Labour: the Identity Crisis party
Psst, Joseph! Kif tkun persuna mittilkless?
‘PL is party of middle classes’, Maltastar tells us today, quoting My Dear Leader in its usual pidgin English. Really? So what’s that word in the name, then – Labour? Is it just a word or what?
The trouble is that the clever dicks who are now running the party have taken the stupid step of enshrining a classic piece of pidgin Maltese into its new official name. Labour Party has been translated to Partit Laburista. But Laburista isn’t a word. It is one of several appellations corrupted from a name, like Mintoff/Mintoffjan, Strickland/Stricklandjan, Labour/Laburist.
Labour means work. The Labour Party is the workers’ party and, in Maltese, Il-Partit tax-Xoghol or Il-Partit tal-Haddiema. It is certainly not Partit Laburista. So now even its name is pidgin.
All this has led to the most magnificent identity crisis. The name tells us quite clearly that it is the party of the labouring classes. But Muscat is having none of that. The workers’ party is the party of the middle classes, he insists.
Confused? I certainly am.
I look at Labour mass meetings, and I see no middle classes there.
I read the stream of abuse that pours into this website each time I mention Dom MIntoff (may he rot in hell and may his corpse be protected in heavy plastic at his laying-out) and I see no middle classes there either. Sometimes, I don’t even see any working classes – just one big, white-trash underclass.
No doubt, the usual Facebook chavs and their vacuous Sliema equivalents will now rush to call me a snob. But I’m just being pragmatic here. If you can’t recognise a problem for what it is, then you can’t solve it. The problem with Labour chavs is that they can’t see how they’re the problem.
That problem is that people like me just can’t identify with the people we see on television at Labour mass meetings, watch with morbid fascination on Super One or read on the timesofmalta.com comments board.
We find them frightening, disturbing and alienating, like strange people from a different world. They’re from the same tiny island but they might as well be from a different planet.
I always know that the Nationalist Party is going to win the general election when on the eve there’s a great big televised Labour mass meeting complete with zillions of scarves and red flags, somewhere on tal-pepe territory like the St Andrew’s parade ground, and all those middle classes that Labour tries so desperately to court are, like me, glued in horror to their sofas thinking ‘Oh my Jesus Christ. The barbarians. They’re at the gate. Where’s my voting document? I’m going to set the alarm for 6am and be first in the queue to mark all the blue boxes from 1 to 10. Why, I’ll even vote for Tonio Borg.”
Compare that to Nationalist Party mass meetings in the heat of a general election campaign, which is about the only time the real middle classes will be seen dead at a political event.
They are massed gatherings of the middle class and the tal-pepe. All the bridge-playing grannies are there, all the smart mummies with their buggies, all the elderly men from the kazin at Ghar id-Dud and the elderly ladies from the Union Club, all the university students who speak English as a first language, all my cohorts and contemporaries and our mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and cousins and second cousins and….and…that’s how it is.
One of the main problems that Joseph Muscat has now is that if these sorts of people decide to swing to Labour (and many of them have), they won’t be going to any mass meetings to stand next to Rollon and Bylon and Yakoff. They would rather be pegged out and eaten by driver ants.
My colleague at The Malta Independent on Sunday, Josanne Cassar, got it wrong today. Both parties have their chavs and people who don’t know how to behave, she wrote.
Yes, but you have to be deliberately unseeing not to notice what’s staring at you in the face and up through the polls and surveys: that the vast majority of the working class and the underclass support Labour and make up its core vote, while the vast majority of ABC1 voters back the Nationalist Party and make up its core vote.
Some ‘analysts’ seem to think that middle class people support the Nationalist Party because it’s the middle class thing to do. They don’t understand that middle class people – really middle class, that is, and not chavs with cash and aspirations – support the PN because they identify with its front-runners, its policies, its attitude and its way of doing things and of speaking.
How is an elderly middle-class woman from Sliema ever going to identify with Anglu Farrugia or Toni Abela – or for that matter, Joseph Muscat and Michelle? It’s impossible.
If you find somebody of this background who does, then they’ve usually been completely embittered by something or other, enough to overcome a lifetime of serious reservations and socio-cultural obstacles.
Joseph Muscat gets this. And that’s why he tries so hard to convince us that it’s OK now: Labour is middle class. Like hell it is.
I look at footage of Labour mass meetings and the only thing I can think (apart from ‘My God, where have I put my voting document’) is: “Whoare these people?”
To see more people I don’t know from Adam in a single place, I would have to go to Wembley Arena – but even there, the last time I went, there were some people I knew who have a similar pash for Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood.
No doubt, the Labour Party has its middle class supporters. Some of them are MPs. Others are MEPs (and one of them isn’t just middle class, but totally tal-pepe). One of them earns a generous salary for writing about the RedBlue Prince. Others are too embarrassed to be seen at Labour mass meetings mixing with all those chavs and johnnies – maaa, jaqq – and so stay home and keep their support secret.
But there is no way on earth that you can say Labour is a middle class party.
The fact that it has some middle class supporters means nothing in terms of identity though it means plenty in terms of increasing its electoral chances. Nothing about Labour is targeted at the real middle class, starting with the ridiculous living wage idea and finishing with the ghastly combo of Joseph ‘n’ Michelle (so very chavvy), Anglu Farrugia (a total peasant) and Toni Abela (gross and vulgar).
Sticking a new logo on that lot is like sewing a Chanel label into a polyester suit made in a sweatshop and expecting us to believe it’s the real deal and pay $15,000 for it.
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Not to detract a single iota from the rest of this blog, but I would politely point out that “laburista” is an Italian word, not a Maltese corruption:
laburista [la-bu-rì-sta] agg., s. (pl.m. -sti)
• agg. Del laburismo, basato sui principi del laburismo: partito l.
• s.m. e f. Chi segue il laburismo
• a. 1933
laburismo [la-bu-rì-smo] s.m.
• Movimento politico inglese di ispirazione socialista sorto agli inizi del ‘900
• a. 1932
From the Sabatini Coletti online dictionary.
[Daphne – That’s a big ideological shift for Labour, isn’t it? From English to the much-reviled Italian of the Partit Nazzjonalista. Fascinating.]
Same in French: “parti travailliste”.
Ditto, in Portuguese: Partido Trabalhista, and in Spanish: Partido Laborista.
It is interesting that Juan Peron’s first party was the Partido Laborista. Peron, who was of Sardinian descent, flaunted his admiration for Mussolini’s domestic policies.
You are right. It is an Italian word but I do not think the Labour Party went that far to get the word Laburista.
Probably they just modified the word ‘labour’ to fit the Maltese language and in doing so they severed the word from its real meaning since in Maltese work is ‘xoghol’ not a derivative of the Latin word ‘labor’.
@DCG: you said in another section that some of the posters are pedants. If I am one, please forgive me. I do not agree that “Laburista” is pidgin. Yes, it is derived from the English Labour which derives from Latin labor. This does not make it pidgin from the point of view of linguistics. The word is used also in Italian in the same format. It is a Maltese and Italian word of English origin – that’s all just as Nazzjonalista is a Maltese word of Italian origin.
Another small (pedantic?) detail. It is more correct to say “barbarians at the gates” (plural). Following the traumatic invasion of Italy by Hannibal, the Romans used to scare their kids by saying “Hannibal ad portas” (plural).
[Daphne – The English expression is ‘barbarians at the gate’; many barbarians but only one gate to the city. It does not refer to the event you describe, but to the over-running of civilised Europe, many centuries later, by tribal hordes from the north, causing civilisation to collapse and the slide into the so-called Dark Ages. No, I don’t think you’re a pedant. I always think that yours are among the most interesting comments. I have serious objections to the name Partit Laburista because it severs the word from its meaning. ‘Laburista’ does not have any etymological link to ‘work’ or ‘workers’ as far as its supporters, who think in terms of ‘xoghol’ and ‘hidma’ are concerned. To the Italians, there is a strong, clear etymological link between ‘Laborista’ and ‘lavoro’, because, as you say, the word comes from a Latin root. There is no such link with Maltese. It is supremely ironic that the party whose electors insist on ‘nitkellmu bil-Malti ghax ahna Maltin’ are too embarrassed to call themselves Il-Partit tax-Xoghol.]
Hypatia, the Romans never thought of Hannibal as a barbarian.
In my view, the reference to “classes”, in the plural, is significant as it is a typical expression of socialist rhetoric.
And very stupid, too, when they know that their main problem is class-based: the mutual fear and suspicion between those who are hamalli and those who are not hamalli. By continually mentioning class, Muscat just keeps focussing on the distinction and drawing attention to it. You never hear anyone in the Nationalist Party talk about class or class-based distinctions, and that’s one of the main reasons all sorts feel comfortable with it.
Absolutely, right within a nanometre, spot on.
How would you define “Middle Class”?
The one between the repeater class and the whizkid class?
People will always assess others on first impressions and mark them down as one class or another.
Ma jmisshomx Mr and Mrs Muscat semmew lil uliedhom ismijiet bombastici Francizi la ahna Maltin u suppost nitkellmu bil-Malti.
Ghandek tghid ma semmewx Marija u Tereza per ezempju.
Tiftakruh l-argument jahraq li kellu Muscat fil-Parlament Ewropew ghax ma kienx hemm l-interpretu tal-Malti prezenti?
Niftkar kien deher f’Xarabank.
Imma l-fatti ghal Muscat huma xi haga l’boghod wisq mill-paroli.
Ibqa zgur li Mr and Mrs Muscat fil-fond ta’ qalbhom ihossuhom “High Class” imma qed imexxu lill-“Working Class”.
[Daphne – Kemm ghandek ragun.]
The clever dicks at the labour party should have named their progressive and moderate party, ‘il-Partit Socjal Demokratiku’ if they wanted to attract the middle class.
Daphne, you put my thoughts into words.
“How is an elderly middle-class woman from Sliema ever going to identify with Anglu Farrugia or Toni Abela – or for that matter, Joseph Muscat and Michelle? It’s impossible.”
Spot on. And even the less elderly. I doubt the new voters have the same itchiness though.
[Daphne – They did in 2008. They nearly mowed down the polling booths in their keenness to keep Labour from getting in. And Labour was completely unaware of it. Amazing.]
“They don’t understand that middle class people – really middle class, that is, and not chavs with cash and aspirations – support the PN because they identify with its front-runners, its policies, its attitude and its way of doing things and of speaking. ”
That is exactly it.
How can the Labour Party be the party of the middle class (I understand professionals, small business men, retailers, self employed) if they are suggesting a living wage – a concept that could only appeal to the most conservative of British unions?
“I read the stream of abuse that pours into this website each time I mention Dom MIntoff (may he rot in hell and may his corpse be protected in heavy plastic at his laying-out) and I see no middle classes there either. “
Take a leaf out of Bram Stokers’s “Dracula”: Bury him at a crossroads with a wooden stake through his heart so that he will not rise up again. Adding a garlic necklace will also be beneficial.
@DCG: thanks for your kind words – I have a lot of respect for what you write and enjoy reading it even though, on some occasions, I think the style could be somewhat more subdued.
Let’s say then, that gates may be used in the singular or the plural. Below are websites, among many others, where gates is in the plural. But I do not wish to press my point further as this is a trivial matter.
Many cities had more than one gate – even Valletta has at least two in the second line of defence, what came to be known as Putirjal and Victoria Gate. In the outer defences, there is the so-called bombi gate.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/case/case16.html
http://libraryjuicepress.com/barbarians.php
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-lindsey111902.asp
http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/conferences/barbarians/index.html
@Antoine Vella: thank you for your comment. As I am sure you know, barbarians (barbaroi) is a Greek word which referred to those peoples who spoke neither Greek nor Latin and did not necessarily refer to uncivilized manners though this may have been implied.
For the stuffy Greeks, even the Romans were barbarians for a time. Hannibal was certainly not a “barbarian” in the sense of being uncivilized as it is well-known that Carthage was highly evolved according to the standards of the time (unfortunately, almost nothing is left of the Punic Carthage or the later Roman one). Hannibal would have been a “barbarian” for the Romans.
A third gate in the fortifications of 16th century Valletta was that at Marsamuscetto (in addition to the Porta san Giorgio and Porta del Monte that you mention). It was the last of the original gates to be destroyed – biting the dust in the early 1900s.
Partit tal-middle class when their former leader in the green anorak closed off all avenues to prosperity?
Middle class suggests free enterprise – if you’re capable of doing it, go ahead and do it, not relying on closed shops, tariffs, cartels and protectionism.
The middle class started with the PN coming to power and opening the markets to free trade. Yes, it has its down side, but at least you could have the chance.
Under Labour in the 70s and 80s, a very small number of people became very rich because they enjoyed all the protection they could, had the blessing of the authorities and had a protected market, sheltered from foreign imports.
Most of the time I feel there’s a great deal of difference between the working class people who vote Nationalist and the working class people who Labour. Their attitude and behaviour are different, but I never managed to really understand how.
“How is an elderly middle-class woman from Sliema ever going to identify with Anglu Farrugia or Toni Abela – or for that matter, Joseph Muscat and Michelle? It’s impossible.”
Drop the word “elderly”, and rest assured that the feeling is probably the same right across the generations. I know that I will certainly never be able to identify with people such as Toni and Anglu myself.
I agree that the right Maltese term should be “Partit tax-Xoghol” when in English we say Malta Labour Party.
To my surprise, today a journalist from RAI who was actually reporting from the UK, referred to the Labour Party in the UK as Partito Laborista.
It seems that I missed the very clear explanation given to Hypatia about the this argument. I’m sorry for the confusion.