Wounds are salved, not solved

Joseph Muscat stood with his two clowns at Karin Grech’s graveside and said that her death, caused by a letter-bomb intended for her father in 1977, is a “wound that needs to be solved”. At least, that’s how The Sunday Times reported it. Maybe his people handed out a press release in English. Or maybe he spoke to them in Maltese and said something like ‘Il-qtil ta’ Karin Grech tibqa ferita li tehtieg tigi solvuta.” Either way, Muscat should bear in mind that the precise use of language is a reflection of precise thinking – which is why you will notice that when highly intelligent people are talking on television, they are the ones speaking in perfectly-formed sentences with carefully chosen words (hence Barack Obama).

The photograph which accompanies the newspaper stories – three men staring fixedly at a grave festooned with flowers – has me worrying that Muscat is about to make exactly the same mistake that Alfred Sant made, and for the same reasons. He is working to create the impression of a leadership troika, moving around as one of three with Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela. It doesn’t help that the only response they provoke in sensible people is one of hilarity and derision, but even if they were tall, handsome, elegant, personable and with the IQ of a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, he would be undermining himself by dragging them around everyone as though they were chained to his ankles. People have to see him as a strong person with a clearly delineated public persona, not as a kind of Fuzzy-Felt cut-out in a group of three.

Human bookends are for people who don’t have the guts or the self-confidence to stand alone and act alone. In other words, they are for people without true leadership qualities and leadership skills. Think of all the great leaders in history, and how do you picture them? Alone, not with two little men latched on to either hip. They might have had advisers and flunkeys but they were always pictured alone in photographs and portraits. Like Sant before him, Muscat is insisting on this troika because he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions or the powerful character to see them through. He doesn’t have the personality, clout and gravitas to get things done without leaning on his human crutches, who will share the burden of blame and responsibility if and when things go wrong.

Real leaders stand alone, Dr Muscat. And until you stand alone, you won’t get the respect you need.