Jekk mhux lil -injurant , lill min trid taghlem?

Mintoff just wanted to emulate his cronies of the eastern communist block and only stopped at declaring himself dictator because he was afraid of taking the final plunge. Not so most of his ministers and Labour MPs – but this will come out long after we are dead and buried – who are now painting themselves whiter than white and more democratic than I don’t know what.

There were enthusiastic followers of eastern tyrants – and perhaps there still are – so Malta was/is no exception. Some are just ignorant and do not see further than their noses, or their pockets.

To blame the Catholic Church does not make any sense. If anything one has to thank the church and especially Archbishop Gonzi for not going down the road of Romania and Albania. Does anyone still remember the programmes on Xandir Malta just before the 8 o’clock news featuring Albanian students on trucks going to work in the fields?

It’s entirely up to you and all those who do not wish to have a “Triq Mintoff”!

He ain’t dead yet, he just smells that way.

The word “sheep” of course makes me laugh when I recall Alex Sceberras Trigona, Joe Grima, Joe Debono Grech and the rest of them.

Those who are thinking of voting Labour come 2013, to spite the Nationalist Party (I just do not know why), had better think that they will be voting to have these “sheep” promoted to “wolves” in case of a PL victory.

Ok. I begin to understand better. In organizational psychology there is a similar distinction, between those who perceive reality as being determined by external factors, and those who perceive it being determined by internal factors – the former factors are those which the individual perceives as being without his control, the latter factors are those which the individual perceives as being in himself and within his control.

Ok, I think I can agree with this subdivision. (Very acute observation – have you ever studied for an MBA or something?)

Next step: that the former category would gather round Labour, the latter category round the PN.

This I have to chew over.

You are 100% right. Without Mintoff there would not have been the anti-Mintoff camp.

You are also 100% right on the other point. In fact, I wanted to write that he succeeded only partially in his intents (those Labourites who took advantage of whatever he did became Nationalists – another irony), but couldn’t find the inspiration to express it coherently.

Perhaps the best way to say it is that they are right in harbouring the PERCEPTION that he was their saviour.

He was the only one to try and do something about their predicament. Even if he only paid lip-service, he was the only one to address their needs.

As a matter of fact, I think he did more than pay lip-service. But I do not want to go into that.

What I would like to learn your opinion about is the fact that had the Church and the British catered for the underclasses (as Albert, husband of Victoria, tried to do in England), perhaps there would have been no need for Mintoff.

I mean Mintoff did no Marcia su Roma like Mussolini. He burnt no Reichstag like Hitler. Mintoff was democratically elected in ’71 and in ’76.

His elections were the people’s response to their misery. In him they thought they had found a saviour.

By ’81 it was clear he was not.

Still the perception lingers on.

Is it just lanzit?

I think you have to clarify this point.

[Daphne – Definitely just lanzit. The hatred and envy are unbelievable. And the oddest thing is that they hate and envy somebody like me – who works for her living – far more than they envy somebody with stacks of money who comes from a working-class background. It’s because what they really hate and envy is not the money – I haven’t any – but the perception of privilege, of which, yes, I do have a bit still.]

If, as you say, these people were like pigs rolling in the mud of ignorance, then their attitude is not due to lanzit (because lanzit implies having occasions and, out of laziness or whatever, not rising to them) but due to a lack of skills. The lack of skills was due, as we are saying, to the Church and the British.

Could you clarify your thoughts on this?

[Daphne – I’ve already said what I think about this. People are divided, by nature, nurture or a mix of the two, into two broad types: the can-dos, and the I-would-rather-not-dos. The first are more inclined towards the PN and the second towards Labour. That’s all.]

In other words, Mintoff’s arch enemies were the causes of Mintoff.

(Not really) sweet irony.

Archbishop Gonzi and the British colonial government, who together worked to keep the uneducated classes uneducated, are the culprits for Mintoff’s rise to power.

Had the Church and the British exposed the underclasses to knowledge and ideas beyond compulsory schooling, there would have been no void for Mintoff to fill.

I must out of logical necessity therefore concede that the underclasses are right to claim him as their Saviour.

[Daphne – Saved from what? And how did their life improve? incidentally, what you say about the situation applies here too: without Mintoff there would have been no Daphne for the Labour Party to contend with for 20 years and counting.]

And what was the cause of poverty, ignorance and too many children?

“Too many children” is probably a corollary of “ignorance” and “poverty” a by-product of “too many children”. So I would reduce it to “poverty and ignorance.”

Possibly, too, “poverty” is the fruit of “ignorance.”

So we could further reduce it to “ignorance.”

But ignorance of what?

And why was there ignorance?

[Daphne Lack of exposure to knowledge and ideas beyond compulsory schooling and then there was the hegemony of Roman Catholicism which, coupled with ignorance, is a nightmare that leads, among other things, to 20 children.]