Just when you thought the circus had left town….
Published:
January 19, 2010 at 9:50pm
Chris Agius might wish to preserve this outfit for posterity, too
timesofmalta.com, today
Call for protection to Mintoff’s childhood home
Labour MP Chris Agius has urged the authorities to protect the house in Cospicua where former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff was born and where he lived as a child.
Mr Agius noted a slum clearance project planned for Cospicua and said Mr Mintoff’s old home may be one of the properties being demolished. He said this house should be saved and restored.
Social Policy Minister John Dalli requested the exact address and details on the historic value of the house so that the necessary verification could be made.
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Wow, then we should save St. Luke’s Hospital cause many bigwigs were born there. Oh dear, what is this country becoming – ara vera m’ghandux jaghmel dan!
A non-partisan political observer should have a licit right to regard the idea, which Chris Agius has launched, in a positive manner.
John Dalli seems to have reacted in a most opportune way.
Had that house been destroyed in the 1st World War we would not have had to bear with this man’s antics for all those years.
Why not the ridiculous belt with the huge bokkla too that Mintoff was fond of wearing?
It’s too early too judge Mintoff’s époque. History has a pattern to follow. Normally it is years later, when contemporaries are dead and buried, that history can be written objectively and a conclusion reached as to whether the ‘subject’ under scrutiny was ‘the victim’or ‘the guilty’.
Hitler’s birthplace was never destroyed; it has been transformed into a home for the handicapped.
[Daphne – On the same principle, perhaps I and few other well-chosen individuals should buy Mintoff’s childhood home and use it for parties.]
This is tricky. One feels the urge to urinate on Mintoff’s (eventual) grave AND his childhood home, but one wouldn’t want to cause any offence to the people currently living there.
How about “bash” parties!
Maybe Adolf Schicklgruber’s birthplace better should have been destroyed:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/6504986/Fears-Adolf-Hitlers-birthplace-could-be-bought-by-neo-Nazis.html
I don’t see anything wrong with the initiative – for better or worse, Mintoff remains Malta’s most prominent statesman. Go to any of Malta’s villages and you’ll see plaques outside certain townhouses stating that a writer/poet/activist lived or was born there in 17xx or 18x, so why not Malta’s most well-known (abroad as well as here) politician?
Incidentally, I would say the same about George Borg Olivier’s home.
Besides, it is hardly inconceivable that at some point in the future, this house could be turned into a little museum about post-independence Malta. The money earned could be ploughed straight back into Cospicua itself.
And before anyone laughs the suggestion off (“who would ever pay to go see Mintoff’s home?”) all you have to do is take a look at the quirky museums that litter Europe’s capitals – from chocolate museums in, of all places, Barcelona to a museum of fans (wall and ceiling fans) in London or a barbie and miniature museum in Prague.
“a little museum about post-independence Malta”
There’s precious little to say about post-independence Malta.
1964-1979: Endless squabbling
1979-1987: Eileen Montesin and Ritchie’s rise to fame
1987-1996: Painful adjustment to normality
1996-1998: Best forgotten
1998-2003: More squabbling.
2004-2010: Painful adjustment to life as EU citizens
Different topic but but some things are not “Only in Malta”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/beds/bucks/herts/8469850.stm
Actually I may have been too hasty and did not read whole story
Hi Daphne, can I just say that I love your posts so much I’m actually addicted to this notebook. Sometimes it’s so funny it’s like reading Attitude. When it gets a bit too much, working with this bunch of 2-cell-brainees, I come in here to have a laugh and try to keep my sanity. I couldn’t afford a shrink’s fee anyway …….. yours troolay, Vicky Pollard
Don’t worry the circus is surely coming to town in April when Muhammar Gaddafi comes to Malta. I hope they talk about our oil in the medina bank. There are great prospects.
I despise Mintoff, that nasty, evil, foul-mouthed brute.
I agree that some Mintoff-era monuments should be preserved, especially the Republic monument in Marsa, but not his former home.
Oh drat! Now you can’t call anyone an ox again:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100120/local/opposition-calls-for-review-on-definitions-of-pornography
I would love to be a fly on the wall while the discussion of what is obscene and what isn’t is going on. Mur arahom jiddiskutu!
We don’t need Mintoff’s home to remember him. He will be remembered for the next couple of decades, though not for the reasons he may wish.
Labour supporters constantly remind PN supporters that the 1971-1987 era should be forgotten.
Dom Mintoff was the architect of that era which, according to the LP, should be put behind us.
So why would Labour MP Chris Agius want to preserve Dom’s home which will continue to remind him (and us) of his place of birth?
Have the homes of former prime ministers been preserved and designated as historical places? Not even the home of Malta’s first declared saint has such privileges, so why should Mintoff’s home?
Malta would have survived with or without Mintoff, however it would be unfair not to recognize the fact that with all his shortcomings, he engineered Malta’s entry into the EU (unintentionally). Had he not stopped Sant’s government in its tracks, today we would still be as frozen as Iceland and our application would be collecting dust on some obscure government shelf.
As it turns out, Dom’s former home will survive, as it does not form part of the block scheduled for demolition and reconstruction.
Dom himself and his recently rediscovered ‘buddies’ at the Labour Party should pitch in to renovate the house, if they so wish.
”LINA MANGION ( Times 6 hours, 11 minutes ago)
THE EDITOR OF ‘REALTA ‘ IS TO BE ARRAIGNED IN COURT FOR PORNIGRAPHY.
IS THE PERSON WHO PUT ON INTERNET THE WHOLE STORY TO BE ARRAIGNED
TOO. AND IF NOT WHY.”
They wouldn’t dare !
You must have missed John Dalli’s hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels last week. It was all about being a tough commissioner selling helt proWdakts. Embarrassing? Well, there were so many apparatchik wannabes, the accounts clerk failed to distinguish himself anyway. To him, it seemed like another busy day at the Qormi Civic Centre. Magg te and a biskuttin is all he lacked.
[Daphne – I thought it best to avoid the subject, but I share your sentiments exactly. What I found even more embarrassing was the ‘proud parent’ style reporting in the Maltese media: ‘One of ours went out there and impressed them.’]
Irid idahhaq dan Chris Agius … once we’re at it Chris, how about opening a museum in honour of this “gentleman’s” porkeriji in the past …I’m already envisaging a big wall with pictures of blood-stained Nationalist supporters.
I’m sure people will be clambering through the door.
The plan is to turn it into a fast food outlet – Dom’s Diner. Muscat can get his burgers and the rest of them can have cheap steak.
heh . . some people make me laugh…. some people are too radical. i come from a complete blue visioned family but its a whole complete nonsence that some people keep on believing the crap going on by the pn government.
i truely hope that were now reached 2010 we all start argumenting in a better unbiased manner!… i know most of you find dr gonzi pumping up money… but keep in mind that there are thousands of others who are fighting truely for a living and arent managing due to the incompetance of this government! . . . i hope daphne that were needed you do criticise gonzi in order to have a better country for each and every one of us . thanks :)
Arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8kecQVHO1k
I think it should be preserved, so that future generations can piss on his doorstep and say that ass once lived here