Define ‘apology’
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a different social milieu, a different culture, or even just a parallel universe, but where I come from an apology involves three essential elements: an expression of regret, an admission of error or guilt, and the words ‘sorry’ and ‘forgiveness’. Sometimes, it even involves the words ‘deeply’ and ‘sincerely’.
I cannot understand why the leader of the opposition’s single sentence – ‘Black Monday should never have happened’ – has been interpreted as an apology for the hideous events of 15 October 1979.
‘Black Monday should never have happened’ is not an apology but a statement of fact. For a start – and this should be obvious – apologies are made in the first person, singular or plural. Just in case there is room for misunderstanding here, I’ll give an example.
I borrow my brother’s car, drive carelessly and hit a wall, causing a great deal of damage. I ring my brother to make sure he is home, then I go there and I say, to his face: “I am deeply ashamed to tell you that I have wrecked your car by driving it into a wall. I really am most terribly sorry. I hope you will forgive me.”
I do not go to a bar and, hoping that someone there will overhear me and relay the news to my brother, say in a loud voice: “My brother’s car should not have been wrecked.” In no way can this be defined as an apology.
Whatever we think of Joseph Muscat, and however low the regard may be in which we hold him, there cannot be a single one among us who imagined that he thinks Black Monday should have happened. He did not need to tell us that breaking and entering, theft, arson, vandalism, GBH, and imperilling human life are criminal acts at law (and he didn’t even do that) because the law is there and we know what it says.
Still less did he need to tell us that those criminal acts should not have happened. We know they shouldn’t have happened, because we are civilised. That they shouldn’t have happened is not a subjective opinion depending on one’s political standpoint. It is an absolute fact.
Even the word ‘happened’ is most offensive. Criminal acts do not happen. They are perpetrated, by people. Storms happen. Earthquakes happen. Floods happen. But crime doesn’t ‘happen’. It is the result of deliberate human action. Arson is not the result of spontaneous combustion, but the decision taken by some people to set a fire in a building – and in this particular case, one in which several people are still trapped inside.
I am appalled that Malta’s future prime minister finds it necessary to reassure us that he, too, is civilised and like all other civilised people he does not approve of arson, GBH, attempts to suppress freedom of speech, and the ransacking of politicians’ homes by politically-motivated thugs.
How are we supposed to react to his idiotic declaration – by sighing with relief because the man who would be prime minister thinks it’s wrong to set fire to office buildings with employees still inside?
What am I saying – the equivocator didn’t say it was wrong. He said it should never have happened. That’s not at all the same thing. I take the ferry to Gozo. It sinks. I tell myself ‘I should never have taken this ferry, because look what happened to me.’
That’s the spirit in which Joseph Muscat said what he did during– oh blissful irony – a speech at the Tumas Fenech Foundation for Education in Journalism. Black Monday should never have happened because the Labour Party suffered grave consequences and the Nationalist Party benefitted.
Muscat’s was not an apology, but an insult – the trivialising of criminal acts and serious wrongs. One of his elves described it on the internet as ‘an honourable statement’, but the elves – most of whom appear to have had few of the privileges of a decent upbringing – can be forgiven for not knowing what they do (or think).
To anyone else, it is an utterly dishonourable statement, one so disturbing in its complacency and intimations of amorality that it provoked one of the victims of that day, Eddie Fenech Adami, to break his self-imposed post-presidential silence and speak to the press.
He didn’t even participate in The Times’ video of interviews and memories. His wife did so alone.
Yet after Muscat said what he did, and even had the gag-inducing nerve to describe his words as a ‘historic apology’ – imagine that, calling your own words historic – Fenech Adami said on Friday: “No one from the Labour Party has ever apologised to me for the pain caused to my family that day. Dom Mintoff even accused me of provocation. Dr Muscat’s statement was not the apology I was expecting.”
Muscat left me with the impression that it is not the arson, violence, vandalism and theft of that day which he regrets so much as the consequences for the Labour Party.
As former Nationalist minister Michael Falzon told the newspapers: “He tried to give the impression that the perpetrators used the Labour Party for their own ends. But in reality, it was the Labour government which used those thugs to its own ends.”
Muscat will never apologise. Commonsense should tell us that. He was raised in a family of Mintoffjani who managed to come to terms with the events of Black Monday sufficiently to vote for Mintoff again a mere two years later. An apology for Black Monday would be a rejection not only of the man he was brought up to worship as is-Salvatur ta’ Malta.
More crucially, it would be a rejection of his family’s views, attitudes and political beliefs, and few can reject their formative origins without undermining their very sense of self.
To apologise for Black Monday, Joseph Muscat would first have to reinterpret his own personal history. He didn’t mind doing that with EU membership, but when it comes to his own childhood and growing-up identity as a Mintoffjan, it’s a different matter.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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Although I may be a potential LP voter in 2013, I have to agree with you on this one, Daphne. I believe that a political leader should always handle past political ‘mistakes’ with respect. One may argue that these acts of violence happened 30 years ago, and Joseph Muscat definitely holds no responsibilty for those acts since he was only a child at that time. But today he is the leader of the same party, albeit one that has changed its name, and he has to assure the nation that when it is his time to govern, we will continue to experience the same peace of mind we have today.
The least he should do is set up a committee within his own party to scan any wrong-doings, which although might be done by a mere few, risk bringing the whole party to shame once more.
On a different note, Dr Fenech Adami’s post-presidential silence is quite remarkable, as you well mentioned. He didn’t take part in the video interview even though I am quite sure he was invited to do so. But I think that Eddie could have done more to bring the culprits to justice when the wounds where still fresh and bleeding, when he became prime minister back in 1987. He had all the power given by his mandate to lead the country, to act in the name of those who were tortured, killed and harassed.
Again, I can’t understand why it is so hard for Labour to apologise. They would gain so much. They don’t even have to really mean it. They can act, can’t they? That’s what politicians are renowned for.
I feel this issue was raised simply to deviate the public from forthcoming budget and the higher electricity tariffs (which will obviously not be mentioned in the budget).
[Daphne – Why would the leader of the opposition wish to deviate public attention from the budget?]
It wasn’t Muscat who brought it up, it was The Times, obviously in collusion with the PN.
[Daphne – You are quite, quite out of your mind. I assume that if your property had been burned down with your employees still inside, you too would wish to mark the 30th anniversary of that attempt at suppressing opposition and free speech – in what is, after all, your own newspaper. The views of people like you help me to understand how this country ended up in such a terrible state. It seems incredible until I am reminded that people who think as you do still exist.]
I think Twanny just answered your previous question, but obviously it wasn’t to your liking.
I may be making a Chinese out of the sequence of media events but, I thought the Times brought this up in the first place with its anniversary article, not the LP, and the LP felt obliged to respond. Does this anniversary memorial of the barbequeing of the Times offices happen every year? If so, well its possibly down to typical Maltese dredging up the past; if its not, it look like deviation tactics at work. Lets all focus on Muscat’s bumbling response and argue how he couldnt bring himself to actually say “Our Party apologises and regrets the actions of those socialist hooligans”. In the meantime, the Finance minister refuses to concede to having committed a stupid, politically compromising act; the government is reneging on almost all its election promises and the budget announcement is being delayed because..what..surely not..they have to go back to the drawing board because they didnt get their sums right?? Seems to me the finances of this country are in the hands of people with missing fingers. This reminds me, arent primates short of a finger?
Gents don’t waste your time with Mrs. Galizia. Truly she is excellent with words. But as she say “Simple things are hard to understand, it seems”, and it’s truly her case because with all her intelligence she can’t sense that she became a part of a propaganda machine of a political party. Instead of an individual, she prefers to be a part in the system, which she fulfils with flying colour for the blind sector of society!!!! Your time is up Mrs Galizia. Change your attitude please!!
When young children do something wrong, parents usually say ‘Untill you say you are sorry you are grounded.’ Cunning children immediately say ‘sorry’ and they don’t mean it. They just want to escape punishment. I hate to think that the future prime minister of Malta is acting like a manipulative child but I am afraid he does. He just wants his party not to suffer any more from the consequences of events like Black Monday. But we can see through his words and his kind of ‘apology’ does not do him honour.
Honestly, I am not interested in receiving any half-baked apology from the PL. I will only do my part and keep them grounded (through my vote of course).
Oh no they don’t, the really cunning children would say “but mummy it wasn’t me, it was the cat (or whatever)” and continue to exaggerate what the “cat” did so that their wrong doing won’t look so bad.
[Daphne – Only a stupid child, not a cunning one, would pretend it was the cat – obviously.]
The really cunning child was believed, and ended up becoming President.
[Daphne – Yes, Grace, he commissioned people to wreck his home and beat his wife, so that 25 years later he could become president.]
Grace
Labour spend more than 15 years trying to persuade us that they have changed, then you come along with your ‘elve’ friends and promptly prove that they are still the same.
I never said that the thugs that did all that damage were commissioned by EFA. What I meant to say was that there were troublemakers on both sides, and EFA together with the present PN only talk about what those thugs did, they never say what PN did. In 1987 I was glad that PN came into power because MLP had become too arrogant and aggressive. Now PN are becoming arrogant, they are not aggressive because they don’t have the same type of opposition there was in the 80s. If for a minute Antoine Daphne forget you are PN you would realise that LP are nowhere as bad as PN were in the 80s. There is no boycott, no one went to Armier when some holidays where removed etc etc. If it was for the PN, LP would shut their mouths and even refrain from holding public demonstrations, which are nowhere as bad as the ones held by PN during the 80s.
“If it was for the PN, LP would shut their mouths and even refrain from holding public demonstrations, which are nowhere as bad as the ones held by PN during the 80s.”
Well Grace does have a point, we must grant her that. Today, public demonstrations are not attacked by Labour thugs, ministers’ henchmen and police in uniform. Tear gas is no longer fired by the SMU on demonstrators. Pregnant women and the elderly are not attacked in front of ministers’ noses; people are not arrested without charge and threatened by future deputy leaders of a main political party who boasts about “ferocious speeches”, and said future deputy leader then got a good telling off, only a telling off unfortunately, in court.
Today’s “aristocracy of the workers” would never dare smash up the Curia as the thugs no longer enjoy government protection. Today’s demonstrations are about petty things compared to the real threats faced by us during those horrible 1970s and 1980s.
Come on, Daphne – Grace does have a point.
Muscat’s statement is missing the words “been”, “allowed” and “to”.
Maybe next time.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091018/opinion/editorial
Dak li ghandu: mummy’s boy u tifel uniku minn Burmarrad mrobbi politikament minn nanna Mintoffjana hadra, ha joqghod jaghmel bhal Willy Brandt – se nibqghu nistennew!
U int min rabbik – xi nanna nazzjonalista bajda vergni pura?
[Daphne – L-erba nannijiet li kelli kienu kollha Stricklandjani, u ovvja li hadd minnhom ma kien vergni ghax kieku m’iniex hawn.]
@Daphne Kont qed insaqsi lil Rosa mhux lilek, int dejjem tghid li n-nanniet tieghek kienu Striklandjani – kif kienu tieghi.
Jien nidejjaq nisma nies juzaw kliem bhal hadra, ahna nuzaw tinten mhux b’diprezz imma biex niftemu li bniedem ikun akanit ghal xi partit. Vergni pura fil-politika ghalina tfisser xi hadd li qad m’ghamel xi haga hazina jew zbal, u ,hux vergni bhal xi hadd li qatt ma jaf ragel fis-sens bibliku.
Daphne, well said! Labour has not changed. The party is still full of nasty, narrow-minded supporters who would never tolerate criticism let alone apologise for any brutal deeds. By ‘apologising’ Dr Muscat is trying to lure ex-PN supporters into his fold.
@ rosa luxembourg
“minn nanna Mintoffjana hadra” … it takes one I suppose.
I have followed the documentaries/articles about Black Monday. I believe that Joseph Muscat cannot personally be held responsible for the wrong-doings of the party he belongs to and frankly he and his colleagues can all stuff their apologies.
Crimes have been committed and the only true apology will come through prosecution of those responsible, including the Labour leader of the time. An official apology will only serve to seal the deal that lets them all get away with murder.
Too bloody right. But then it’s always “Perit this” and “Perit that” even when the staunchest Nationalist meets Mintoff.
So shall we prosecute the man who was leader of the PN when Karin Grech was assassinated?
[Daphne – That remark shows you understand little or nothing.]
This reasoning is typical of our fictitious Twanny:
If the GWU supports the LP then it follows that UHM is in cahoots with the PN.
If Jason Micallef resigns so should Paul Borg Olivier.
If Joseph Muscat criticises the government about the water and electricity prices then it follows that he has some solution. Don’t ask me what it is.
If Alfred said he will remove VAT, it follows that he will remove the cash register and the audit trail.
If Joseph Muscat says “these things should never have happened”, then he’s courageous.
If Joseph Muscat proposes a private member’s bill on divorce, he’s progressive.
If he retires the above bill silently, he’s smart.
If the PN is in favour of something then it follows that Labour should oppose it.
If the LP comes up with some good idea it shouldn’t be adopted by the governing PN.
If the PN rules for 15 years then it follows that it’s Labour’s turn to govern.
@ John Schembri
and you forgot this one… if PN do something positive then it’s being done solely to divert the public’s attention from more serious and pressing issues.
“Historic”? After the Times had been ransacked Mintoff wrote a letter to Mabel Strickland. It was as much as an apology as Muscat’s.
Who is going to apologise to us who when still innocent children were bullied by the church and the PN, because our grandparents who where Mintufjani and Interdetjati were not given a decent burial.
Maybe Laurence Gonzi who was brought up by the monster who brought all this upon us can show what a real Catholic he is and apologise for his great uncles wrong doings.
The monster apologised.
… I suppose the Curia …
Well the Church should – duhhhh. And why should you care if your grandparents were not given a “decent burial” as you put it?
Quite frankly, as much as I found the idea repulsive, everybody is free or not to follow its rules. If your grandparents CHOSE to “go against the church”, no matter how stupid its actions were, why on earth should they care if the land they were buried in was consecrated by that same church or not?
To be blunt they knew what the consequence would be.
Grace, it should have never happened.
On an official visit to Poland while visiting a memorial for the Holocaust victims, FDR president Willy Brandt knelt in silence.
Nearer to home we have a so-called apology where ‘sorry’ seemed to be the hardest word. This speech ‘happened’ to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the burning of The Times and an attack on the leader of the opposition’s residence and family. Some of the Fenech Adami family members are still suffering the consequences of that attack. I don’t expect Joseph Muscat to kneel in silence. I leave that to true statesmen.
[Daphne – Here it is http://www.ena.lu/willy-brandt-kneels-warsaw-ghetto-memorial-warsaw-december-1970-020705134.html ]
What about those who were discriminated by the Nationalist Governments and proved by the Courts and Tribunals. Have you ever heard any apology for these abuses?
[Daphne – An odious comparison, as can be expected from you, Carm.]
But perfectly true nevertheless. Fenech Adami remains the only PM in Malta’s history condemned by the courts – rwice – for political discrimination.
[Daphne – Sigh. Might that be because there were courts in which to seek redress?]
I agree with you: apologies need to include the words ‘sorry’ and ‘we disown such behaviour’. But PLEASE stop for a second. Calling for an apology for past transgressions is pertinent, and defines codes of morality which are much needed. Really? Go back 30 years? Why not 40 years? Why not back to the Spanish Inquisition? Why not back to Pontious Pilate? So while we’re in the mood for come-to-Jesus meetings, what about fast-forwarding instead of this lame looking-back (which is SUCH a Maltese habit) and calling the Nationalist government to account for all its current unfulfilled election promises?
Caroline,
Can you see the irony that Black Monday occurred in the same year that Malta supposedly gained its ‘freedom’? Why is March 31 relevant but October 15 “the past”?
A real apology should be abject, heartfelt and not just seen to be real, but felt to be real. It should also contain the words: “We apologise – no words of mine will heal the wounds of that day.”
That’s what I would have expected. Anything less is no apology. And Joseph Muscat’s was no apology but a self-congratulary nod to what he sees as his place in history.
There are many other reasons to apologise. Many people suffered and many died “bl-inkwiet” during the excesses of those times. Businesses ruined, land and property seized, all in the name of Malta Socjalista. Those abuses should have been documented in detail, one by one.
After 15 years in opposition, the MLP will behave like a pig who is unexpectedly introduced to a banquet. We will see excesses like no others, because that’s how they reason: “Issa ahna fil-Gvern, u ha ngawdu ahna.” Kemm ser jithanzru. That is the ONLY reason the MLP wants to be in government. It saddens me, but it’s the truth. That is their only motivation.
I hope the internal trials and tribulations of the PN will make it stronger. I can’t imagine living under Labour again. Thank God, we now have the option to get out.
All you pale blue PN people, who owe their voting influence more to people like La Benoit or La Leyson, and who have no mind to think with, remember this when it happens.
An apology by Joseph Muscat would have been or will be perceived by his people as a weakness and as a direct attack on his party. It is a calculated risk whereby he does not want to create internal issues. Nonetheless, I totally agree that he should have had the common sense and leadership qualities to take the initiative and apologise.
After all, he can easily say ”although I was not around at that time, and most of the people who led the party are not ……. ”.
“After all, he can easily say ”although I was not around at that time, and most of the people who led the party are not ……. ”.”
Except that he would have Sceberras Trigona and Anglu by his side, and Mintoff still holding MLP membership, and KMB too, which would sort of undermine the whole spectacle, would it not?
In any case, a political party transcends the lifetime of its members. It’s like saying that once Lenin died, the Soviet communist party ceased to exist. Today’s MLP is the same party as 1979’s MLP. The cretins thought that changing the name, without dissolving the party, changing the statute and changing the party structure, means that you have a new party. You can’t get more stupid than that. And the whole of Malta swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
@ Trevawaqeva
Daphne’s well written rationale omitted one additional element which is essential in an apology.
The missing element is ‘sincerity’ which, up to now has never been Joseph’s forte.
I dare add, that any form of apology from Joseph is badly inadequate because we know very well that certain elements within the Labour Party, still feel no regrets about the atrocities of the past.
Nothing less than a resolution, presented and unanimously approved by the party delegates at a GM headed by the leader himself and formally apologizing for the violence and near loss of democracy in the 70s and 80s, will ever be sufficient to expunge the (new) Labour Party.
Only then will some of the suspicion disappear and a credible alternative government be presented for consideration by the electorate at a future general election.
Dear Daphne
How come you did not spend even a word on Professor Dominic Fenech, who, according to The Sunday Times (11 Oct): “‘Whether the people guilty of the attacks were acting out of outrage or opportunity is anyone’s guess since we still do not know for sure who they were,’ Prof. Fenech said.”
My questions are these:
1. What does it mean “we still do not know for sure who they were”? Fenech is not saying “we do not know” but is qualifying it with “for sure” – it means he has an inkling who those thugs were.
2. I am not surprised that he has such an inkling! He was the Secretary General of the Labour Party when the arson took place. By his own admission (always from The Sunday Times, 11 October): “‘Back at party headquarters we used to be infuriated by such occurrences,’ the former general secretary said.” So he MUST HAVE known who these people were – it was not the first time these thugs acted.
3. Nobody in his right sense would believe that the Secretary General of the Party DID NOT KNOW who these thugs were. Does he want us to believe he was not aware of the identity of the hotheads, of the troublemakers? Was he living on Cloud 9, or what?!
4. Professor Fenech SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR DOING NOTHING… NOT EVEN REPORTING THEM TO THE POLICE! NOTHING! IT IS A SHAME! And now he is a Professor of History?! What is he doing, rewriting Maltese history?!
5. One asks: Why did Ronnie Pellegrini blog on the Black Monday articles and not on other articles?!
6. What was the secret committee organized within the Labour Party?! It is possible Dominic Fenech – SECRETARY GENERAL, please note – knew nothing about it?!
7. What can he tell us about these thugs: (a) two from Wistin Abela’s district and (b) one from Joe Brincat’s district but who later went to Philip Muscat’s camp? There were half a dozen hotheads on that day – three of them are these I am mentioning – when they entered EFA’s house and took pleasure in breaking everything they could lay their hands on, including the LPs of whatever music EFA liked to hear! These thugs were always at loggerheads with Lorry Sant’s people.
8. Is it true that Il-Wise’s (aide to Joseph Muscat) father was close to Lorry Sant? Is it true that Ronnie Pellegrini was at loggerheads with Lorry Sant? Is it true that Ronnie Pellegrini is Jason Micallef’s right hand man? What was the internal battle between Lorry Sant and Dom Mintoff of which we know only the tip of the iceberg (the Wenzu Photos Incident)? Were those thugs some sort of Pretorian Guard for Mintoff against Lorry which then went berseck falling under the mantra of Wistin and Philip?
9. Is it true that following Lorry Sant’s death in 1995 Dom Mintoff held a meeting in the south of Malta and a big, bearded man and his friend (both from Wistin Abela’s district) attended and complained with Il-Perit that they had been thrown out of the Party, and Mintoff admitted that certain things happened in the past which ought not repeat themselves?
10. What is the reason Dominic Fenech hates Alfred Sant?
These are the questions which Dominic Fenech should answer.
He should shoulder the responsibility for what happened when he was Secretary General.
Lastly, what did Lino Briguglio write in his L-elementi vjolenti fil-Partit Laburista?
It would be blasphemous to even dream of comparing our tribulations with the sufferings of Jews, gypsies and others at the hands of the Nazis. I must admit however that all these attempts to deny, excuse or otherwise play down MLP aggression remind me of Holocaust denial because some of the same arguments are used, such as: the victims were actually to blame, violence was committed spontaneously by a few fanatics against their leaders’ wishes and that, anyway, accounts of the brutalities are grossly exaggerated.
Perhaps there should have been a series of Nuremberg-style trials in 1987 to establish the truth officially. I realise that elected Labour politicians could not have been tried, but at least the thugs, hooligan police officers, corrupt journalists and all those who, for a decade and a half, carried out systematic violence would have been brought to justice. Nobody would be talking today of “loose cannons”.
I will give you another definition of apology: ‘It must have been the Labour thugs who made the 1979 Black Monday attacks’ – Lino Spiteri writing in The Times.
Why is it so difficult to write ‘ The Labour thugs made the attacks’ and not ‘it must have been’. And this coming from an ex-Labour minister.
‘…….the free press is all about facts, first and foremost.’ Yes, indeed.
It is obvious that the MLP officials knew exactly who the perpetrators were. This is only a puerile effort to distance themselves from stark responsibility in that violence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tell us that they did not even know who the police commissioner was.
Now the apologies due have doubled: one for those events and one for the scandalous mockery of the value of apologising. Bravo, Joseph!
Kenneth Zammit Tabona thinks the ‘apology’ is statesmanlike. Dear oh dear.
Our Ken said in the same article that back in the politically-tormented days of 1979, when he was 23, he knew nothing about politics. He still doesn’t. When he said that Joseph Muscat’s words were statesmanlike, it was his infatuation speaking, and not his powers of political analysis. In no other context would our Ken, so correct and so very concerned with manners, have classed ‘X should never have happened’ as an apology. He was in the audience to gaze admiringly at the love object.
He says in that article that he won’t be voting with a gun to his head in 2013. Is that a pistol in his pocket or is he just pleased to see Joseph Muscat (Mae West is so useful)?
Yes, you are right, Mr Zammit Tabona is not using his upper head when it comes to politics.
I shake my head in disbelief. Are these columnists (practically all of them) so naive that they trip over themselves to be on the good side of Muscat? They see things that we obviously don’t see. They are infatuated, especially Mr Zammit Tabona. Your colleagues at The Malta Independent on Sunday are astonished at the non-event of the apology. Why is the bar set so low?
Having just had a large dose of Alfred Sant on TVM, I must say that intellectually, Joseph Muscat l’anqas hdejn patattu ma joqghod. Still does not diminish the fact that Sant’s politics were unforgivably warped.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091021/letters/black-monday-apology-taking-responsibility
There you go, he takes full responsibility…
Mindboggling.
Incredible.
Pat ,I think the root cause for this mindboggling lies in Jason’s smile:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091002/letters/who-is-good-enough-to-replace-jason-micallef.
Someone from the Kwartieri Generali told her to toe the line, and we then got this:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091007/letters/the-pl-secretary-general-s-smile
Dawn tal-PL kollha good-looking and exceptional?
and what about this……
g.c.Forte (49 minutes ago)
@ U.demico…Take out your head from the sand and listen to this. Who is going to apologise to A. those families that their relatives were buried without a cross. B. to those that because of their beleives were sent to prison, and got married in the sagristija. C. to Profs. Grech for the murder of his daughter Karen (R.I.P.). D. to those who got political transfer and left working in an office with just a table and a chair. E. to those who because their name was marked red at the Kappilan books will never took a decent job. F. Who is to take responsibility to firearms found behind false wall at the P.N. headquarters, G. Why after 1986 all the bombs stopped. H. who were those ” tal gaggetta blu” and what was their job with the P.N. I. Why when in power, Dr. Fenech Adami never took action against those persons who he mentioned to be the aggressors of Ray Caruana (R.I.P). There are more to say, but instead we should admits that BOTH SIDES done wrong,and both sides did good things.
Not a wizard at grammaer and spelling that’s fr sure but, otherwise, spot on.
You’re kidding right about the spot on part? Good one!
Oops – made a couple of slips myself.
People in this blog are so narrow minded. No-one gave an apology for Black Monday but neither did anyone apologise for the “mizbla” and neither did anyone apologise for the bombings in the 80’s. So why bother raise the point. There isn’t one to raise.
And everyone here is shouting perit this and Mintoff that. What about DeMarco … our much beloved ex-president. They’re both old camels who done a lot of harm to supporters of other parties. Labour thugs … not the only ones.
“People in this blog are so narrow minded. No-one gave an apology for Black Monday but neither did anyone apologise for the “mizbla” and neither did anyone apologise for the bombings in the 80’s.”
Do you guys pretend to be so thick on purpose? Please, Herby, PLEASE tell me why anybody other then the Catholic Church should apologise for people being buried in unconsecrated ground, (still part of the cemetery as most Labour fans pretend to forget).
As to the bombings of the eighties, well I agree an apology is forthcoming by those who allowed it and carried it out. Note that once unofficial official protection was stopped, so did the bombings.
I am very pleased that the family of Gunner Psaila has filed a judicial protest against Alfred Sant. All I can say is – shame on you, dottore.
Pity you haven’t got access to Super One at the moment, Daph- Harry Vassallo has his own program (“Illum” – presumably ta’ Saviour), and his guest today is none other than Guido.
You’d love the backdrop – a side table in what must be his (Guido’s) home, littered with framed photos of Guido with various people he must consider “arani, Ma’ kemm ilhaqt!”-worthy, one of whom seems to be Moran, unless my eyesight is deteriorating.
Colonel Sebastian Moran? The second most dangerous man in London.
And there was I thinking it was Lord Moran, personal physician to the high and mighty.
Vincent/Censu. Then again, maybe my eyesight is failing.
Daphne, I for one suffered a great deal under the PN rule and within its intricate network. The same individuals are still enjoying public office (would elaborate but it’s not the place). Never did I hear a condemning statement let alone an apology……..now what?
An example of how an apology should be
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8361389.stm
I know it’s old news now, but here’s what a true apology sounds like coming from a politician: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8361389.stm
It includes the word ‘sorry’, it is addressed directly to those who were hurt, and it includes a detailed account of what the wrongdoing actually consisted of.