BLACKOUT MONDAY – I guess they burned down The Times again, then
You really have to be a jerk with an IQ that bumps somewhere along the sea-bed with those funny creatures with electric nodes sticking out of their heads to equate the four-hour nationwide power-cut two days ago with the terrible events of Monday, 15 October 1979, a day which has gone down in Maltese history as Black Monday.
But that is what ‘team Maltastar’ has done.
The Nationalist Party has Black Monday – because ‘team Maltastar’ sees that day as a weapon in the PN armoury rather than as a national tragedy – and now the Labour Party has Blackout Monday, 30 years later.
On Black Monday, a mob of Labour Party supporters broke into The Times building, sacked it and then set fire to it with many employees still inside. To escape the burning building, those employees had to jump out of windows. The police made no attempt to stop the violence and the fire brigade took its time to respond to the alarm, so that by the time they were done, the building was completely gutted.
Another mob did the same thing to opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami’s home, the difference being that they didn’t set it alight. They even stole his wife’s earrings by ripping her ears as they pulled them off – majtezwel niehdu xi haga, hu. Dawn tajbin ghal-mara. Tiehu gost bihom.
The events of that day met with statements of concern by the European Parliament and many European governments on the right side of the Iron Curtain.
On Blackout Monday, the country was deprived of electricity for four hours. There was some confusion, business was lost, we couldn’t watch television a couple of hours after work, and there were traffic jams. Then the power came back on again and things went back to normal.
Belittling the significance of Black Monday by playing this kind of inane word game reveals just how incapable the ‘Maltstar team’ are of grasping the magnitude of those events and their implications for democracy in Malta – and for the future of the Labour Party, which has lost every general election since then, bar that of 1996, six general election losses on the trot.
But that should have gone without saying. Nobody who fully understood what happened that day would ever have been able to vote Labour again. You have to question the intelligence of those who did, and where their intelligence is indisputable, you have to question their values and their morality.
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I was there on Black Monday. What hurt most was the news on TV which said “a small fire….” My wife, at home, went to sleep peacefully – not knowing the truth and not knowing to what extent – those days – that lies were fed to the people through the official news.
When I say I was there, I mean I worked in the building. And to this day I feel indebted to Mgr. Calleja who noticed us on the balcony overlooking St. Ursula Street.
Ghadni niftakar qisu l-bierah tnejn minnhom kienu telqu min quddiem il-Qorti. Bl-ghajta ‘Ghat-Times! Ghat-Times!’
Ghaddew minn Triq Santa Lucija, Triq Merkanti u Triq Melita.
[Daphne – Dejjem minn Melita Street, Ni.I., ghax l-alternattiva kienet it-telgha iebsa (jahasra) ta’ Triq San Pawl jew id-dawra durella ta’ madwar Kastilja. Huwa ghalhekk li dejjem kellna grandstand view mill-gallarija tan-nannijiet taghna, li kienet Melita Street kwazi kantuniera ma’ Triq San Pawl.]
Fuq quddiem, bhala kap tal-marmalja kien hemm persuna llum mejta. Nahseb Twanny jiftakar min kien.
Il-fusellu.
Ghal min ma jafx Triq Melita qabel kienet Britannia Street.
Here’s a link for those whose memory fails them:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091011/local/unfaded-memories-of-black-monday
Another of Glenn’s gems.
I have a relative who also worked in the building during that horrific night. We were all very worried to say the least. Vote Labour? Ha! Never did and for sure never will.
There is no doubt that the monthly blackouts happening in Malta are totally unacceptable. There is no possible justification or condonement for the situation. It is a complete political cock-up and somebody has to respond for it.
A political cock-up? So now Boiler Seven doesn’t just have a personality. It also has a vote and preference for one political party over the other.
My God, Boiler Seven votes AD.
I would say it’s a technical and management cock-up, Andre.
So let’s get this right, Isard? You’re happy that power cuts are a regular occurrence then?
You think that the fact that Enemalta being a publicly-owned company is by the bye? You believe that the decision to extend the Delimara power station or the closure of the Marsa one were management decisions and not political ones? You mean to say that the consumer commodity prices are set by a privately-owned energy provider and not in Parliament?
Is that right, Isard?
I agree that “it shouldn’t happen” but do you remember that before 1987 it used to happen once or twice a week? In Sliema at least!
Once or twice a year I can live with!
Of course I remember. I was eight at the time, with two younger sisters. Friday was a day of celebration for all the kids in my apartment block. It was the day the water bowser would visit our street to fill up our roof tanks.
We could at last have a bath using water from the taps instead of washing ourselves with bottled water and boiling hot water from the kettle. My mother would collect the used bath-water and wash the floors with it before using it to fill up the lavatory cistern.
I remember everything of those dark Labour years in minute detail even though I was a child.
What happened in those days does not in any way justify the blackouts Malta experiences on a monthly basis today (not twice yearly as you state, David).
I despise this “pot-calling-the-kettle-black” type of politics. What Labour did in the past is irrelevant to what the Nationalists are doing today. They have been in power long enough to fix things.
Qabel fiz-zmien is-sittax il-sena ta` gvern Laburista konna nghidu `Da x`kien ghandna id-dawl?’ u ‘Da x`kien ghandna ilma?’ Issa darba fill nghidu `Da x`kien m`ghandniex dawl?’
Daphne I am in full agreement with your analysis here, except for the penultimate paragraph. I do not believe the chicken-brains at Maltastar fail to grasp the magnitude of the sordid events on Black Monday.
I think their behaviour belies a terrible guilt complex.
They know full well that those abhorrent events scarred the Labour Party in the annals of Maltese history for ever. It was by far the most outrageous episode in Malta’s history. Far worse than Sette Giugno when it was the occupying colonial power that attacked the Maltese.
[Daphne – We part company here, Anthony. In my original draft, before I edited it because I really didn’t feel like a debate about the subject, I wrote that what happened on Black Monday is completely analogous to what happened on the day we call Sette Giugno: an enraged mob of ignorant, violent (Maltese) peasants ransacking property owned by other Maltese they considered the enemy of the working-class and setting fire to it.
You forget – or perhaps you didn’t know because this bit is very conveniently edited out of the official version of events – that the mob of violent peasants (probably the grandfathers of the violent peasants who burned The Times and violated Fenech Adami’s home) on their way into Valletta, where they ransacked the homes of millers and stole everything they could, burned EVERY SINGLE FLOUR MILL EXCEPT THAT OWNED BY FARRUGIA. Farrugia’s mill was saved because the employees fought off the mob.
And as with 15 October 1979, these working-class champions didn’t give a fig about the workers still trapped inside the mills when they set fire to them. Nor did they have the brains, foresight and education – which is how I worked out that they spawned future Labour voters – to see that burning the mills and making it impossible to mill flour would put UP the price of bread even further, when that is what they were supposed to be demonstrating about by pillaging, looting and committing arson.
And before the combined forces of the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party rush in with their sanitised view of events that portrays these people, the equivalent of those who burned The Times 60 years later, as heroes and victims of the British, this is not the pro-British, Constitutional Party version of events. It is the historically factual one. How many of you knew that the mills were burned by the mob on the way to Valletta?
That’s right, probably none of you – because it was written out of the version fed to you. Sette Giugno is right up there with Count Roger and the flag, Paul and the viper, and the Maltese being Christian since St Paul as the Great White Myths of Malta.]
This time it was a planned terrorist aggression by Maltese on innocent fellow country men and women. The PL are fully aware of this. Their playing around with words is just one of a myriad of puerile attempts at spin – for the benefit of their dim witted followers.
Saying that nobody knew about the true version of events is probably incorrect. Many who do know about how things actually happened that day might not know, however, that similar riots happened in many industrialised cities in the UK. The most notorious of these happened in Manchester.
It’s ironic that we have a public holiday to celebrate a riot. Claiming that it was a national revolt against an oppressor is nothing but a delusion.
What’s worse is that those seeking to establish a single national day feel that Sette Giugno is the best compromise.
[Daphne – I’ll go and chain myself to Castille if that happens. Damn, they’ve removed those railings. Ah, but Renzo Piano’s project includes plenty of chaining opportunities: gorilla cage, stilts…]
In 1919, the mob also attacked the offices and printing press of the Daily Malta Chronicle just as 60 years later they would attack The Times.
Having lived through years of Labour marmalja I cannot respect a national holiday that distorts mob violence into a noble struggle for independence. I hope that the ugly lump of bronze that passes for a Sette Giugno monument is placed somewhere deep underwater, possibly under some fish-farm, to be slowly covered in fish poo.
Imagine erecting a monument to Fusellu, Qaħbu, Qattus and all the sorry band of Zejtun thugs.
[Daphne – Well said. Maybe I should write a research paper about this. Too damn bad that all the eyewitnesses in my family have died.]
There’s already a monument to Lorry Sant.
Dan il-blog ahjar mill- History Channel.
It’s so refreshing to read the facts in print (well online, but same thing).
I have always known it too, of course, but this is one of the rare cases when somebody put it down in writing.
Remember the hullabaloo when the statue was removed from its place to be put in front of the new parliament when built?
Now that’s the real fuck-up in the plans for Valletta, but it’s not Renzo Piano’s fault.
I hear the Sette Giugno rioters were all ripped and buff and stripped to the waist. Daphne, can you confirm, please?
[Daphne – Dak iz-zmien kienu jilbsu l-ilbies ta’ nhar ta’ Hadd biex jidhlu il-Belt, anke biex jaghmlu a spot of rioting and looting, mhux bhal zmien Mintoff meta kien hemm a drop in standards u kienu jidhlu l-Belt biex isajru tat-Times liebsin bicca jeans u qmis iccangjata.]
On a serious note, didn’t Henry Frendo publish a book dealing with 20th century Maltese history? I think it was a couple of years ago. Anyone read it?
Another question: Was the British flag flying over the National Library really torn down?
(Having to learn my country’s history through an internet forum. Oh the shame.)
Henry Frendo continued where the deceased Andrew Paul Vella left off. He published the third instalment of “Storja ta’ Malta” and it dealt with the 19th century. We’re still waiting for the fourth book.
I stand to be corrected, but the commentators of the time, from both sides of the political divide, saw nothing heroic in what had happened on the day, either. I’m referring to Gwann Mamo and Herbert Ganado.
Were you expecting the people to quietly die of hunger just to act in a civilised manner. It might have been a violent outburst but that is what happens when you greedily keep everything to yourself. A similar episode which resulted in much worse violence is the french revolution. You can’t expect to torture people of hunger and then when they react aggresively you denounce them as violent beings. It’s just human nature. If you’re greedy that is what you’ll get in the end. Sette Giugno was the beginning of our freedom so I for one am not ashamed of it. The british are not the innocent victims you try to potray them Daphne. Their soldier did fire on the Maltese crowd and kill four. Just for this they deserved to be thrown out of this country. Just like the french before them where thrown out of balconies haha. People react, it’s a natural instinct and when their bellies are empty they will react aggresively. And when one acts aggresively unintended things happen such as hurting your own people or an innocent bystander getting hurt in the process. In short the british created the situation themselves and they are the ones to blame. ps I’m not anti-british I love the brits, but things have to be taken in context of the situation.
hallina mark c
Nahseb li kien reflection Monday ghax fakkarna fi zmien il-Lejber. Ejja ma ninsewx minn xiex ghaddejna, hbieb.
No Troy we will never forget those terrible dark days. My son is 18 years of age and he cannot fathom what we had gone through. He tells me “but mum this only 25 – 30 years ago? How could these things have happened in modern times?”
Yes, unfortunately, they did happen and yes, in modern times and yes, in a supposedly democratic country. No, we will never forget and it is our responsibility to teach our children what we went through in our recent past.
How can one question somones values and morality if he have none?
I had no intention of going into the merits of Sette Giugno. I just pointed out that then the ultimate victims were shot at, unnecessarily in my opinion, by British troops.
[Daphne – Damn shame there were no troops to shoot at the bastards busy ransacking The Times and setting it alight, I say.]
In no way did I condone the events that led to this disaster. As to where I learned about Sette Giugno I have to confess that it was from my grandparents when I was about five or six years of age. In my family those dark days are a very sad family heirloom. The exact details are known to each and every one of us.
The then head of police (acting) James Frendo Azopardi was my father’s ‘Iz-Ziju Jimmy’ ; my great uncle. By the way your version of events is pretty accurate. Well done!
“[Daphne – Damn shame there were no troops to shoot at the bastards busy ransacking The Times and setting it alight, I say.]”
The troops of 1979 would have been more inclined to shoot at the Times’ workers jumping out of the windows.
I never knew or read about the pillage, looting and arson (to the detriment of fellow Maltese) during the Sette Giugno riots.
I thought that it was all about ‘il-glieda kontra il-kolonjanismu’. Knew that some of the rioters were well known with the police. How naive of me.
Where can I follow further reading (without the twisted facts) on the subject please?
[Daphne – I’ve known about the looting all my life. My family is from Valletta, and several of them were eyewitnesses. My grandmother lived near one of the millers and gave a graphic account of watching the house being thrashed, a piano being shoved out of the upstairs window into the street below, furniture flying out of the balcony and upstairs windows, and a looter appearing at one of the bedroom windows with a pair of silk drawers held high, and shouting to the crowd below ‘Ara xi qliezet ta’ taht jilbsu dawn is-sinjuri!’ Another immediate relative was an eyewitness to the actual shooting, which occurred when all other attempts at controlling the looting mob – Maltese attacking Maltese, while other Maltese failed to protect them – failed. As for the burning of the mills, you won’t find a potted history of that, either, and anyone who tries to write it will be denounced as a traitor, the same sort of fate that will happen to anyone who writes the truth about just how Christian Malta has been since St Paul.]
Brian – an official enquiry was carried out. The report was published in The Government Gazette. Other writings were published in The Times fairly recently. A bit of delving into the internet, as also a visit to the National Library on Piazza Regina a.k.a. Misrah ir-Repubblika, should dig up suitable references.
The National Library is worth a visit.
Bartolo, Paul (1979), X’kien ġara sew fis-VII Giugno 1919
It cannot be emphasized enough that in between the arson of The Times and the ransacking of Dr. Fenech Adami’s home the national TV station reported falsely that a group of Nationalist supporters had pillaged the Birkirkara MLP club.
As for the Sette Giugno events, what you state is what I was told by my grandmother.
[Daphne – Yes, extraordinary, isn’t it? In this whole sorry falsification of events, nobody stopped to say ‘Hang on, let’s ask the people who lived in Valletta and who are still alive today what really happened that day. Let’s ask the mill owners. Let’s ask the eyewitnesses who are still alive.’ No, instead we are fed a false story put about by people whose grandparents lived in Haz-Zebbug and Rabat and Marsascala, and meanwhile, all the eyewitnesses have died. The comparison between what happened that day and what happened on 15 October 1979, when I was 15, is an accurate one. The main reason that my grandparents’ eyewitness accounts of that day in 1919 resonated so vividly with me is because mob violence was part of my experience and because the class hatred, resentment and bitterness encapsulated in my grandmother’s description of the men raiding her neighbour’s bedroom cupboards and holding up undergarments on the balcony while shouting ‘Look at what sort of underpants these rich people wear! They’re made of silk!’ was part of my own experience under Mintoff, too.]
Research on Manwel Dimech was a whole different story.
I was only six years old at the time, but I well remember standing with my sister Daphne, who was 12, and with our grandmother in her balcony on Britannia Street, just around the corner from The Times, when a Labour mob passed by beneath on their way to one of their favourite regular activities: booing The Times and hurling objects at it.
It was a petrifying experience, because some of the bottles intended for The Times were flung through the windows of that balcony by those heroes of the working-class, straight at the heads of two little girls and an old woman, smashing the window-glass and breaking open our grandmother’s head. Our grandmother’s primary concern was concealing the source of her injury from our grandfather, who had still not recovered from the unimaginable trauma three years earlier of Mintoff’s organised hijacking of the National Bank of Malta when he was its president.
Three years later, the mob went beyond booing and throwing bottles at The Times building and ransacked it and set fire to it instead.
Nine years later, I heard the story first-hand from my father-in-law, Wilfred Asciak, who was one of those trapped inside the burning building after directing the arsonists, who took him captive and demanded that he direct them to the printing press, to a room that held obsolete machinery, hoping that this would save the actual press if the fire brigade got there in time. What he remembers more than anything is the way the looters and arsonists laughed with pleasure and satisfaction as they saw everything go up in flames with people still inside the building.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091011/local/unfaded-memories-of-black-monday
Issa allura ha nippartecipaw f’circle jerk fejn kulhadd imaqdar il- working class? Iva, naqbel, dawk il- mezze sege li kissru u farrku inzertaw kienu haddiema, izda b’daqshekk? It-ton ta’ dan it-thread qieghed jiltoqni bhala wiehed inkrexxus u Sansepolcrista.
Orrajt, ix-xena ta’ wiehed jgholli qalziet ta’ taht tal- harir minn gallerija huwa aggjacjanti (partikolarment meta jkunu ta’ xi hadd li taf), izda nsejtu kemm u kif il- haddiema dejjem gew sfruttati mill- azjendi u mid-detenturi tal -poter ekonomiku?
[Daphne – U x’kienu jaghmlu kieku minghajr dawk l-azjendi biex jimpjegawhom? Jinfexxu jieklu lil-xulxin? Lanqas hobz ma jkun ikollhom minghajr il-millers u l-importaturi tal-qamh, biex jaghmlu sengwicc b’xi slajs ta’ Cali ta’ Goma.]
Tkunux ciklopi. Ghandkom zewgt ghajnejn ghal raguni. Maqdru il-politika di potere, maqdru l-injoranza u l-vjolenza, u maqdru l-ghawg u l-propaganda li dan kollu gab mieghu, izda LE, il- haddiema tmaqdruhomx.
Kunu ghafu, tfal tal-Bambin, illi m’intkomx il-boghod minnhom, u tinsewx li l-unika raguni l-ghala ahna privileggjati huwa li haddiehor mhuwiex. L-ekonomija hija zero sum game, u tibni lilha nfisha fuq l-inugwaljanzi.
Mhux ghax middle class tahsbu li frankajtu d-destin taghhom, ta’! Illum kulhadd qed jiftaqar b’xi mod jew iehor. ic-CLAs saru ma jfissru xejn, l-ispejjez dejjem jakkalkaw, u l-kultura parasitika tal- marketing dejjem timmina iktar u iktar il- kuntentizza tal-individwu. Qed insiru iktar umonoidi u inqas umani, krejaturi li huma rozzi, narcissisti u ossessjonati bihom infushom a detriment ta’ kulhadd madwarhom.
Ibqghu b’saqajkom mal-art. M’hemmx qaddissin, u m’hemmx xjaten. Kulhadd imnejjek. ‘The matter is one of degrees.’
Nimmagina, Daphne, – u hawnhekk nixtieqek tkun taf li miniex qed niehdok fuq demm id-dars – illi kieku ma’ kienx hawn dawn l-azjendi li dejjem lesti japprofittaw mill-fenomenu tal- ‘pool of unemployed labor’, l-energija tal-bniedem tiehu sfog band’ohra.
Le, mhux fil-vjolenza, izda m’ghandiex dubju li l-krejativita’ taghna issib trajjetorji ohrajn. Bini, arti, xjenza, iva, anki sess. Jiktbu annex mall-Kama Sutra jew ix-Shanameh jew ir-Rubaiyyat. Il-possibilitajiet huma straordinarji. Ikun esperiment socjologiku, ‘l ghala le.
[Daphne – Veru hekk tahseb? Li jekk dawk il-qabda slavagg ma’ kellhomx ghalfejn jahdmu kienu jispiccaw jiktbu xi play jew xi The Leopard verzjoni working-class? Jew din xi forma ta’ sarkazmu sottili hafna?]
Imbaghad trid issaqsi lilek innifsek, x’inhi ftit vjolenza hdejn l-olokawst ta’ silenzju li hafna nies jipperkorru gurnata wara l-ohra? Fejn ikollhom jaghlqu halqhom u jaccettaw li ghax twieldu minghajr flus u mumiex lesti jipprostitwixxu t-talenti taghhom biex jassiguraw impjieg ahjar f’din il-fossa kapitalista tal- grieden li hi Malta se jkollhom jghaddu hajja ta’ servitu’ mhux biss fizika izda anki intelletwali’, ikkundannati li jiffrekwentaw dak kollu li hu inferjuri fil-hajja, kemm fl-intratteniment, ikel, vjaggar, u skola??
Ejja ma nigglorifikawx il-multinazzjonali u l-azjendi. Demm ghandhom ukoll fuq idejhom, u HAFNA ukoll. Izda ftit li xejn nisimghu fuqu, u dan biss ghax hemm solduni kbar fin-nofs.
Terence (Trinità nsomma), jien haddiem u fqir u sfruttat, u nigi mill-working class, xi haga li dejjem se nibqa’ painfully conscious taghha. Imma rajt li x-Xellug m’ghandu xejn hlief gideb. Iwieghed genna fl-art u jhallik fejn int. Ghallinqas il-Lemin huwa marginalment ahjar ghax iwieghed ekonomija liberali, u jaghtihielek.
Meta nara l-faqar agjaccanti li kibru fih l-antenati tieghi, nirrealizza li jekk inqalghu minn dak il-faqar kien bil-hila taghhom stess, u ma kienitx certament “is-sistema” li ghenithom.
Il-bottom line huwa li bir-riots tas-sette giugno s-sitwazzjoni tal-lower class ma marritx pulzier ghall-ahjar. Ghalhekk qatt ma hadt sehem fi protesta wahda f’hajti: ghax generalment huma inutli. U dan meta ghext fost nies li jitkellmu dwar “ma première manif” qisha kienet l-ewwel esperjenza sesswali.
Daphne u l-imprendituri x’jghamlu minghajr haddiema?
[Daphne – Argument vojt immens, Mark C. Hemm hafna izjed haddiema milli hemm imprendituri, sitwazzjoni li jikkreja ‘an imbalance of needs’. If this lot of people don’t want the job, there’ll be somebody somewhere else who can be brought in to do it.]
It goes both ways. I find it ironic that you mention class hatred after you yourself judge people by what they wear and sometimes refer to PL supporters as almost subhumans. Does it ever cross your mind that perhaps that is what they can afford?
[Daphne – Bad taste is often more expensive than good taste, Mark. If all they can afford is a T-shirt, they can at least make sure it’s 1. pure cotton, 2. good quality 3. plain. If they can afford more than one T-shirt and must buy a patterned one, then they should ensure that the patterned variety is not emblazoned with a brand-name, whether authentic or not and is from an acceptable pattern-creator – Ed Hardy, say, which has the advantage of matching any tattoos. Cheap clothes are often very expensive – a currently prominent example of this is Magistrate Herrera. I do not refer to Labour supporters as sub-human. That is how they see themselves. It’s their problem, not mine.]
Helene, that mob was led by Il-Fusellu.
I confirm your depiction of the Sette Giugno events from other sources. My late nannu often told of vivid yet horrible scenes of attacks not just on mills but even on residences – and not just in Valletta.
From what I gather the events exposed the deep sense of spite/resentment that existed against those who were better off in Maltese society, and this was not necessarily expressed by those who were really in the most dire straits. It is not clear whether all of the mob attacks were ‘organised’ or whether they were originally spontaneous and later ‘ran out of control’ in the atmosphere of anarchy that reigned.
To date I still cannot see any sense of ‘national pride’ in those events – let alone celebrate the events as a national holiday.
[Daphne – I don’t either. Nobody in my family ever did. My grandparents witnessed the actual looting and ransacking, for a start. Suggesting to them that they celebrate the mob rather than commemorate its victims would have been like suggesting to me that I should celebrate those who burned The Times building and ransacked the Fenech Adami home.]
Let us not forget the good people of Zejtun who stoically endured all those years of harassment during the Labour government. They suffered beatings, burned doors, insults, shootings and many other unpleasant actions. It was not just one day or one week but continuous daily trauma.
Mela insew daqs kemm kien ikollna power cuts taht il-Lejber.
Under a Labour government and living in Sliema, power cuts for hours on end were a common occurrence, and most of the time we had no water too and when we did it was brown. Being the youngest and sent on errands I would go to Dr Michael Falzon’s father’s shop to buy fresh Maltese bread and Michael’s dear mother – because she really is a dear – would tell me ‘trid ix-xemghat ukoll?”
Rightly so, Helene, and when we poor Sliema housewives went to protest in Republic Street, Valletta, some Labour thugs drenched us with dirty water from the balcony of the MLP club.
“Dirty water”? I have a vivid recollection of Labour thugs pissing off a truck passing by Fortizza “celebrating” Labour’s election victory, probably some time in the 1970s.
‘the Great White Myths of Malta’.
Now that sounds like a juicy title for a book or at the very least a blog entry.
Ever considered exposing some or all of these at one go?
Some of the Great White Myths lie in the realm of academic debate. I don’t think any one author, even a historian, could tackle the whole list at one go. We’ve trouble enough getting our scholars to write about the postwar period.
Nothing saddens me more and enrages me at the same time as a reminder of Black Monday. I was in Valletta on that fateful day and I could not believe my eyes. Later I was told of the attack on Eddie’s house and family and to this day I admire that wonderful man for remaining calm, then and later on in his public life.
Vote Labour? Never and never.
Yes, Eddie Fenech Adami is a truly remarkable man, yet he is so unassuming and unpretentious.
One would never have thought – seeing him at a book-signing session in Gozo last weekend (accompanied by two lively young grandsons, who are probably oblivious to how much Malta is indebted to their grandfather) – that he did so much for the country.
It is largely thanks to him that we are where we are today.
After reading the accounts of actual witnesses, as told to their descendants, of the Sette Giugno events I cannot help but wonder whether it’s deliberate conspiracy that these events are always displayed in a heroic light clearly unbecoming of such a rabid mob, or whether it’s a case of a lie being told ad nauseam and so ingrained in the collective psyche that we take it for granted as the truth.
I’d say it’s a measure of both. Some people want to believe in Santa Claus all their lives. Same difference.
It’s very clear. Every nation needs heroic patriotic acts to be able to identify itself as such. We don’t have any, so we need to invent them.
I corroborate the descriptions of the Sette Giugno events. My father and his brothers and sisters used to tell us how my great grandfather’s house was attacked and how the rioters tried to ransack it. He was an importer. He never oppressed any worker. When my grandmother sent my father and aunt (2 small children) to see what was happening, they nearly stoned them. They were saved by the arrival of British soldiers. This was not Valletta but a village.
Up to the day he died, my father was furious when he heard of these people being called heroes. For him they always remained thieves. It was the mentality of hatred towards anyone who appeared to be better off and not necessarily financially. Does it ring a bell of the good (!) old (and not so old) socialist days?
Yes.
Black Monday’s events were surely deplorable, and represent a truly dark episode in our history.
But Blackout Monday was a day of disaster also – I lost 4 hours of access to Daphne’s commentary.
But worst of all, I lost One’s 7.30pm news…
@Felicity
Your story is spot on. My father used to tell us a near exact account as to what happened to our family, also in a village. I doubt there is any connection though. But we were not so lucky in the late seventies when, because of my open political beliefs, my family was served with eight, eight requisition orders in one week. And this time it was no revolt by hungry workers but ‘legal’ payback time by a socialist government.
My late grandfather was of the same opinion, too – he owned and ran a mill after the mid-1930s up till the mid 1990s.
After Black Monday, a cabinet minister had expressed his regret that the building was not burned to its foundations.
[Daphne – I believe it was Joe Grima. Now there he is, a denizen of the comments-board on timesofmalta.com]
Min jaghti bis-sejf, bis-sejf jaqla. Remember what had happened to Joe’s radio station?
Il veru thick skinned dan Joe Grima! Imma qieghed go kumpannija tajba.
Ghadni niftakar qisu l-bierah gewwa Triq Brittania (illum Triq Melita) lill-Edwin Bartiolo il- ‘Qahbu’ niezel ma corma ufficjali gholja tal-Pulizija u minn naha opposta kien tiela’ Spiru Buttigieg miz-Zejtun li dak iz-zmien kien partitarju attiv Nazzjonalista. Kif rah gej il-Qahbu hareg min go nofs l-ufficjali gholja tal-Pulizija u qallu “mort twahhal il-Posters Iz- Zejtun Spir ” U kif Spiru qallu “Issa tmur int u terga taqlaghhom” il-Qahbu dahhal idejh gol but ta’ wara u dahhal xi haga go idu u ta daqqa ta ponn lill-Spiru Buttigeig taht imniehru u hallih mitluf minn sensih flart did demm hiereg qisu xi kelb tal-kacca. Il-Pulizija qadu jistennew lill-Qahbu u wara li ghamel dan l-att kriminali gravi quddiem wicchom rega mar go nofshom u baqaw nizlin flimkien lejn Strada Rjali. Min jaf Anglu Farrugia fejn kien dak inhar? Kont jien li tajt l-ghajnuna lill-Spiru wara li telqu il-Pulizija ghax ma’ hallew lill-hadd jersaq lejn Spiru sa kemm damu hemm huma.
Il-Fusellu kien haddiem bil-paga? Ghax dak iz-zmien niftakru b’karrozzi lussuzi u jilbes l-aqwa hwejjeg. Ghadni narhom bajnejja serjin lejn il-bini tat-Times. U filghodu Mintoff kien kritika lit-Times f’xi diskors li kien ghamel dak iz-zmien.
Dawn in-nies kienu sparaw fuq Raymond Gauci mgharuf bhala l-“Bubu” meta dan kien go karozza fejn il-Parlament. Dawn kienu kriminali politici bill-protezzjoni tal-pulizija u l-Gvern tal-Labour. Konna qisna qed nghixu fl-Iraq. Dejjem ikissru l-Kazini tal-PN u jsawtu lin-nies bl’addocc ghalxejn.
Raymond Gauci ghadu zopp sal-llum il-gurnata b’tir li kien sofra go koxtu mill-malmalja socjalista.
Kissru l-karozzi tal-membri parlamentari tal-PN waqt li dawn kienu qed jaqdu dmirhom fil-Parlament u qatt ma’ kienu jittiehdu passi kontra hadd. Konna nghixu fi stat tal-biza.
Fejn hu Twanny ha jitkellem fuq il-vjolenza tal-Labour? Jew jispjegalna ghalfejn kienu jghamlu dawn l-attrocetitajiet fuq nies innocenti.
Tal-Labour f’Malta ghal dawn l-affarijiet jibqghu imsemmija ghax progetti fil-pajjiz ma’ ghamlu qatt.
Toni Carabott ‘it-TOTO’ kien saq ghal fuq partitarji Nazzjonalisti waqt corner meeting fil-Kalkara quddiem prezenza qawwija tal-pulizija waqt li kien qed jitkellem Dr. Eddie Feneck Adami meta kien ghadu mhux kap tal-partit.
Il-pulizija flok arrestat lill-Toni Carabott infexxet fuqna bil-lembubi li konna ghal affari taghna nisimghu diskors kif kien jaf jaghmel Eddie. Dawn l-istejjer qatt smajthom Dr. Muscat? Min ghand in-Nazzjonalisti triq titlob skuza?
@Riya
Well done my friend. We cannot forget these tragedies since the same people still are the backbone of the PL. And yes where was Anglu Farrugia? There are loads more stories to tell. I will just mention one. Zebbug. I was there that Sunday.
And then there are people who support PN and do or say that they do not want to vote as they feel bitter. I can never forget those days in my life and I make sure that all youngsters that I know and my children get to know this history of the Labour in Malta. When I tell these stories to younger people they tell me that read comics. But this is the truth.
I still vote PN cause I want my family and my loved ones to live in peace and with their mind at rest.