltese A-level requirement was waived for entry to the law course, so that the grandsons of Malta’s sleaziest and most amoral Nationalist Party lawyer-politician could get in….only to fail and end up running a Valletta sandwich bar instead.]
Which shows us all that things haven’t changed that much, have they? :(
[Daphne – Where one particular politician is concerned, certainly not. Most of the intricci and tahwid with former police officers and thugs who were not prosecuted, as they should have been, lead right back to him.]
[G. Cassar – I am proud of my background, I am not ashamed to be a socialist, I am a professional who attended the University under a Labour Government, free of charge and with stipends that Mintoff introduced. Remember?????]
Wrong. Very wrong. As I’ve already said, we did not get a free education at all. We worked for it. Worked hard, sometimes on a shift basis (and having to squeeze studies and exams in with our job) for half a year each year, and for a miserable WAGE – because a wage it was, and not a stipend.
Stipends were introduced by the Nationalist Government, when they did away with the student-worker scheme (Hooray!) and did not have the gumption to do away with the wage system, because students had by now gotten used to earning (note “earning”) money. So the stipends were introduced. It was after 1987.
[Daphne – You describe it accurately, but leave out the crucial interview stage with the University Selection Board. You also fail to mention – because you would have been unaware of them – cases in which some of those with all the requirements were still denied entry because of political blacklisting. This was not because of voting Nationalist, but because of having done something that annoyed the Labour government, or just coming from a blacklisted family.]
I never knew there was an interview by the University Selection Board, probably simply because we (pupil workers) were exempt from having to be interviewed. We were interviewed once, six months after we started our first year at sixth form, but that was in order to place us in the different places of work. We were never interviewed by the University.
Moggy – “we worked full-time for six months out of twelve every year since we were sixteen, having to fit in our studies with our jobs – menial jobs for just LM 35 a week”
It was Lm28 a MONTH, not Lm28 a week, increased to Lm33 a MONTH after around a year or so. I hung onto my payslips for around 20 years, only getting rid of them a few years ago. I am pretty sure about the figures.
Moggy – And yes, I did work the same hours as the other full-timers, including working a 40-hour week in winter … making it a measly 27c5 per hour (or 55c per hour if you include the fact that we were paid during the “study” months).
That was in 1984, not 1948.
My recollections:
– First Year sixth form – earned Lm35 per month before NI payment.
– Second Year – earned Lm45 per month. We were obliged to work from end of June to Feb the following year or return the stipend.
My first year was under the MLP administration and the second under the 1987 PN. We had been protesting against this system. What bothered me at the time was that once PN were in power that argued that we would be retained under the existing contract. So we fought for the changes but did not benefit from them.
Before that I had difficulty passing my Physics O Level. That cost me two years, before admission to sixth form. At the time it was well known that some Lorry Sant relative with the same ‘problem’ did not pay the same consequences.
[Daphne – The university is funded by taxes. The people who paid those taxes then, as now, were not the ones who earned Lm35 a week. Incidentally, you have that wage-figure quite wrong. The minimum wage was less than Lm35 a week and student-workers got much less than the minimum wage. It would have been closer to Lm35 a month, not week. I earned Lm35 a week in those days as a full-time employee, and it was the normal rate. You may feel you were entitled to your education as a result of that hard work for low pay, but this is not the same thing as saying you paid for it. You certainly didn’t. Even if you did earn Lm35 a week, and not a month, the tax on that would have been around Lm5. Lm5 a week hardly pays for medical training, though it might pay for a few scalpels.]
Yes, it was LM35 a month. My mistake. However I disagree re the LM5 a month as a personal contribution towards my studies. I’ll tell you why. I was employed by the Government. If I earned LM35 a month when I was supposed to be earning at least a minimum wage (say LM30 a week), then Government was witholding LM120 – LM35 = LM85 per month of what I was supposed to earn when I was doing a full-time job. Now as I only worked for half the year, this means Govt. was witholding half of that, i.e. LM42.5 every month of the year. This means that each year I did not earn LM510, but actually did the work which was supposed to earn that sum.
Whereas I sympathise with the plight of people who were in Church-run sixth forms, and I appreciate that they were the victims of a very unfair system, it was not a bed of roses for those who opted to become pupil-workers and go along with the system. We were used as a source of cheap labour, it’s as simple as that. We may not have paid all of our way, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we paid a good percentage of our way – in services rather than in money.
Everyone got a raw deal in those days, in one way or another. That is what some do not realise.
[Daphne – First off, the state didn’t need more people on the payroll, because it was overburdened as it was and student-workers usually did non-jobs and just sat around. If you worked hard, it was almost certainly because the full-time civil servant who was supposed to be doing that job wasn’t doing it. Secondly, operations are financed by real money, and not by work in lieu. The overheads and payroll bill at the university were paid for with money, not with the unpaid or underpaid work of student-workers. That money came out of the pockets of full-time employees, the self-employed and businesses. I don’t think student-workers were used as a source of cheap labour. On the contrary, they usually presented a problem to those obliged to take them on: what shall we do with the student-workers this week? Oh, just put him in the stock-room/tell him to go through those files again/ask him to restack those boxes.]
[Amanda Mallia – It was Lm28 a MONTH, not Lm28 a week, increased to Lm33 a MONTH after around a year or so. I hung onto my payslips for around 20 years, only getting rid of them a few years ago. I am pretty sure about the figures.]
Then it was even worse than I thought. I meant LM35 a MONTH. Typo. LM28/ month is even more paltry.
Moggy / A Camilleri – I might be wrong about the exact figures, but somehow, that’s how I remember them. It could be that I’m mistaken.
Aidan Zammit Lupi Saturday, 1 November 2111hrs
Some people might remember that I represented the students and spoke at a huge mass meeting in Dingli Street, organised to protest against the MLP attempt to close the private schools. Does that answer your question, Sybil?
I think it does.I am glad you still made it in spite of it all. There were plenty of other young people in those days who passed through a similar plight.Thank God those days are gone, never to come back.
@ “I don’t think student-workers were used as a source of cheap labour”
You’re very wrong there.There was an “interview” at 6 months, the priveleged students (all re-arranged before) were given cushy jobs in government departments, whereas the students with no connections were placed in jobs which can only be described as “hard-labour” where they were made to work very hard, without breaks and with corporal punishment and even beatings if we transgressed. There were some even more serious abuses of these student-workers which I will not mention for now.
[Daphne – I honestly don’t believe the corporal punishment bit. As for the hard labour – please draw a distinction between hard labour that was useful and hard labour that was just done for the sheer hell of it. The state had all the labourers it needs – armies of thousands, recruited steadily in exchange for votes, and we’re still footing the bill 25 years later.]
[Daphne – First off, the state didn’t need more people on the payroll, because it was overburdened as it was and student-workers usually did non-jobs and just sat around. If you worked hard, it was almost certainly because the full-time civil servant who was supposed to be doing that job wasn’t doing it. Secondly, operations are financed by real money, and not by work in lieu. The overheads and payroll bill at the university were paid for with money, not with the unpaid or underpaid work of student-workers. That money came out of the pockets of full-time employees, the self-employed and businesses. I don’t think student-workers were used as a source of cheap labour. On the contrary, they usually presented a problem to those obliged to take them on: what shall we do with the student-workers this week? Oh, just put him in the stock-room/tell him to go through those files again/ask him to restack those boxes.]
A relation of mine who joined the medicine course in those days as a student worker spent his first year in mount carmel hospital cleaning the rooms of the chronic mentally ill patients who were kept in straitjackets or in solitary confinement because of their aggressiveness He also had to feed them and wash them as well as they were the sort who were also unable to control their bodily functions .This was the sort of job that only a trained nurse could do yet he was made to do this job. He was just in his late teens then. So , as you an see, not all student workers had it easy and some ended up having quite a hard time depending on the level of vindicative ” hdura” of whoever had to take them on.
[Daphne – Please read my reply to London Area. The fact that some students worked hard does not mean that their contribution was necessary. What we had there was a situation in which the tax-payer paid the bill for the civil servant who was supposed to do that job, and then paid the bill for the student-worker who was made to do the job instead while the civil servant took endless cups of tea and clocked off at 10am. In business terms, what you had was a situation where the employer was paying two people – albeit severely underpaying one of them – to do the same one job, and using other people’s money to do it because this wasn’t a business but the state. So far from student-workers earning their education, they were actually a further unnecessary drain on the state coffers.]
@Amanda Mallia –
I can confirm it was Lm28 a MONTH, increased to Lm33 a MONTH , I know for sure because they went straight into installments for my car and I still have the receipts.
[Daphne – This is one person who will never cease to mystify me. You earned Lm28 a month and you bought a car? Oh, I forget – you’re the one who went on to have seven children. Spirtu santu….]
[Daphne – First off, the state didn’t need more people on the payroll, because it was overburdened as it was and student-workers usually did non-jobs and just sat around. If you worked hard, it was almost certainly because the full-time civil servant who was supposed to be doing that job wasn’t doing it. Secondly, operations are financed by real money, and not by work in lieu. The overheads and payroll bill at the university were paid for with money, not with the unpaid or underpaid work of student-workers. That money came out of the pockets of full-time employees, the self-employed and businesses. I don’t think student-workers were used as a source of cheap labour. On the contrary, they usually presented a problem to those obliged to take them on: what shall we do with the student-workers this week? Oh, just put him in the stock-room/tell him to go through those files again/ask him to restack those boxes.]
That might have been the case with students who were sponsored by private firms. Those who worked with the Government departments know differently, especially those who worked in hospital. Ask medical graduates (then students) a few years my senior who spent days washing the wards and the loos at hospital or worked on shifts (night and day) taking ECGs, and they’ll tell you something about non-jobs.
[Daphne – I sympathise – you have no idea how much. But read my comments to London Area/Sybil. The state hospital wasn’t waiting for student-workers to come along and do those jobs because it had nobody to do them. It did have people to do them. But when the student-workers came along, the poor suckers were given the nasty jobs, while those paid to do them on a regular basis had tea and went off to their jobs on the side. So the tax-payer was paying twice: the regular civil servant and the student-worker, for the same task. Student-workers were abused and taken advantage of, and so were those footing the bill.]
[Amanda Mallia – Moggy – And yes, I did work the same hours as the other full-timers, including working a 40-hour week in winter … making it a measly 27c5 per hour (or 55c per hour if you include the fact that we were paid during the “study” months).
That was in 1984, not 1948.]
Aha! Haven’t you ever managed to convince your sister that we really did work, full time, no sitting around, for an extremely measly “wage”? If that wasn’t cheap labour, I don’t know what was.
[Daphne – I work in business, so I don’t think like a government employee. The bottom line to me is always the money, where it comes from, and whether it has been well spent. The fact that you were abused, taken advantage of and underpaid does not mean you earned your keep. It merely means that the taxpayer paid two people to do the same job, possibly even four people because you might have been doing the work of three state employees. You did the work for a pittance while the others who earned a full-time wage for that job skived off. In other words, you weren’t taken on because you were needed, but once you were taken on, you were taken advantage of. At least 8,000 people were taken onto the state pay-roll in the mid-1980s run-up to the 1987 election. They certainly didn’t need student workers, but it didn’t stop them abusing the student workers. My sister worked for a private company, and she was a sixth former not a university student.]
There was one group of people who were excluded altogether and could have never worked the system to their advantage. People who wanted an education – as opposed to utilitarian training for a profession – were excluded from the tertiary education system altogether when BA and BSc courses were abolished.
[Daphne – Yup, I was one of them: 14 O-levels, three A-levels and my only prospect was a six-year student-worker BEduc – YAWN! So I went to work instead.]
[Daphne – I work in business, so I don’t think like a government employee. The bottom line to me is always the money, where it comes from, and whether it has been well spent. The fact that you were abused, taken advantage of and underpaid does not mean you earned your keep. It merely means that the taxpayer paid two people to do the same job, possibly even four people because you might have been doing the work of three state employees. You did the work for a pittance while the others who earned a full-time wage for that job skived off. In other words, you weren’t taken on because you were needed, but once you were taken on, you were taken advantage of. At least 8,000 people were taken onto the state pay-roll in the mid-1980s run-up to the 1987 election. They certainly didn’t need student workers, but it didn’t stop them abusing the student workers. My sister worked for a private company, and she was a sixth former not a university student.]
I am not a Government employee and haven’t been so for yonks actually. But – you have a tendency to speak without knowing what actually went on. There were places where we did the work for others, yes, doing the jobs of people who abused. But there were departments/ jobs where we were needed, and how. For example for translating from English to Maltese and back again, when people were seen to at hospital by foreign doctors who knew not a word in Maltese, whole days on end. We were basically the only ones with a decent enough knowledge of English to know what these foreigners were saying, and to translate accurately. Or when we ran a 24-hour ECG shift between us with only two permanent workers on the job, spending nights alone running from ward to ward, taking one ECG after another (and sometimes having to sit for an exam come next morning).
I agree with Corinne. The dismantling of the BA/ BSc courses was a disaster and left many students with no place to go. Of course such degrees were unwisely thought “useless” and done away with. So like what went on in those days in all areas of life.
Oh well, thank God it’s all over and that today’s kids don’t have to pass through such an utter mess to get an education. :)
Moggy Tuesday, 4 November 0141hrs
Oh well, thank God it’s all over and that today’s kids don’t have to pass through such an utter mess to get an education. :)
Amen to that.
@ moggy and Sybil – unfortunately it’s never over. Nowadays we have the Maltese Language Taliban Police who insist on students having a pass in Maltese Language when they never use it at University. And it’s never over for another reason – education is always in the sights of those who want to ‘change society’ so that they can mould the adults of tomorrow.
@ Uncle Fester
PN’s manifesto of 1971 had the abolishing of Income Tax as well as the one in 1976.
I quote from the 1976 text:
“This law (Income Tax) brought with it too much taxation, injustice and inquisition. Far this reason the Nationalist Party maintains that the law on Income Tax will be removed in the forthcoming legislature. The revenue lass will be substituted by other forms of income which will bring about the great development which the Nationalist Government has planned for the country’s economy ”
Mario Felice expressed a personal view at the time about removal of income tax – he was backed by the party itself. He was not the leader. Moreover one has to take into account the era we were speaking in and what he had in mind. Stimulation of the economy.
The 1976 election was lost on other factors. Blaming it on Mario Felice is simply disgusting. Mario was to the party what John Dalli is to PN today. An intellectual asset.