Just look at how Labour is revisiting its history – typical Mario Vella pseudo-intellectual bollocks
Mario Vella - blast from the past
REVISITING LABOUR HISTORY CONFERENCE
Aula Magna University of Malta
St Paul’s Street, Valletta
1-2 October 2010
Friday 1 October
First Session – Labour History, Historiography and Ideology
16.45 Registration desk opens
17.30 John Chircop. Opening address
18.00 Andrew Thorpe. Histories and Labour parties changing methods, approaches and purposes
18.30 Mario Vella. Forgetting Industry: Images of Malta’s post-war economic development in Maltese sociology and anthropology in their political context
19.00 Dominic Fenech. Socialist Ideology – the dilemma of adapting
19.30 John Baldacchino. Is the (historical) Party over? Labour, the left and the ‘moral question’
Discussion
Saturday 2 October
Second Session – Labour: Contexts and Contests
Chair: Carmel Borg
08.15 Desk opens for new registrations
09.00 Martin Zammit. Electrifying the Proletariat: An analysis of Mintoff’s rhetoric
09.30 Godfrey Pirotta. The Malta Labour Party and the Church: Building the democratic state
10.00 Charles Dalli. Crusaders and Canvassers: the medieval 1960s in the Catholic-Labour struggle
Coffee break
10.30 Raymond Mangion. Labour and the Law-Making Process under the First Responsible Government, 1921-1930
11.00 Joseph Falzon and Mario Brincat. Aspects of the Economic Conditions surrounding the birth of the Labour Party in Malta
11.30 Peter Mayo. The Worker-Student Scheme 1978-1987: Consistencies and Contradictions in Labour’s Socialist Politics
Discussion
Lunch Break
Third Session – The Labour Party, Economic Development and the Welfare State
Chair: Victoria Sultana
14.00 Josann Cutajar. Women and the Labour Party
14.30 Marvin Formosa. The role of the Labour Party in the Construction of Maltese Ageing Policy: Past, Present and Future
15.00 Joseph Gravina. So close and yet so far. Reflections on the Labour Party’s cultural politics since the 1970s
15.30 Mario Brincat. Developmental State Theory and the MLP’s economic policies between 1971 and 1987
16.00 Joseph Muscat. Labour and Post-Fordism
Discussion
RSVP
Partit Laburista
Centru Nazzjonali Laburista
Triq Milend
Hamrun
HMR02
Tel 20901601/2 – [email protected]
34 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Et tu Charles Dalli!
All those intellectual advisers and not one of them has told the compilers of this programme that the 24-hour clock does not use a point.
X’injoranza bazwija.
Right then, it’s:
10.00am
10.00pm
BUT
1000hrs
2200hrs
Custard Pastard – ahjar tara n-nanna taghlmekx kif taghmel naqa soppa tal-armla sura ta’ nies.
That’s a regional preference. The removal of dots is only in “army time”. Most other Europeans that use a 24 hour clock uses dots.
Dear Daphne,
This week, you reminded me of the old days, 1970s and 1980s. May the Good Lord forbid our country MALTA to be run by dictators and violent politicians.
So many people suffered and were bullied mentally and physically.
I’m biased of course but the first thought that comes to mind upon reading the programme is what a dreadfully boring couple of days it’s going to be. Many of the titles are bombastic and over-ambitious for a half-hour talk.
Joseph Muscat is going to plug his new “ekonomista” persona by discussing post-Fordism.
Antoine! That is the essence of Socialist rhetoric (with due apologies to the art)
Excuse my stupidity, but is the Ford in post-Fordism a reference to President Gerald Ford or his wife Betty of the Betty Ford Clinic for alcoholics and drug abusers?
I think it refers to Henry Ford the car-maker. Perhaps Joseph Muscat will be talking about the car-free day.
Fordism – the age of mass production.
Post-Fordism – the age of customisation.
Daphne, any news about the price of this conference? Any chance of a discount and a further year of membership for non-members?
I do not suppose the party will offer a lunch and coffee for free.
But honestly, who is interested in wasting a day and a half hearing about the party that is now gone, when a new one has supposedly been established with a new name, a new emblem and a new Dear Leader?
Daphne perhaps you might wish to pass on some of these comments to Joseph Gravina to include in his reflections on Labour Party cultural policies since the 1970s, so close and yet so far. It might help keep the audience from nodding off.
“So close and yet so far”? They’ll be talking about the 2003 elections then.
Fourth Session – The Future and Supranational Issues
Chair: IKEA
08:15 The stalination of the EU issue
09:00 Towards a new real-politik: avoiding inconvenient truths
09:30 EU legislative and executive powers: Why they don’t exist anymore
10:00 The End Game: 2013 imbaghad naraw…
Awrofaks Break
No need to go that far. They could have included something along the lines of: Labour and Europe – A troubled relationship.
I suspect they tailored the conference topics according to the availability of the speakers. Honestly though, what in god’s name is Charles Dalli doing there? His academic respectability as a medievalist has just gone up in smoke.
Kev, I’d like to have a clearer idea of your position. Do you think Malta should withdraw from the EU or do you think we should stay and push for a reform of the EU?
@ Baxxter – Withdrawal is not possible at this stage (nor was it practically possible to not join, but that’s another complicated story). The very least we could do is follow the expanding nature of EU governance and allow for critical appraisal of where we stand and where we’re heading.
Otherwise, the EU is not reformable – not in significant aspects, anyway. Its political direction goes one way towards more centralised control; and there are a 1001 justifications, not just because of ‘globalisation’ (a loaded word understood differently by different people), but also because the EU has the power to create the crises to which it then provides ‘solutions’, invariably entailing ‘more Europe’ and more EU governance, such as the failure of the 10-year economic plan (Lisbon Agenda 2010) and the Stability and Growth Pact. In this, it is a modern copy of the Soviet Union.
As matters stand, we’ve gone totally parrochial and people do not even understand what it means to lose control over crucial areas of the State, let alone losing control of their money supply. Today, we rely on The Times’ Brussels correspondent to fill us up with EU drivel, together with the odd dry statement from our government following an EU summit. We also get incompetent fools, like David Casa, telling us for the umpteenth time that Malta would have been another Iceland had we not joined the EU – a belief that goes a long way in exposing his limited knowlegde of world affairs. The man has no inkling of what is actually going on and Joseph Muscat is not any better.
An EU reform is not possible and is not an issue.
The only really stable systems of power are dictatorships, but even they collapse after time.
Power is something dynamic. People are dynamic. Why do some people think that there will ever be one, good solution that will be good forever? Europe is changing as the underlying forces change.
In my view, one fundamental error committed by Europe was to discard the project of a Constitution of Europe. I am sure this will one day return on the EU agenda. The constitution is what holds the US together. Has anyone ever spoken about any of the US states leaving the US?
The point is, once a group of states agree on a framework of principles and beliefs, then they can work together. They do not need to be equal on all matters. Until the European states do so, they cannot work seamlessly together. The purpose of a constitution is to express those principles. Those principles will be the same across Europe.
In the meantime, in the same way that the power of bankers and big business bosses is to be kept in check, so must the power of the bosses of Europe.
As long as Brussels remains the place to earn a good salary and to look down at the people of Malta, as Kev seems to be doing, and not the place where leaders inspire European projects, then Europe will be the place Kev describes it. Kev, do not expect Europe to change you – you must help change Europe. As a libertarian, you should know this.
Ciccio, why are you saying that the EU Constitution was discarded? Following the French and Dutch popular rejection of the Constitutional treaty in 2005, the text was incorporated into an “amending treaty” – meaning, the existing treaties were amended instead of re-writing the whole text as with the case of the Constitutional treaty. These amednements have since been incorporated into one text (again) and the TEU and TFEU now comprise the Lisbon treaty. The only difference is that with Lisbon they dropped the official EU anthem and flag and reworded “foreign minister” into “High Representative”.
The Lisbon treaty was eventually ratified by both the French and Dutch parliaments (yes, same treaty, no referendum this time), and was initially rejected in the 2008 Irish referendum, only for the Irish to be forced to vote again a year later ON THE SAME treaty – by which time the financial crisis frightened them into voting yes.
So I really don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “one fundamental error committed by Europe was to discard the project of a Constitution of Europe.”
If you want to know more about the EU Constitution – the Lisbon treaty – ask former Labour henchman Joe Mifsud as he had read the whole text and found nothing that goes against the Maltese Constitution.
…and btw, the Lisbon treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009. Its effects are only slowly materialising, of course. So be patient, Ciccio, your United States of Europe is in the making on the basis of the Lisbon treaty – your beloved Constitution by another name.
Ciccio asks ‘Has anyone ever spoken about any of the US states leaving the US?”. The southern states didn’t just speak about it Ciccio, they ripped up the constitution, declared secession from the US and formed the Confederacy.
Ever heard of the American civil war?
John, although your observation is right from a historical context, you refer to something that happened 150 years ago and incidentally happened on what I would see as a disagreement on constitution fundamentals – particularly, on slavery.
I am really talking about living memory. My observation, to which you refer, was in fact a question, and I cannot exclude anything. But, in my life, I do not remember anyone ever talking about any states threatening to leave, but, that does not mean that I am not subject to correction. As far as I am aware, there is current agreement in the US on the present constitution.
Kev, I am aware of what you are saying about the similarity of amendments.
But as far as I understand, the Lisbon Treaty was a fragmented process, which modified existing treaties, so that, as far as I understand, the result was not a clear set of principles.
I believe I had read that this may have been done deliberately, and that consequently, the Lisbon Treaty creates an unconstitutional set of principles (exclamation mark) because it is actually unreadable (more exclamation marks).
In that process, real leadership had been lost. A clear document was not created, and therefore, my perception is that Europe lacks a constitution, which to me means more than the term “treaty.”
I have to add that this does not mean that I am in agreement with the content of the EU constitution (I had only read small parts of it). But that would be a platform to build on.
Ciccio – I repeat: the EU Constitution and the Lisbon treaty are the same thing. The amendments have since been incorporated into the existing treaties. Today, the volume reads just like the EU Constitution, save the flag, anthem and foreign minister by another name. I know this well enough because I worked extensively on both treaties.
You’re the victim of the usual deception, Ciccio. Tibzax, there are far greater lies standing as pillars of truth. They get away with it because the attention span of the masses is no greater than that of humming bird. They can also count on the corporate media to parrot the lies of governments and supranational institutions in matters that do not fall in the red-blue scuffling pit that stands for ‘democracy’ (e.g., the CO2 scam, a.k.a. the Global Governance Tax… and other ‘conspioracy theories’, such as the conspiracy to sell the Lisbon treaty as if it were a revised EU Constitution).
Phew! Thank god there’s Kev in Brussels to save us.
Kev, we know what it means to lose control over crucial areas of the state. It happened here under your hero’s (anti)democratic government.
Kev I try really hard but just cannot manage to read through your fatalistic hogwash on the EU, which is hinged on a grave injustice to collective memory when you say
” we’ve gone totally parochial and people do not even understand what it means to lose control over crucial areas of the State, let alone losing control of their money supply”
People who lived between 1971 and 1987 know exactly what that means even though individuals like youselves try hard to erase that from history!
The EU is not a panacea as no other state is but, drawing some conclusions from comaprtive political development theories will make it stand out for what it achieved in its relatively VERY short history!
Joseph, I agree with you. Kev also avoids to talk about cases like Britain, which did not join the Euro (and I am not saying it should – I have no view). Although they “kept control” over their money supply, they have run huge deficits (thanks to an incompetent or politically dishonest Labour government), have an unbalanced economy (did Kev joke about industry) and are in a deep financial mess. They too have applied QE, which Kev is so much against. And they are running a high inflation. And my view is that in the early part of the 2000s right up to about 2007, they did not maintain any control over the money supply – perhaps for reasons of political convenience.
14:00 The nature of global things to come: Why Labour’s mentors should be CNN, BBC and Reuters
14:30 Avoiding serious politics in a globalised world: How devolved provincialism shelters our politics
15:00 Maltese foreign policy: Covered in giti to Maltese townships overseas
15:30 The Way Forward: the joys of flowing with EU currents
Farewell Special
15:65 The Great Siege: Why Jean Parisot could have been Joseph but wasn’t ghal xofer (a PowerPoint SlyShow)
Discussion
(Tellectuals only, please)
The discussion is followed by a gita to the EU Museum of Finely-Controlled Indigenous Tribes
Kev, do not forget to put in a lot of coffee breaks in between. Each of those lectures is going to be like a sleeping pill to the average Labour audience.
Will you be attending, Ciccio? Make sure you don’t miss Mario Vella’s sociological and anthropoligical views on forgetting industry, covering, I’m sure, the ongoing de-industrialisation of the West and Malta’s place in the ‘New World Order’.
And by the way, I am sure I will not need coffee for Mario Vella’s lectures.
Labour has always been good at looking backwards. Any chance they give us a conference about their vision, projects and agenda for the future?
They’re not even good at that. They think Mintoff obtained independence, that Mintoff allowed women’s suffrage, that the PN proclaimed excommunication, that Joey got us into the EU and the EURO etc etc
And, Mr. Micallef, that Labour won the EU referendum.