Give it a rest, Joe Grima
Me? Banging on a lorry? Never.
This is from a report carried in The Sunday Times today, marking the 30th anniversary of Black Monday.
With an office at Castille, Mr Grima recalled vividly the black smoke and burning smell when The Times building was gutted.
“Without doubt it was an ugly day, but responsibility for those events lies solely with the individuals who perpetrated them,” he insisted, describing the thugs as “loose cannons”.
He condemns the violence but argues Labour was as big a victim of the event as those who got hurt.
“Those people went haywire. They are the ones responsible and nobody else. Unfortunately, history only recalls the political spin, which chastised the Labour Party, when nobody in the party ever gave orders for The Times to be burnt down or Dr Fenech Adami’s house to be ransacked,” he said.
I am more than a little tired of mealy-mouthed excuses of this nature, particularly when they come from a man who I vividly remember on Mintoff’s and KMB’s lorries, banging his fists, shouting and laughing vulgarly at Mintoff’s coarse jokes. The Labour Party didn’t give instructions for the burning of a newspaper building, the ransacking of a party leader’s home, and all of the rest of the violence and corruption that made me believe – because I knew nothing else – that this was what normal life was like.
But the Labour Party and the government it formed sure as hell created the climate in which that violence and corruption were not just possible but inevitable. They led by example, and then when things got really bad, it was far, far too late to slam the lid shut on the Pandora’s box of horror they had opened.
To use an expression more famously used elsewhere: Joe Grima would say that, wouldn’t he?
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I happened to be in Merchants Street at around noon when some three shots were heard coming from the upper floor. My friend and I, together with other people, tried to enter through the big door. After some minutes the soldiers opened the door and the one opposite Castille hotel. We just ran to Saint Paul’s Street through the wide corridor, while we heard shouting coming from upstairs. After a while a man with some blood on his face was taken away by some three officers in a police car. Xandir Malta evening news said that the man was taken away in an ambulance.
Those who perpetrated this violence may not have been acting on anyone’s direct orders, but they knew they enjoyed the protection of the police and some cabinet ministers.
Mhux jien, mhux jien, mhux jien mama……
If, as Joe Grima would have us believe, Labour were not directly involved in the Black Monday incidents in 1979, what has he got to say about the 1984 incidents involving the Curia, the law Courts, etc? The drydocks men were, after all, accompanied on at least one of their trucks by KMB. If that is not Labour’s open approval of the violence, then I don’t know what is.
Joe Grima himself provided much entertainment in the form of parliamentary sittings transmitted by Xandir Malta, in the absence of anything more exciting on TV in our childhood. Lorry Sant was one other such person, as were Mintoff and many others. The sad thing is that – in our eyes when we were children – their behaviour was taken to be normal.
It is fitting for Joe Grima to return to the Labour Party. On Net TV he was watched with spite. Whoever has been running Net the past five years has been totally lost – no wonder the abysmal ratings. However much people Grima tries to seem acceptable, he will always be remembered as a book-end of Dom Mintoff whom he used to adore. Playing Pontius Pilate about the violence which was perpetrated by the Labour thugs, when he was a very powerful person in government, will not convince anyone. So good riddance.
The Labour Party of that time fomented violence and the police were just criminals in uniform, but unfortunately they went unpunished, and were even promoted by the Nationalist government. Is it such a surprise that we have so much angst coming out?
The church asked forgiveness for past errors, but the Labour Party says it has nothing to be ashamed of. It had a pure conscience – it was lily white! I met KMB and the aristocracy of the workers at Marsa on my way to an MUT meeting. We were in the middle of the lock-out/strike situation. So much for some ‘uncontrollable MLP sympathisers’.
MLP leaders were satisfied and contented to never condemn, always condone the crimes committed. And the present incumbent isn’t any better. He smirks and asks us to let bygones be bygones. No, Mr. Muscat – we who lived through it will never forget.
Joe Grima found his niche – again! One other reason why the Labour Party has not changed and will not change. Hard as he may try, history will judge the MLP’s track record as one of violence, corruption and complete disregard for human rights, and with people like Joe Grima back in their fold, their image will not improve one iota.