Respect for a nihilist who never showed any to others? I don't think so.
timesofmalta.com, just now:
Labour leader Joseph Muscat visited him during the night.
The family has asked for Mr Mintoff’s privacy to be respected.
Trust Joseph Muscat to make a dramatic night-time visit, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. As for the Mintoffs – and which ones would these be? – they have a bleeding nerve asking for that ghastly old bastard’s privacy to be respected.
The man was a blight on the country. He never showed respect to anyone, not even to his long-suffering, much abused wife – oh sorry, he showed respect to Guido de Marco, God rest his soul, so that’s all right then – and now because he finally lies dying 40 years too late we’re expected to show him respect.
I have no doubt that plenty of people will. You only have to visit the comments-board on timesofmalta.com, beneath the stories about his hopefully imminent demise to see just why he treated his own fawning followers with the contempt they deserved.
He kicked them around, treated them like dirt, and they licked his disgusting boots.
Mintoff came at the right time for his aims, when ignorance was rife and most of the population was illiterate and about as mentally and culturally evolved as medieval serfs.
He rose to power on a sea of ignorance and stupidity and proceeded to wreck the country as a means of working out his own debilitating personal issues.
The real salvatur ta’ Malta is Eddie Fenech Adami, but Mintoff’s army of gullible fools can’t see that, because they lack analytical skills and that’s precisely why they rooted for him in the first place.
What do they think – that they live the way they do today, like the ‘sinjuri’ they raged against in the past, because of Mintoff? No, you damn fools, you live like that because of Fenech Adami. Mintoff wanted to keep you working-class and glued to the soles of his shoes.
In anyone else’s case, I would have said yes, of course, that’s the way it should be: we should respect people’s privacy when they are dying.
But with Dom Mintoff, the answer is no. Nobody has done more within living memory to damage this country and its social fabric, while grubbing money all the way to the grave so that the socialist hero of the working classes is about to die as one of the richest men in Malta.
And no amount of money was enough for him because he always wanted more, though he could never spend a cent. Damaged beyond measure by a childhood of scrounging deprivation and envy, he grew up obsessed with storing up money as insurance against a return to that misery – but then proceeded to live like a pauper and a wretch.
Right up until his mind began to wander, it was grab, grab, grab, all the way, grab. He even managed to cop half a million liri off the taxpayer – yes, adulating fans, off you too – as compensation for the pain and misery he suffered because a power station was built outside that horrid shed he calls L-Gharix. More than the house is worth and he got to keep the house too.
Now his descendants – those who are asking for his privacy to be respected – are about to profit from his decades of grasping avarice and his insider trading on government business. Unless, of course, the bastard stayed in character and left it all to the dogs’ home.
Money to him was not there to buy life’s comforts and pleasures but for its own sake. The man was so mean, mean to the point where it became a mental illness, that his wife’s friends used to collect money and clothes among themselves to help her out.
But how many of his adulating fans know this?
And no doubt, in death he will become a saint and the story will rewrite itself. Prepare yourself for the reams of hagiography in the newspapers and the wall-to-wall television coverage about how Mintoff changed Malta.
Damn right, he did – for the worse.
We would have been better off without him.
May he rot in hell. And before some do-gooder pops out to tut-tut about my disgraceful lack of Christian charity, I’ll point out that Mintoff was a committed atheist – he was, actually, a nihilist – so thoughts of hell won’t bother him.
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This is another example of the hypocrisy shown whenever someone – whoever that might be – is dead or dying. If we don’t show respect to them alive, why respect them dead?
It’s one of these incomprehensible unwritten social rules which just makes no sense.
I remember the outrage over Christopher Hitchens’ remark when Jerry Falwell passed away a year or so ago: “If you gave the man an enema you could bury him in a matchbox”.
He ruined my teenage years and my early twenties.
My everlasting memory of him goes as far back as the 1971 election. I was leaving the polling booth having voted for the first time when he turned up in a car with his gangster lackeys.
An old man dared to comment on his presence and Mintoff and his entourage dashed out of the car and attacked that old boy. Mintoff was nothing but a grown-up schoolyard bully.
May he spend the rest of eternity with a red-hot piece of coal stuck up his backside.
ditto 100%
Amen.
Sadly, I have no doubt that PN’s top brass will also rewrite this bit of history.
At least we will be spared the sight of Demarco crying his eyes out.
Mintoff lili fottili l-ghaqwa sittax il-sena ta’ hajti. Nispera li l-infern ghadu jezisti u li jahraq aktar minn qatt qabel.
It would be a perverted sort of irony if Mintoff dies on the 21st. September. He ruined my life and health.
Min jaf kemm se jbiehu xampanja dal-weekend. I’ve been waiting for this moment for 40 years. In-nies imutu b’xi stroke jew xi heart attack minhabba fih, u hu jibqa ghaddej sa 94, jeqred in-nies minghajr ma jinqered hu.
Maybe he’s right, and there is no God.
@Bubbles
It’s Dom Perignon this weekend, then.
Isthu! Imisskom tilaqulu il-qiegh ta saqajh lill-Kbir mela tiddisprezzawh. Isthi Daphne Caruana Galizia tal-mibgheda li tizra fuq dan is-sit u jekk Mintoof ha jinharaq l-infern j’Alla jkun hemm post riservat ghalik hdejh.
[Daphne – Le, qalbi, jien dritt lejn il-genna se ntir, sforz dak li ghaddejt minnu minhabba f’dak li semmejt int. Nisperu li ‘the gods laugh’ u imut fil-festi tal-Indipendenza. Imma skond l-eroj tieghek m’hemmx Alla, u allura dan kollu diskors ghal xejn. Issa halli mmur noqghod ftit fuq is-sufan nisthi u nara t-television.]
Toqghodx mohhok fina biss. Ibghat staqsi lil Alfred Sant kemm se jirrispettah. Dur dawra mal-kamp taghkom l-ewwel.
Mela insejt kemm iddisprezzajtuh intom fl-1998?
Inti tahseb li n-nies li qed jiktbu dawn il-kummenti hawnhekk qed jiktbuhom ghal xejn. Ma tahsibx li min mhux qed jiddispjacih li ‘l-Kbir’ qed imut dak ghax sofra minhabba fih u fit-tmexxija tieghu?
Jien ikolli aptit nibki meta nara certu nies imlahhqin fil-banek u naf li meta tajna l-ezami flimkien huma dahlu ghax Laburisti u jien bqajt barra ghax Nazzjonalist – u kont inkaxkarhom fil-marki tal-iskola.
Mela hallieh ha jitlaq, wara kollox 94 sena ghexhom. X’tippretendi, li jaghmel bhal ‘Highlander’ u jghix ghal dejjem?
Mintoffjan = medieval serf jilghaq is-saqajn tal-Kbir!
Mintoff, who as prime minister should have united the country, played a game of divide and rule. He probably learned this together with many other power tricks in his dealings with the British colonial government.
The above contribution by Mintoffjan is a perfect example of the Mintoff legacy. This type of attitude infiltrated Mintoff’s followers to the point of brainwashing.
The comparison of Mintoff with Jesus Christ (very common on the timesofmalta.com comments board) is just ridiculous. Whereas Jesus Christ preached love, Mintoff preached hatred and resentment and his followers practised both.
Because they were denied proper education, they were never really lifted out of poverty, and therefore, their only means of achieving something was through hate and aggression. Hence the bloody episodes of the seventies through to the eighties.
Thanks Daphne for writing this article for when i read the comments beneath the article, that the old bastard is dying I felt insulted and hurt by all those comments praising him. Thanks once again.
Hear, hear. The Times moderator must be a latent Minoffian to put so many *rse-licking comments online. Surely there were just as many from the “opposite camp”? Why weren’t any – or hardly any – uploaded?
ghaziz mario,
Ninsab vera iddisgustat b dan li ghadek kemm ktibt u li qed tassocja ruhek ma dimonju bhal din li anki shabek in- nazzjonalisti ta’ l-istamparija qatt ma riedu jkollhom x jaqsmu ma din il mara ! Qatt ma kont nobsor li l-istess Mario Frendo kapaci jaqa’ baxx daqsekk! heh…
Sewwa jghidu li l-apparenza tinganna!
Karl Bugeja (aka is sunxine)
Mintoffjan – Jiena bhal hafna ohrajn hawnhekk: ma nisthix nghid li l-Mintoff noboghdu u li nispera li jbaghti daqs kemm geghel nies ibaghtu tul hajtu.
mintufjan????? ja aroganti u kiesah…ha najdlek ruhi mintoff mandux bzonn limhabba tijak ghax aw 3 kwarti ta malta thobbu ..iringrazja lil mintoff ax kiku int skjav qijad u taqla bi nerv taht idejn linglizi u min jaf???? forsi ukoll qijad id dinja lohra…
hi pupa dephne ha najdlek xi trid trid kontra mintoff li ghamel hu hu laqas qatt toholmu ahseb u ara kemm javdawk tithol fil parlament kemm in nhah ta laburisti u kemm naha ta nazjonalisti ghax int bnidma aroganti u kisha.imisek tajdlu grz lil mintoff specjalment ghalina nisa li gabna smati daqs lirgiel lewwel wahda lilek…xqat ghamilek mintoff???mintoff kien is salvatur ta malta..li kiku ma kienx hu int qeda skjava ta linglizi ruhi..bi ragun titkelem qekk ghax ghandek ejra indanata ghalih ghax int qattttttttttt ma tista tilhaq fejn lahaq hu qatttt u qatttt daphne hi!!!!u lahhar haga ghal mintoff diga hemm il bieb tal genna miftuh ghax alla jaf xinu jghamel u jidispjacini ghalik ghax linfern sejra int ghax tixtiq id deni guq haddiehor u taf xtistenna hux ???li deni jigi fuqek!!!!!!!!!!
My my, seems his endeavours in educating The People have not been too successful either.
“Those whom the gods love die young”
Good to see you’re all alive and kicking, then. I trust our beloved opinionist here will also be slagging off the dead and dying when she’s 90 too.
[Daphne – There is no such word as opinionist. And yes, you’re probably right. People of 90 have no such false respect for the dead and dying, hadn’t you noticed? That’s because they’re on the cusp themselves.]
Nahseb li din gejja bhal tal-Fuzellu.
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=11927
“sforz dak li ghaddejt minnu minhabba f’dak li semmejt int” !!!
Ghidilna mela minn xiex ghaddejt jimporta? Ghax jien nahseb din tieghek m’hi xejn hlief messa-in-scena.
[Daphne – I’m not a working class exhibitionist, Michael/David/Stephen Gatt (please stick to one name; I’m always going to know it’s you because your IP number doesn’t change). That sort of behaviour is strictly for chavs like Joseph Muscat and fireworks’ victims families as you should have gathered by now from the more confessional areas of the Maltese media.]
You fool I can’t stick to one name because I am Michael, and my brother’s name is not Michael nor Stephen but David and my other brother’s name is not David nor Michael but Stephen!
[Daphne – Oh, lovely – three brothers addicted to my blog, and all of them under the same roof with the same IP number, which sort of explains why you know nothing about Mintoff and think Joseph Muscat is amazing. I’m not a fool, sweetheart. It’s most unlikely that you would all be using your own names here, or that you would each feel the need to fake a nick but share a surname. But I’ll let that go.]
Anyway, you still have not answered my question. By the way you don’t need to cause I know as a fact that you did NOT SUFFER at all under Labour, and that this is all bull on your part.
[Daphne – You cannot possibly know the situation for a fact either way, because you were born post-Mintoff if not also post Karmenu, and the construction of your last sentence gives your age away. Only kids write like that, so I won’t bother.]
daphne jekk jogbok ikteb bil malti mandekx nemex mintix ingliza hahahi :))))) hahai min jaf kemm tixtiq tkun ingliza mela tlift il lingwa tijak ruhi!!!!!!!! eeeeeeeeee bil haq ax tant qalat bi sieq min ghand il perit mintoff li miskina insitu il malti idahaqnix trid…mur oqod fuq is sufan ghax int ghalek biss tajba ghax hadt ma iridek u hadd ma jati kas tijak ghax int aroganti u kisha…
I think that the least said about Mintoff, the better.
Nispera li ma ntuhx xi funeral statali, with the tax payer footing the bill, but he will probably survive because wherever he`ll go in his after life zgur li inkwiet jaqlaghlom so in all probability jkollna nibqghu nitqannaw bieh hawn.
You can “spera” to your heart’s content. It will be the biggest state funeral Malta has ever seen.
[Daphne – It takes a chav not to know that state funerals are for former heads of state and not for former prime ministers. Mintoff made an exception in Borg Olivier’s case and Gonzi is likely to make an exception in Mintoff’s – but it will be a favour and not a right. You have no idea how I long for him to have a state funeral. The thought of him lying there in a coffin with crowds staring at him and pointing and goggling – which he would absolutely HATE and long to wave his stick and swear at them – is pure pleasure. It is almost as delightful as thought of him lying in state in a box in the place he disliked most – church – with the people he disliked most -bishops and priests – saying mass over him when he didn’t believe in God, still less in Catholicism. I LOVE IT. Mintoff’s idea of a dream funeral is a cardboard coffin and a hole in the ground at L-Gharix, with a bunch of his despised acolytes cracking open a bottle of cheap whisky and a pot of disgusting stew on a spiritiera for the wake. But he’s not going to get it. He’s going to get his worst nightmare.]
“…and Gonzi is likely to make an exception in Mintoff’s – but it will be a favour …”
I suppose you mean a favour to the ones he made suffer, in the sense that they will have the opportunity to see his dead body as the ultimate evidence that he will not make a comeback.
Haha, this is good.
Daphne’s answer to chavsRus I mean.
Daphne, your description of Mintoff’s idea of a dream funeral had me howling with laughter all night! I just had to revisit it this morning for another chuckle, and now here I am trying to erase from my mind the vision of Karmenu, Lorry and Danny all dressed in tattered ghonnellas, huddled over a boiling cauldron and chugging cheap hooch out of filthy chipped teacups.
Kill me now: I hear the faint strains of “Santa, Santa Evita” wafting onstage from the wings.
I never liked this guy when he was still in public life, but he can’t do wrong to anyone anymore, so maybe we might spare him our lashes on his deathbed.
[Daphne – You spare him yours, Mark, and leave the rest of us to celebrate as we please. And it’s ironic you should mention lashes: there were real ones to contend with in his heyday, and for just the merest hint of opposition to his ‘policies’, certainly not for telling him to rot in hell. ]
And that folks is how Stalin became a war hero, rather than remaining what he was: a ruthless war criminal who led 14% of his people to death (the highest percentage in WW2).
Just for the record, got some of those lashes myself, in Rabat and in Msida close to university by the Labour mob. That was some time ago. I console myself by forgetting and forgiving. I follow Eddie’s principles in politics, sorry to upset you.
Il-flus tal-war damage min hadhom?
The comments on timesofmalta.com show that Mr. Mintoff managed to brainwash a lot of minds, unfortunately, and that was probably the deviant aim of state control on education.
I think we have an opportunity here to show some heroics and say a prayer for this old bastard!
A prayer: as in may he rest in peace forever?
Mintoff will still be regarded as the greatest Maltese in history when people are saying “Daphne who?”
[Daphne – Unlikely. Historians write history. We are already asking ourselves – and this at a distance of only 25 years – what it is that Mintoff actually achieved. Compare his achievements to those of Fenech Adami, and you’ll see what I mean. That’s the way history will see it. As for your ‘Daphne who?’ point, the comparison is fatuous (but then, you are too). Mintoff was a prime minister. I am a columnist. If you are elevating me to the level of a prime minister in terms of reach and effect, then I must point out that it is entirely unnecessary – and wrong-headed, too, of course.]
He will be considered as the greatest in Maltese history by people with the brain the size of a chick pea.
You may regard Mintoff as the greatest Maltese in history as much as you want. To me he was the worst prime minister we ever had if only for the division and hatred he inflicted on our country.
That’s apart from the beatings during his regime, the absolute control he had on a fascist police force and for chucking me and other colleagues out of our jobs just because we dared to protest when he found himself in power in 1981 – a stolen victory.
In my book he will always be the nastiest Maltese of all time. Good riddance.
Historians will not be impressed by the prize he was given by the International Committee for the Al-Qathafi Award for Human Rights .
‘Mintoff will still be regarded as the greatest Maltese in history’
Yeah, I suppose in the same way that Mugabe and Ahmadinejad will be regarded by their followers as the greatest men in history when they go to the pearly gates.
And yet Zimbabweans and Iranians are still downtrodden thanks to Mugabe’s and Ahmadinejad’s desire to hang onto power at all costs.
Why do the events in both those countries sound all too familiar, I wonder?!
Maryanne, please, do not mention Ghaddafi. He may end up visiting Malta this year after all – for a state funeral. Visa or no visa.
chavsRus,
Mintoff will go down in our history as the man who screwed up Malta’s future. Do you remember when Cyprus and Lebanon had all that internal political upheaval back in the early seventies?
Mintoff had the opportunity to seal certain lucrative deals (that would have benefitted our country AND its citizens) with all those bankers in the two countries who fled to better pastures.
But oh no, he wanted to tax the living daylights out of them…..and there, you see my dear friend, that is where we missed the boat in being, as Alfred Sant once preached, ” A Switzerland in the Mediterranean”.
By the way, it was Boffa’s government which introduced income tax and social welfare, and not Dom Mintoff’s.
To give the devil his due, Dom Mintoff was a very calculating person and intelligent in his early years, and he could have done much better if it wasn’t for that cold chip on his shoulder.
What history will record of these times is that George Borg Olivier brought about Malta’s independence from Britain, and that Eddie Fenech Adami took Malta into the EU. Everything else and everybody else will fade into insignificance.
A reminder to all those who tend to forget: Do you remember the National Bank of Malta take-over? I suppose there are families still suffering untold hardship on account of the obscene way the bank was taken by Mintoff.
“take-over”?
Did you mean “daylight robbery”?
I hope that in my lifetime, I will be able to read a biography, not a hagiography, of Mintoff which is written by somebody who writes well, is a very good researcher, and has a proven record of unbiased writing. Two people come to mind; Henry Frendo and Joe Pirotta.
… and hopefully, not by anyone from Maltastar.
‘Mintoff he marry Moira and a reed shakes in the wind. But does a boat?’
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Archbishop Paul Cremona visited former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff in hospital this morning as his condition continued to improve slowly, informed sources said….The Nationalist Party in a statement today wished the former PM a speedy recovery.
I wonder why you wish that Mr. Mintoff rots in hell, while PM Gonzi and the PN are wishing him a speedy recovery.
[Daphne – They have to. It’s their job. One is the emissary of Christ and the other represents you. Or weren’t you aware that the prime minister represents you too?]
But I thought the emissary of Christ was Gonzi? Could have fooled me
Yes, I know that the Prime Minister represents me. And at times, when I see him in public, I’m proud of it. I’m not afraid to call a spade a spade. But does the PN represent me as well?
You think I’m a kid …I’m 43 yrs old so I’ll take that as a complement. You think Joseph Muscat is my hero …you cannot be further than the truth. I do believe though that most of the things you spit out against him are unjustified and in bad taste.
And you still haven’t answered my original question …x’ghamillek daqshekk hazin il-Perit biex ma’ tahmlux haj?! Taf li qeghda fejn qeghda llum minhabba fih?
[Daphne – Do you know what I’m thinking? That the Reverend Moon had nothing on Mintoff.]
43 years old and still living with two brothers?
Michael Gatt, a 43-year-old man can take it as a compliment if he’s mistaken for a younger person because of how he looks but when it’s his thought processes that are compared to those of a child he has little cause for rejoicing.
@ Michael Gatt
Please….do shut the f**k up, please…..
Finally a person criticising him on the TOM boards:
George Debono:
“First of all – get well soon Dom!
This is truly ironical
Dom Mintoff possibly finds himself in the hands of some doctors/ specialists who were made refugees by him in the 70s—– or who were forced to go abroad to study because he practically destroyed the Maltese medical establishment.
DOM also destroyed the careers of so many capable older and experienced physicians doctors or surgeons (some of whom were too old to go abroad and simply retired early) – and also many promising young doctors .
Some of those who emigrated even died in far-away countries away from their family.
In fact, some of the doctors who might be looking after him might even be those who were obliged to go and study abroad – at their (or their parents’) expense.
But, things being what they are, doctors are decent, ethical people who treat every human being equally on the basis that the value of every human life is precious.
I am confident that Dom will be given every possible care and that he will live on for many more years of health and enjoyment of life on the planet.
Get well soon DOM – senza rancor! ”
I bet you can guess the type of response received…
Ironic…isn’t it? :)
red nose: I know where you’re coming from but the time for heroics are over. We manifested that in the 70s and 80s – prayers and dreams for the bastard’s demise were in abundance, then.
I did not get that bit “where you’re coming from”. I would be pleased to be enlightened.
He will die with a smirk on his face knowing he will not be paying anything for his funeral, the stingy bastard. He subsisted on a pot of vegetables that lasted a whole week and he was a shit to everyone around him, even to those who still smiled fondly at his geriatric antics.
I don’t know much about the man so asked google for some info about him. It turned up with this:
http://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_Mintoff
I’d like to ask the visitors of this forum whether they think it is an accurate depiction of the man.
He seemed to be doing fine until 1976.
Michael Gatt.
Dak li ghaddiet minnu Daphne hu simili hafna ta’ dak li ghaddew minnu bosta Maltin. L-familja tieghi ghaddiet minn hafna kummiedji fi zmien Mintoff u ghalhekk il-maggoranza halfu li qatt ma jivvutaw Labour f’hajjiethom.
Biss nghidlek li jekk inti kont Laburista ma rajt xejn hlief favuri lejk u l-familja teighek.
Daqshekk hu, David g.
david g jista’ jkun li ghandek ragun
naf min sofra fi zmien Mintoff (Daphne m’hijiex wahda minnhom).
[Daphne – Kemm qed tmur zmerc, injorant. You’re bloody lucky I still upload your comments. I just cannot understand this confusion in the very average Maltese mind between fact and opinion. The facts are what they are. Your opinion will not change them. Now do you understand the difference?]
izda taf ukoll li hemm nies ohra li sofrew meta tela’ EFA … naf hafna li qalghu transfers.
[Daphne – A transfer? My, my, my – because when we join the public service, we want a job for life in the same place. Unbelievable. If it were only a transfer I had to endure – and I say ‘me’ not to drag the rest of the clan into it – I could have lived with that. Let me put it this way, Michael/David/Stephen: you would have had to be living in the gutter when Mintoff came along to think that life under him was better.]
two wrongs do not make one right. Imma din hi l-istorja ta’ pajjizna. Meta xi hadd ried jelimina din il-problema … sab ix-xkiel.
The “transfer” part is special!
My family were shot, had their house façades vandalised and lived in fear for years, while your friends were enjoying their colour TVs, telephone lines and government jobs. Then the TRANSFER happened! The horror!
Unfortunately, Mintoff or no Mintoff, many people still live in fear of a possible Labour government.
daphne, ha nsaqsik din, u irrispondi lilek innifsek.
tahseb li hawn izjed nies jobghodu lilek jew lil mintoff ?
Mintoff igawdi ir rispett anki ta nies li ma kienux jaqblu mieghu politikalment, inkluz ta guido de marco.
Rubbish u zibel int. hope you experience the worst possible death a person may go through. imqar jaharquk hajja.
hahaha, anybody who ends his comment with : ‘ Rubbish u zibel int. hope you experience the worst possible death a person may go through. imqar jaharquk hajja.’ has really lost the battle.
Robert, have you not yet left the schoolyard?
Here’s what I don’t understand, Bob: unless Dom is a relative of yours, why do you and your ilk take it personally?
Here’s a small newsflash. Dom was never God – although, like John Lennon, he liked to think he was as popular as Jesus, so when he goes he may occupy a few column inches in a newspaper or two and before you know it he’ll be in the 2010 supplement of This Was The Year That Was, and that’s it…The End.
Robert tell me where you live, so I can drive a spear through your empty head, you fuck.
[Daphne – Oh, here we go. Mintoff breeds violence. It’s amazing.]
Robert, that’s taking it too far!
You have to control your emotions my friend.
No person deserves that fate.
Kemm int bravu robert, m’hawnx ghalik, hmar!
Lil Daphne qied tistaqsi jekk hawnx nies jobghodu izjed lilha jew lil Mintoff? Il-mistoqsija halliha ghal nies bhal Alfred Sant jew dawk il-laburisti li ghajruh traditur lil Dom.
Mintoff dejjem ghalaq ghajnejn il-poplu. Daphne il-kontra, u int dan tafu ghax tidhol fuq dan il-blog u titghallem.
Rubbish u zibel dak jew dawk li gawdew taht ir-regim ta’ Dom – iva, anke dawk li ma kienux jaqblu mieghu u tradew lil shabhom sabiex huma jkunu dejjem protetti.
One traitor gone, one more to go and may they both rot in hell.
Robert, what respect could Mintoff possibly deserve?
The man abused anybody who had the slightest connection with him: wife, ministers, back-benchers, party administrators, chiefs of police or the army, top civil servants. That is not to mention his disgraceful behaviour towards bank shareholders or business owners when he robbed them of their assets.
But the biggest irony of all is that he screwed up the Labour Party too and brought it down with him. And yet there are people like you, blinkered and utterly devoid of a thought process, who still respect him.
Kemm int vojt, habib. Jien ma naqbilix ma’ kollox li tghid D.C.G. Imma dan ma jfissirhiex li ghandi nohoda maghha personalment. Le habib, dik hija id-distinzjoni bejn wiehed li jahseb b’ mohhu jew awwilla jahseb bil-bajd.
Mintoff gave a very bad name to the Labour Party from the very beginning. Does anyone here remember the Qui Si Sana, Sliema Labour meeting when he gravely insulted Dr. Boffa, who was then Labour leader?
I was there and it was absolutely unspeakable. Unfortunately for the Labour Party, Mintoff never changed his attitude and despicable manners – so now you have a Labour Party that cannot cut itself away from his legacy.
We only recall when Dr Sant called him TRADITUR in Cospicua!
did i hit a raw nerve you fuckin bitch ?
[Daphne – My God, you people really have a problem.]
Robert, I ask mostly because you amuse me but, how old are you?
Isma wara kollox, tistghu ma toqghodu tghidu xejn.
Jekk inhu vera is-Salvatur, wara tlett ijiem ghandu jerga’ jqum mil-mewt.
Il-bambin jilliberana.
Everyone is behaving like “il-Perit” is on his deathbed. He just cannot die! Bishop Gonzi died and Borg Olivier died. Lorry Sant, Agatha Barbara, De Marco and most of the personages of his time have left us.
He just cannot let go of the one thing he believes in. For this he can probably withstand a hydrogen bomb. Doesn’t this remind you of a particular pest?
[Daphne – No, it’s because when you think there’s a void on the other side, you’re unwilling to step into it.]
Very well said, Daphne. You’ve probably put into words the feelings of thousands of people who really knew what Mintoff was like.
Meta rajt ir-ritratt ta Mintoff ghawn fuq, li stonku tieghi sarli washing machine.
“Mintoff came at the right time for his aims, when ignorance was rife and most of the population was illiterate and about as mentally and culturally evolved as medieval serfs.”
Why were we so? What did my grandparents, and parents have less in their time? Brains? Bullshit!!
[Daphne – Less education and more ignorance. You say so yourself beneath.]
They were kept ignorant because it was politically expedient to have rife ignorance, and having people breed like rabbits for the religio et patria.
[Daphne – Yes, and it was politically expedient for Mintoff to keep them that way too. And now it is no longer politically expedient for anyone to keep anyone else ignorant and you are not ignorant yourself and yet you still vote Labour. Go figure.]
Who set the ball rolling, with mass education, and who tried to at least curb the Church’s power?
[Daphne – Compulsory education was NOT introduced by Mintoff. I am aghast at the irony of a man who made it his mission to destroy education being lauded as the person who introduced the Maltese to the novel concept of learning. As for curbing the power of the Catholic Church, he could have legislated for civil marriage, if that is what you mean, without turning it all into a Godawful battle. Just because he had a problem with the Curia – he didn’t have to inflict his personal issues on the rest of the country. A nihilist, through and through.]
Do you actually believe that because Mintoff helped the lower classes, he was a baddy? What was he supposed to do? Continue to kick them when they were down.
[Daphne – You know, in a strange way I like you because you seem to be honest. But really, you need to think a bit more clearly about things. Nobody is criticising Mintoff for helping the lower classes, least of all me, as I am one of those who was made aware at the time of just how bad things were. But you help the lower classes by doing what Mintoff did. You help them by doing what Fenech Adami did. Can you see the difference? What do you have now that you got as a result of the years 1971 to 1987, and what do you have now that you got as a result of the post-1987 changes? I am not being provocative, because I really get the feeling that you have a genuine curiosity. I am actually asking you to sit down and draw up a list, and to approach the matter as you would be expected to do for a researched assignment at university level. Leave emotions out of it.]
My father remembers that when he was a kid, they used to run around barefoot because we were so poor. Wow, you’re not very progressive and liberal if all the gains made by society go to the upper classes.
Oh, and before you throw out that li jien xi Lejborist Hammallu, my Dad last voted in the 70’s, and I never did.
[Daphne – Well, that’s a shame. Voting is a civic duty and you shouldn’t shirk it. If that really is the case, that your father last voted in the 1970s and you never have voted at all, then it can only be because neither of you wants to vote Labour but yet can’t bring yourself to vote Nationalist. Why won’t you vote Labour? I can understand why you won’t vote Nationalist, even though I don’t agree at all.]
On what resources did Mintoff build? Human resources aren’t trained and available until a generation has passed, let alone in a legislature.
Who introduced education to the masses then, so that I get my facts right? Because compulsory education and one that is widely available are two different things.
[Daphne – Compulsory education was introduced by the British. It came way before Mintoff. That’s why the old village schools are all colonial buildings that went up in the first years of the 19th century. What did you think they were – private schools or optional attendance? Even the oldest farmers where I live in the Bidnija/Wardija area went to school – that would be more than 70 years ago. It was a big thing here because the parents didn’t like it because it kept the children away from where they were needed in the fields.]
My parents both went to school, but had to leave because of the prohibitive school fees.
[Daphne – What prohibitive school fees? Education was free, even in their time – but then you would have had to go to the village school, not to a church school. I went to St Dorothy’s Convent, and very few girls there could be described as having come from a privileged background. Most of them were the children of struggling of minor civil servants and employees. But they managed. Not being able to afford the fees is a Mintoffian fiction. He was obsessed by it because he couldn’t afford the fees at university, and I wish I could tell you the story of how he got in – because one of the professors noticed him listening to lectures outside the window – because that professor had a unique surname and his family won’t wish to be dragged into it. He dealt with those personal demons by growing up to wreck the university and prevent legions of others from getting in.]
A country cannot build its society and economy only on those classes that can continue to pay for higher education. I don’t think that figli di papa were so much more intelligent, then those whose parents couldn’t afford to pay. My Dad always mentioned that Mintoff once said that ” Mela it-tfal tas-sinjur biss bravi? Ghalfejn huma biss jilhqu avukati u tobba?”.
[Daphne – Look, please just sit down and think this one through calmly without remembering what your father did and didn’t say. When was the university thrown open to all, the number of courses increased and a student stipend paid on top of that? It was in 1987. That remark you quote sums up Mintoff’s spiteful cynicism: he incited people like your father but still didn’t give them what they needed or wanted. He went on about the university being available only to tfal tas-sinjuri, but then didn’t make it accessible to all. Instead, he shut down most courses, disrupted the system and kept out almost everyone who applied to get in. Please remember that you are speaking here to somebody who turned 18 in 1982, when the university had long since been wrecked.]
Yes, Mintoff in the last years of his political career badly hindered Malta, and young people then had diminished career prospects. But what about the situation previously, when you were thwarted only by the fact of not having the financial resources to continue studying. Didn’t lower class people also have aspirations to better themselves?
[Daphne – Did Mintoff give the working classes the opportunity to continue studying? No, he did not. He restricted the number of university courses while increasing the entry requirements and topping it with a points system. And rather than encourage the children of the working classes to carry on studying, as the Nationalists did, he told them ‘xi triduh dan il-hafna nejk’ and set up the Pijunieri.]
So when did the University of Malta become free for Maltese citizens? Was it not Mintoff’s initiative or am I confused?
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that by the time he finished with it, there wasn’t a university to get into, and that’s why I started work at 17. Bit pointless having a free university if you can’t get in.]
Daphne, you should seriously consider writing a short book about your experiences under Mintoff’s government.
[Daphne – I’ve said already that I regard that kind of ‘pain and suffering’ exhibitionism as being purely for chavs.]
Pretty sure he did, I think he only took away the less “utilitarian” art courses which was really a shame (not being sarcastic here). But I’m pretty sure he made university free so you could get in if you had the brains not if you had the money.
[Daphne – I’m trying to find out when university fees were removed, but I’m pretty certain it was in the 1960s. My husband entered university shortly after Mintoff was elected in 1971 and it was free already. Mintoff did not remove the less utilitarian art courses. He eliminated the Bachelor of Arts programme in its entirety. A university is not a polytechnic. It is not there to teach utilitarian subjects. This is a list of the courses from which I could choose when I left sixth form in 1982: law, dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, public policy, education (B.Educ), economics. And then, of course, the year was split into two: you worked for six months and studied for six months, but you had to find your own employer (known as a sponsor or parrinu, yes, really) and if you couldn’t find a job, then you couldn’t go to university. Those were bleak days indeed, with breadwinners laid off in their thousands, so there wasn’t exactly a queue of, say, importers of televisions with no televisions to import, queuing up to employ 18-year-old students. Then there was the 20-point system. You got entry points if you were to the state sixth form, but not if you went to St Aloysius – where, ironically, all the smartest students were. You got points if you had a parrinu. You got points if you knew Arabic. You got points for knowing somebody in the Labour Party. You got points if Alfred Sant liked your face when you were quizzed by the interviewing board. You have no idea. But I do, because I am exactly the right age to have borne the full brunt of it.]
I sort of remember Eddie Fenech Adami wanting to take away the stipends not too long ago though (early 2000s).
[Daphne – That was Sant.]
Pretty sure Mintoff decriminalised homosexuality in the 70s too, and gave the vote to women before countries like Switzerland, I think, and introduced maternity leave if I’m not mistaken.
[Daphne – Oh for god’s sake. Mintoff didn’t ‘give’ any of those things. It was the process throughout democratic Europe. Are you suggesting that he had the option of an alternative scenario: arresting sodomites and leaving women without a vote? I don’t think so. Besides which, the law on sodomy had been a dead letter for almost a hundred years already.]
Turned against the party twice when he thought they were going to make the country go tits up, in the first occasion I think it had something to do with the British not wanting to put an application in for Malta to get compensation for the damages suffered during the war from the money which the US was offering to European countries. The second instance had to do with tax-payers’ money going to be invested in the wrong place but I’m honestly not sure of this one.
[Daphne – I strongly suggest that before forming an opinion about matters as serious as these, you acquaint yourself with the facts. I really cannot understand how people presume to have an opinion and discuss it without first finding out what was what.]
I think he was also the one who actually asked the British, politely, to get the hell out.
[Daphne – No, he didn’t, actually. He tried to persuade the British to make us part of Britain (it was called integration) and when that stunt failed, he couldn’t take the rejection and rounded on them instead, swinging wildly the other way. The British did not get out because of Mintoff. They got out because their contract for the use of Malta as a military base was up on 31 March 1979, and they didn’t wish to renew. There are published transcripts of telephone conversations in which Mintoff pleaded with James Callaghan to come to Malta for the 31 March 1979, while Wilson, in the midst of an electoral battle he was about to lose to Margaret Thatcher, politely fobbed him off. These transcripts were released in terms of Britain’s Official Secrets Act only recently. I should upload them here, actually.]
Nevertheless I also remember Mars chocolate bars being contraband and not being able to buy a coloured TV unless you had friends in the right places.
Also another bad trait of Mintoff’s was that, unlike Fenech Adami who after having been earning the wage of a prime minister humbly accepted the position for president and might get pension from both, he loved money more than most of us do.
Jekk tmur l-Universita issir tal-Brigate Rosse (Terrorista) jekk ma ssibx xoghol!
Ho-hum. One of the great Labour fantasies: Mintoff liberating us from the British. Can’t you just understand that the British were about to leave anyway?
That hadn’t they left in 1979, they would have certainly left a year later, when Thatcher’s budget cuts would have kicked in? That they were ready to leave by 1972 and only stayed because other NATO countries paid part of the bill?
[Daphne – No, they were always going to leave on 31 March 1979 because their lease was up that day and they didn’t want to renew – something Mintoff never bothered to tell the plebeians.]
I don’t follow politics because frankly, I dislike all parties. Now regardless of what Mintoff has done in the past, or whatever the government is doing nowadays, reading this blog (which by the way I’m not a follower of your blogs, i just happened to come across this) you should be ashamed for thinking it, let alone posting it on the internet! People in general are less than perfect and I’m not interested in what he’s done to you or anyone else, even the worst of all people do not deserve this unbelievable hatred. You should take a good look at yourself because I’m sure you ain’t no saint, you have your flaws and you’ve hurt people and put others through hard times aswell!
Yes, you’re right, you are not a follower of this blog.
“you’ve hurt people and put others through hard times aswell!”
Hang on, didn’t you just say that you don’t read this blog but just happened to come across it.? Ah yes, the old I was walking down the main street of dear old www. internet.com and happened to come across this DCG blog, and I said to myself, hello, I never noticed this website, let me just pop along , and, oh look, there seems to be something interesting, a little article about a certain Dom Mintoff, who I know nothing about because I am not interested in politics.
But hang on, even though I am not interested in politics, I must speak to the manager of this blog and tell her she should be ashamed of herself. In fact she should be ashamed of even thinking of it. She should not be publishing this stuff. What if a child happened to do what I did and come across this website and read this article. ‘Shame, Shame, shame’, I told the webmaster and left to go on my merry anonymous way, making sure I don’t go to parties (I dislike them) and checking out some other totally new and strange websites, which I have never been into before.
Anon, nahseb li int ma kontx kbir bizzejjed jew lanqas kont twelidt allura ma tistax tifhem iz-zminijiet koroh li ghaddejna minnhom fi zmien Mintoff.
Konna nimmaginaw li forsi jigu l-Amerikani jehilsuna minnu. It-terrur li konna nghixu fih u l-mibeghda li kien hawn lejn dawk li ma kienux jaqblu ma’ Mintoff kienu tal-biza.
Imbaghad il-Milied ma kienx jahmlu. Dejjem jivvinta xi haga li thassar il-festi.
[Daphne – Funny you should bring that up. My late grandmother’s birthday in mid-December is indelibly linked in my mind with fresh hell or turmoil or confusion among the grown-ups. This might be why I still find myself knotting up with tension in the first weeks of December, and there I was thinking it was the Christmas stress. It is probably a hangover from my formative years.]
U ma dan kollu zid “l-istandard of living” li kien zero. Ir-ritratt tieghu qabbaddni t-tkexkix. Altru li ma kienx is-salvatur ta’ Malta.
“Imbaghad il-Milied ma kienx jahmlu. Dejjem jivvinta xi haga li thassar il-festi”
Quite literally! Come each December when I was a child, I always remenber the adults in the family saying “Ha’ naraw x’ se ‘jaqla Mintoff dis-sena.”
Oh, and I also remember having the water supply cut off on Christmas Day (in Sliema, naturally), though that was only one of the minor discomforts imposed on us at the time.
Despicable Maltese attitude. ‘Regardless of what Mintoff has done.”
Mintoff IS DEFINED by what he did. We cannot disregard it. He is famous, and we’re here discussing his approaching death, by virtue of WHAT HE DID.
He isn’t just some cantankerous 94-year old with a greasy parka and body odour.
You should be interested in what Mintoff has done. And it is plain to see that you are, for you wouldn’t be intervening to defend your hero had it been otherwise.
HAHA! my hero! wow nice one! I dont know where that came from … i came across this page through a post on facebook. as i stated i couldnt care less about the past as i live in the present and look forward to the future. and what i meant by “you’ve hurt people and put others through hard times aswell!” is that no one is perfect and that everybody does terrible things. It’s not about defending what he’s done politically, its about letting go of grudges at least when a man is dying!! hating him or wishing he’d die a horrible death won’t change the past and won’t make you heal the so called wounds he had caused you any sooner. everyone wants to play the victim here and in the end, it doesnt really matter.
Typical Maltese analysis, where political positions are based on personal sentiment. I never mentioned “wounds”. Wounds would imply some emotional hurt or “grudge”.
I mentioned the way Mintoff screwed up Malta in order to achieve – what, exactly? And for that, and his raising of hamallagni to a national virtue, I despise him and everything he stood for.
I also look to the future, and I know that we’re thirty years behind the rest of Europe because of Mintoff’s legacy.
Oh, and “everybody does terrible things”, you say? Well, here’s news, I never presided over the wrecking of a country.
you’re missing the whole point! you keep talking about bloody politics! he’s a human being! he has family and loved ones like everybody else! now when you (and everyone else who agrees with daphnes blog) lose a loved one and you find a bastard dancing on his/her grave we’ll see how you would feel about that cos with your same mentality, it would mean that they would have a right to praise someone’s sickness/death because he/she had done something wrong to that person. Seriously, you are happy that a person is dying because you dont agree with him politically. and you consider yourselves catholics… even an atheist wouldnt speak out of his ass like that.
[Daphne – Yes, in fact he was very upset when somebody desecrated his wife’s grave (and so was I, because she was a decent woman by all accounts). But graves are merely symbols – there’s really nothing there and the person is long dead. I remember wondering why a man who desecrated so many people’s lives and treated so many live human beings with contempt and sociopathic disregard would expect sympathy because a piece of stone had paint thrown over it.]
P.S “where political positions are based on personal sentiment” a sick/dying person IS personal, its NOT a political argument!
Er, Anon, I hate Mintoff whether he’s sick or dying or not, so your comment doesn’t make sense.
You hate Mintoff, fine because he had the balls to do things no one has ever had the guts to do.
It’s easy for people to judge and mock what other people achieved.
For all I care, it’s no excuse to use an excuse like because mintoff was an atheist he wouldn’t mind bla bla bla and in the end he will rot in hell.
Like fucking seriously get a grip all of you, every politician doesn’t give a fuck about any of us.
corruption is in every corner and you come talking about politicians doing good for the country? LOL nice one … all I know is that Mintoff loves Malta and did whatever he could for his country.
And I quote: Despicable Maltese attitude. ‘Regardless of what Mintoff has done.”
I answer back: Despicable Maltese attitude, talking shit at other people’s backs :)
So who’s the dick at the end of the day?
Everyone seems to be declaring Mintoff dead when he is alive. There is a saying which goes “There’s life in the old dog yet”.
If there is a political party which should complain the most about Mintoff’s actions it is the LABOUR Party, not the PN or its supporters. Mintoff’s last grand political action brought to an end the first Labour government in 9 years, exposed deep rifts withing the party, and more or less ruined its electoral chances for a generation.
And yet.
This man DID change Malta. The Maltese working class (yes, there is such a thing) found it belonged to the nation too. Wealth was redistributed. Of course, some got hurt. Change always hurts. Just ask people badly hit because of Malta’s entry to the UE.
[Daphne – Albert, listen up. The working class became middle class (in material terms, that is, and no other) post 1987. I remember Malta perfectly well in 1986 and the working class was VERY working class, living in a state of utter deprivation. And that was after 16 years of the socialist experiment. But that should be obvious, shouldn’t it? If by then even the middle classes had been reduced to poverty, what must life have been like for those who started out poor? Wealth wasn’t redistributed. It was suckered up into the national coffers – Mintoff’s infamous kaxxa ta’ Malta – there to stay. 95% top tax bracket, anyone? Money was redistributed all right – outside Malta. Thousands of millions of liri were smuggled out illegally or transferred by other means. When John Dalli designed those amnesties to encourage the return of funds so many years later, and hundreds of millions were brought back in, why and when do you think their owners kept them overseas in the first place? Because of Mintoff. And then because of Karmenu. And the irony is that many of those millions were made by people who, under Mintoff’s protectionist economy madness, made the only toothpaste we could buy, or the only underpants we could wear, or the only lavatory paper we could….never mind.]
The government took a political decision to save. Calling that “stingy” is a political judgment. Right in the middle of the oil crisis of the early 70s the Maltese economy grew and grew. German investment….WEST German investment, rushed in.
Malta as we know it today is Mintoff’s Malta. The PN just continued building on Mintoff’s legacy. And reversed his most unsavoury – but necessary – policies, yes.
Malta has no saviours. But it had great politicians who during the post-war years managed to turn a colony into a nation.
Robert, this is debate, not an Iraqi war-zone. Get a life.
Disgusting Daphne – missek tisthi!!but that would probably not happen with you, cos you clearly don’t have any feelings whatsoever and who gives you a right to slag off people!! Have one saying – Karma is a bitch baby!!
Prosit, għandek ħila tgħid il-verità. Ma nixtiqlux deni imma mhux se npinġih qaddis issa għax wasal biex imut!
Ghal-anqas fil-kaz ta’ Duminku Mintoff haga tajba, ghax ga hemm mafkar lest biex bieh jitfakkar – dak il-munument ta’ fuq il ‘Mambra’ roundabout.
Jkun mafkar xieraq ta’ kemm Duminku hexa’ Malta tul is-snin, u soluzjoni precizament kif ihobb hu ghaliex mhux ser jintefqu flus biex isir dan.
This article, harms the Nationalist Party.
[Daphne – Well, it might do if you were to upload it onto a large desk-top and hit the Nationalist Party over its collective head with it, yes, I agree.]
“The real salvatur ta’ Malta is Eddie Fenech Adami”
One of the main reasons why Eddie is the “Salvatur”, is because he managed to minimise the hatred that Dom Mintoff had instilled into this country.
You seem hell bent to destroy his work.
[Daphne – He didn’t succeed in doing that, because it’s right there below the surface and it’s the reason I have had a police officer standing outside my house every night for the last few months. I hasten to add that it’s not something I asked for, but something which I was instructed to comply with. Just because something is not immediately evident it doesn’t follow that it isn’t there. Fenech Adami is is-salvatur ta’ Malta because 1. he saved us from those animals and their excesses and 2. he turned Malta into something approaching a normal democracy and a free market. The only thing holding Malta back now is the undemocratic spirit of many of its people.]
“Ja sahhara tal-Bidnija xxerred il-hdura, lanqas rispett ghall-mejtin m’ghandha” (and words to that effect)
X’sentiment Malti u dizgustanti: Tirrispetta l-mejtin u l-moribondi, izda mhux lill-hajjin.
Min ghandu ghal qalbu r-rispett u jrid jelimina l-hdura, jagixxi kontra l-prepotenti, mhux iqimhom bhala salvaturi.
Ir-regim ta’ Mintoff kien l-iktar wiehed vjolenti, ciniku, kattiv u hazin (“evil”, ghax m’hemmx kelma bil-Malti) fl-ahhar zewg sekli tal-istorja ta’ Malta, mill-inqas.
La l-età avvanzata, u lanqas il-mewt eventwali ta’ Mintoff m’huma se jnaqqsu nitfa mill-kattiverja tieghu jew tar-regim li mexxa.
Huwa d-dmir sagru ta’ kull min ghandu ghal qalbu l-gustizzja li jikkundanna lil Mintoff.
All this hatred spouting from these die-hard nationalists is a regrettable side-effect of the Fenech Adami regime. What you write is as violent as, if not more, than most of the horse shit that you say you went through in the 70s. Here you are, demonising the malpractices of the Mintoff regime whilst turning a blind eye to the unspeakable and shameful acts perpetrated by this government throughout these past godforsaken years. If back in the 70s you had to bribe someone to get yourself a TV set, today you have to do a similarly shameful act to get yourself a building permit. The list of atrocities this government/party (but what’s in a name?) has done, and still does on a religiously regular basis, is endless. But why am I bothering, most of you must be blind masochistic fools who spend endless hours busting their balls with a baseball bat for a pastime.
As a side note, Daph, Mintoff wasn’t an atheist but an anticlerical. More precisely, he was all out against the administration of the then Maltese church, which was constituted by a bunch of nationalist-controlled, brainwashing gangsters who made Al Capone’s regime look like disneyland.
“Mintoff wasn’t an atheist but an anticlerical. More precisely, he was all out against the administration of the then Maltese church, which was constituted by a bunch of nationalist-controlled, brainwashing gangsters who made Al Capone’s regime look like disneyland.”
You’re forgetting his brother, Patri Dionysius.
If you can see the sun shining through Mintoff’s arse my dear il-lejburist I suggest you change to il-Mintoffjan.
DAPHNE -YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF !!!!
Ms Schembri, are you proud of yourself for defending Mintoff without so much as using his name?
Joyce, you’re the one who should be ashamed not Daphne, reading her blog day in day out and not Maltastar’s – but then again I don’t blame you.
Well Troy – I don’t usually bother with reading rubbish penned by you know who – but when Dom Mintoff is concerned I tend to make exceptions !
In your article you mention the less-analytical followers of Mintoff.
I’m afraid that you fall in the same category. Your stance is clearly emotional and in no way analytical. Not to mention that a number of your followers applauding your hatemongering don’t seem particularly bright…
I think that the not-so-right-leaning PN we have today is a result of the changes brought about by Mintoff. (once ideas such as social welfare were introduced, the PN had to adapt to remain relevant). So, if I’m right, I guess you should be grateful.
[Daphne – You know, it never fails to amaze me that Labour supporters come in two broad types: the gullible and those who are so far up their own arses that they can’t see sense. The latter category like to think they are intellectual and superior, but they work at it so hard that it fails to impress anyone except the former.
You appear to believe that reason and emotion are mutually exclusive. They are not. With my powers of observation and reason, I can see Mintoff for what he was. And with my emotion, I can regard him with contempt for just those reasons. You confuse the process of dispassionate analysis with the feelings engendered by the result of that analysis. And like all your friends, you are incapable of listing the good things that Mintoff did, or explain why he had to create havoc to do them. I’ll tell you why: because that’s what nihilists do. Now look back at the last 23 years. Weren’t they better for everyone all round? Definitely. And emotion doesn’t come into it. Facts do.]
I’m not a Labour supporter, I come from a PN family, grew out of it and have no interest in choosing sides.
Analysis is the process of weighing pros and cons with an unbiased perspective, as you so aptly stated in one of your replies:
“I am actually asking you to sit down and draw up a list, and to approach the matter as you would be expected to do for a researched assignment at university level. Leave emotions out of it.”
Smells like double standards.
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I did. At the risk of boring you with repetition, I come from neither a Labour family, nor a Nationalist family, nor a mixture of the two, but 100% Stricklandjani. So it should be obvious to you that when that party folded, everyone had to choose a new party to vote for. You would think that, because of the historic antipathy between Strickland and the Nationalist Party and the fact that Strickland and Labour were closer, the obvious choice would have been Labour. But it wasn’t. And that’s precisely because an unbiased choice was made, after an analytical assessment. And of course, EU membership was a deal-maker/breaker. And so was Mintoff.]
Hi,
I wrote a while ago on this rubbish blog, when you decided to attack a couple of friends of mine.
You are a real loser.
Would you please explain to your audience what kind of mentally challenged individual are you? You are calling a dying man a bastard. How low can you go? Let me guess … waist high?
This man cannot even answer back to you. However I want to ensure, that you do not miss that opportunity and hence I will list down what I personally think about YOU … not people like you … but YOU specifically.
– I believe you were depraved when young.
– I believe that the few friends you have must be as fake as you are as otherwise, why would they hang around you?
– I do not think you are married. You surely aint someTHING that a man would want around him.
– I think a lot of people would enjoy seeing you FADE away … not disappear instantly … but slowly fade away.
– I can not understand why some people get to suffer and individuals like you seem to have it all good. It doesn’t sound right to me.
– I associate you to Athlete’s foot. Nothing major, but really annoying.
– Do you cry at night when you realize that a lot of people don’t like you because of what you are, and then realize that you do not really know why you do what you do?
– Do you think that you probably can count the number of people who have conditional respect towards you on one hand?
– Do you believe that you have a role that contributes positively to our society?
– Have you ever thought of locking yourself away from the community, because they do not want your opinion, they do not care what you think and that you are upsetting to many people cause your full of it.
Daphne, I really REALLY, think that we do not want people like you as part of our society and that someone, somewhere should classify you as instigating hatred and hence YOU are a public offence. Please refrain from interacting with Malta’s public, lock yourself away. PLEASE.
PAXXINA. PLEASE. SPARIXXI. Ghax vera persuna imbarazz.
“I wrote a while ago on this rubbish blog, when you decided to attack a couple of friends of mine” – Nikita Zammit Alamango and Ray Mangion? http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2010/03/26/labour-grooms-its-new-generation-of-uneducated-twits/
Well done D, as always.
You’ve echoed the opinion of most of us who screwed up what could have been the best 16 years of their lives, thanks to is-Salvatur. Sorry ta, imma kien s-salvatur t’ghajni.
Jesus, how people forget.
Never mind not respecting the old man, his will should contain a huge unconditional apology to the Maltese nation for all his misdeeds. What a legacy to leave to the nation.
I’d like to hear your views on Michael Falzon’s (PN) article (Malta Today, two Sundays ago) on this monster.
[Daphne – I hadn’t read it. I’ll look it up this evening.]
All those who insist on reminding us of the “good” things Mintoff did have to realise that most populist dictators bring about some minor social changes that could be defined as useful.
Mussolini improved the standard of living of peasants, carried out vast engineering works, made Italy self-sufficient in food production and (though this may be a myth) made the trains run on time.
BUT. . . that is not how history remembers him. He was a dictator who routinely used violence as a political tool, stifled freedom and abolished democracy. These were the really significant characteristics of his regime and – albeit to a lesser degree – they were shared by Mintoff’s own iron rule.
Children’s allowance and minimum wage can never make up for the oppression and persecution suffered by those who disagreed with Mintoff or simply happened to be in his way.
Dawk li qegħdin jitkażaw b’dan l-artiklu, min jaf fejn kienu meta sħabhom tal-Lejber għajruh traditur lil Mintoff? Get lost jaħasra!
Good one!
The monster ruined my childhood.
I have only one thing to thank him for: making me leave the island.
[Daphne – There speaks my cousin, who knows EXACTLY what I’m talking about.]
Four straight As and Aidan was barred from medical school, while I got in with Bs and Cs. Thank you Mintoff, ever so grateful.
@daph
ara vera joker ta!! jaqq ed inhossni ha niremetti.
Kiku ma kinx dak, qeda tqatta l basal u ssajjar l agin f xi kcina….jew mort lawstralja, bil baned idoqqulek ix xatt!!
issa jek int mara hallih jider dal-kumment!!
“The real salvatur ta’ Malta is Eddie Fenech Adami,” – the result – 4BILLION (read with a B) euro Deficit!!!
hallina daph!!
[Daphne – More madness.]
by any chance. do all of you who wrote these comments go to church?
this is not lack of respect to mintoff, but to yourself and to your intelligence… if you consider yourself so.
it is barbarian to have such thinking, nothing new in the case of galizia cos we’re used with her arrogance.
Do you go to church Keith? And did you perhaps go to church when Mintoff wanted to close down the church schools? Do you remember “jew b’xejn jew xejn”? Get lost.
Tuition fees at the Royal University of Malta were removed in 1970. Till then, the fees amounted to about Lm50 per annum.
Many students were, however, exempt from fees if their parents submitted to a means test.
The fees were removed but there were no subsidies for buying books and paying for transport unless one got one of the few available scholarships.
Anybody who was determined to read for a degree could succeed without too much difficulty. At the time, however, many working class families used to exert a certain amount of pressure on young people to start working to contribute to the family income rather than go to university.
Quite a few families were not yet convinced of the value of higher education.
The Mintoff government wanted to introduce a purely utilitarian approach to tertiary education by assessing how many doctors, teachers, dentists etc would be required for the country and fixing a numerus clausus in each faculty based on that assessment.
Those who were accepted in faculties on a points system had to be sponsored by an employer who was bound to pay them a salary and they studied for five months a year and worked for five months – the other two months were a holiday. In practice, most students were “sponsored” by government which would then employ them as teachers, doctors etc.
A few managed to find real or fictitious private sponsors. I know of one who was sponsored by a bar owner in the business studies faculty (I’m not sure whether the bar had sufficient business to require his services!). The system was called the worker-student scheme.
The then PN opposition criticized the system and promised to remove the numerus clausus which it did immediately on being elected in 1987. At the same time, the PN government found it inexpedient to remove the stipends as it would have been an unpopular move.
[Daphne – There were no stipends under Labour. Stipends were introduced by the Nationalist government. Students’ earnings under the student-worker scheme were paid by the employer. In the case of ’employers of convenience’ the pay was fictitious.]
The result is that (happily) many thousands of students enrolled as university students and were all paid stipends as they still are today. In my opinion, had the worker-student scheme never existed, university education would today be free but without the payment of stipends.
It is my view that students in Malta today should count themselves extremely lucky and privileged. All they need to do is engage seriously in study (if they are serious) and they have no special financial pressures. In the 60s and 70s, it was unthinkable that a student would own a car and the small car-parks at the university at the time used to be almost empty as even many among the academic staff used public transport.
These are just the facts with one or two opinions totally bereft of political sentiment of any sort.
To clarify things for those who weren’t around at the time: in effect there were two schemes; a worker-student scheme and a student-worker scheme.
The former targeted people who already had a full-time job, but also had, (or would obtain), the required academic qualifications. These people were likely to be already married, perhaps with young children, and financial exigencies would not allow them to leave their job and embark on a 3 – 5 year university course.
Under the worker-student scheme, they would work for five months and study for five months while retaining their salary. So far so good.
The flaw in this system was that sponsorship had to start at a minimum of two persons, and move on in even numbers (unless some poor sod worked as hard as the other two who were off studying, for example). So if a businessman wanted to sponsor someone to be his future accountant, he would have to sponsor two persons and then try and sell-off one of them when they qualified.
Same for engineers, etc. Of course, this did not find much favour within the private sector with the result that the majority of worker-students were sponsored by the government (read taxpayer).
If the government turned down an application from a civil servant who had the required academic qualifications, it would have been discrediting the system it had itself set up. But at least one can something positive in all this. The student-worker scheme, on the other hand, was a complete shambles.
‘Il-Pike ta’ Bormla’ defined Mintoff as a good car without brakes.
HE COULD NEVER BE TRUSTED. He continuously changed the goalposts and the rules. After all, that’s what he used to do when he played ‘bocci’ with some so called ‘friends’.
The economist Karm Farrugia had some of this nasty experience.
Public figures are always loved and admired by many, and at the same time, hated by the remaining others. Mintoff is no exception. On this blog it is obvious that the majority are those ‘remaining others’ who will only speak of negative things that effected them personally when this man was Prime Minister. What Dom Montoff did, he did for Malta as a country, and yes, his aim was to reduce poverty which he succeeded in doing at the time. He gave benefits to every family including children allowances, free healthcare, and also a retirement pension. With all the hatred quoted above, I am presuming that most of you do not cash in these benefits so you’d have nothing to do with this much hated man….whilst at the same time, everyone is curious to see what shall happen if we no longer have free healthcare or a retirement pension. If you are in a position to attend private hospitals or have your retirement money already saved up, then I fully understand why you can never appreciate the work this man has done! He did not give the nation a one time voucher to throw sand in people’s eyes…what he planned was long term, and if it shall no longer be available, you know who’s to blame! You have criticised him for being an atheist….so, honestly, what does rejoicing about one being on his death bed make you?? Oops sorry, forgot you consider yourselves Catholics!!! I am sure that Daphne shall keep a place for you near her in Heaven, because the day she gets there, those already there shall prefer transferring and living in Hell rather than living with Hell.
I detect more than a hint of class conflict here.
I’m sure I represent the typical profile of the anti-Mintoff board member when I say that:
1. I do not care whether Mintoff was an atheist. His beliefs are his business.
2. The things he did affected me even AFTER he was prime minister. A political legacy of that size does not disappear overnight.
3. I do not cash in on children’s allowance, for I have no children, but my parents did. They were poor, and so am I. I do not have a private health insurance scheme and I have never used a private hospital. My hatred of Mintoff has nothing to do with my financial condition.
4. I have a thoroughly working-class background. My grandfather went to school barefoot because he could not afford shoes. This was before Mintoff’s time. He started working at a very young age, saved up, and even bought a house. This was still before Mintoff’s time. I do not look down upon the working class. They are my own people.
5. I do not consider myself Catholic.
6. If retirement pensions and free healthcare are no longer available, I will blame Malta’s demographics: a rising population coupled with longer average lifespans and a shift in the age pyramid.
It never ceases to amaze me how, so many years down the line, even the name “Mintoff” stirs up such a reaction from so many people of a certain generation upwards.
M, if you go to Germany you’ll find that the name Hitler evokes the same type of reaction
@ DCG: Yes, they were not “stipends” as understood in the present student context but salaries paid by the employer – I said so. I am well informed, having lived through all that.
The Nationalists then called what students are paid today “stipends”. My view is that today there would be no stipends had it not been for the worker-student scheme which introduced pay for students (salaries by employers). I think it is clear from what I wrote. A salary too is a stipend. A stipend is “a fixed and regular payment, such as a salary for services rendered or an allowance”.
[Daphne – Well yes, it was clear to me and to others who lived through it, but there is a great deal of confusion in the minds of those who didn’t live through those years and who were raised, for example, on the myth that Mintoff introduced free education for all, including at tertiary level, when what he really did do was destroy it and make it accessible to even fewer people. I don’t quite agree with you that today’s stipends are the natural successor of the student-worker scheme. The thinking behind the current system is completely different. Mintoff introduced the student-worker scheme because he couldn’t stand the idea of students merely studying – it was too bourgeois (I use that word in the socialist sense) and not because he wanted students to have money. The scheme actually deterred many students who would willingly have gone to university otherwise: very many couldn’t find a sponsor in the private sector because the economy was in stagnation and, because of their family’s political background, they were denied a public service sponsorship. The money didn’t really help, either, because it was a pittance, and students had to work very long hours for that pittance, which amounted to slave labour. If I recall correctly, it was the equivalent of a week’s wage for four weeks’ work. Those engaged by the public sector could perhaps have sat around all day, but those who worked in the private sector were expected to work. It was all very ‘Chinese’.]
So far, the state has found the money to continue paying stipends to all students. Let’s hope it will remain that way. The Nationalists had removed the numerus clausus and that was a good decision but they had to retain some sort of payment for students and they called it stipend – otherwise they would have been unpopular. I’m not quite sure they anticipated the student population would grow so much. Thank heavens it did for we’re still short of the average European student population even today.
As for Mintoff, I’m afraid I do not agree he should be thoroughly demonized. He was rough, uncouth, rude, sometimes ruthless and undemocratic and more. His biggest mistake was to allow thugs and hooligans to carry out politically-motivated and unforgivable acts of wanton destruction for which the PL is still paying a price.
But he also did good. He revolutionized social services and improved the lot of the working class whatever you might say. He removed ancient cobwebs when he decriminalized adultery and sodomy. He abolished capital punishment. When I say he, I mean that it was under his premiership. The laws were obviously passed by Parliament. He introduced civil marriage but not, unfortunately, divorce. He changed the censorship system from one run by priests to one which was more reasonable. He was instrumental in changing Malta to a republic and more. It will not do to let personal rage interfere with an objective assessment. You cannot be credible by being extremist and influenced by personal motives.
Now I will not be surprised if you hurl all your missiles at me. I’m sorry to note that you have become too intolerant. Pity!
[Daphne – Hypatia, it’s important to consider things in context. You cannot commend the man for decriminalising sodomy (adultery was decriminalised by the British NOT by Mintoff) and introducing civil marriage without seeing how much damage he did in the process. This is not so hard to understand. Let’s say I were to engage somebody to weed the garden. In the process of weeding it, this man tramples all over the bushes and shrubs, destroying them and putting growth back by 10 years. He burns the weeds and in the process damages the trees. And then when I say my God, what have you done, his response is ‘but I weeded the garden! Isn’t that a good thing?’]
I distinctly remember the university sponsorship scheme. By far the large majority of students who managed to get sponsorship with governmental or the so called parastatal bodies were from Labour families.
A nice cushy job with an equally nice cheque at the end of the month.
Discrimination was rife and students from Nationalist backgrounds were left to fend for themselves trying to find a sponsor from the private sector.
So much for Mintoff’s equality.
Even the Student Selection Board was corrupt. There were cases where students were rejected (qualifications and all) just because they came from Nationalist families.
The selection board members have this on their conscience.
“The money didn’t really help, either, because it was a pittance, and students had to work very long hours for that pittance, which amounted to slave labour. If I recall correctly, it was the equivalent of a week’s wage for four weeks’ work. Those engaged by the public sector could perhaps have sat around all day, but those who worked in the private sector were expected to work.”
I was one such worker in the private sector. I worked a 40-hour week for Lm28 (65.24 Euros ) per MONTH. After a year, my monthly salary was increased to the grand sum of Lm33.
The Royal University of Malta waived all fees for Maltese citizens in 1969/70 under the Borg Olivier government.
Mr Michael, etc Gatt, you are a true Mintoffjan….sharing a PC with your other two brothers who all live under the same roof when you’re 43 years old. It’s only 2010; you three need another decade to realize that a laptop is so cheap nowadays.
@Daphne
Undoubtedly, the student-worker scheme had a lot of eastern socialist philosophy behind it (as opposed to Swedish-style socialism of the 60s and 70s). I agree.
The fact it was intended to be purely utilitarian without looking at the intrinsic value of learning was enough to damn it. Still, quite a few who might never have made it to university because they were already in employment and couldn’t quit their job, managed to get a degree through the system.
Some of these are in top public service positions and are the darlings of the present government. I cannot specify, of course.
The British did not abolish adultery from the Criminal Code, it was Mintoff. The British would never make any law which might have somehow rubbed the Church the wrong way as she was their best ally.
[Daphne – You’re right. I was thinking of another law: the enforcement of a promise to marry against the will of one of the parties. The promise to marry was, until the 19th century, enforceable at law like any other contract or agreement. You couldn’t just opt out.]
I would look up the number and date of the Act if I had the time but I seem to remember it was the same one which did away with buggery (please pardon my language).
[Daphne – It’s sodomy.]
The PN government did away with another antiquated law we inherited from the Neapolitan Code – the so-called “delitto d’onore” mitigation. Any husband (not spouse, as it applied only to males) who killed his wife or her lover or both “in furia di sangue” if he discovered them shagging “in flagrante” could be sentenced to a maximum of six months imprisonment only.
How’s that? I bet quite a few men would be ready to do six months in the cooler instead of waiting for the divorce law to materialize!
Anyway, thanks for your posts which sometimes illuminate an otherwise dull day. You may not always be right and may at times be somewhat overwhelmed by (all too human) emotion but the local blog scene would not be the same without you.
l-ewwel haga misskom tisthu titkellmu hekk fuq bniedem.u int daphne tghid li int nisranija.nisranija ta zzzzz…………………………. ok.ghax missek tisthi.l-ewwel ara xtaghmel int imghbad ghejd ghal haddiehor.insejtu zmien ugo in-naha ta south kif kien iddominah bid dragjati li kienu jkunu mieghu.eddie u zeppi il -hafi.u ma nkomplux ahjar nahseb
Adultery and homosexuality were decriminalised in the Mintoff´s governement of 1971-1976.
To all those who are writing about the university, etc: I wouldn’t like to be a spoilsport, but I have found this on wikipedia (University of Malta):
“Entry
“Admission to the university is based on Matriculation examination results (A levels). However, entry on basis of maturity and experience is granted for certain courses in the arts and sciences.
“In the 1970s, under Dom Mintoff’s government, the university became more accessible to students with a working-class or middle-class background since financial help started being given. In fact, the university’s population increased by around 200% in this period. Up to the 1960s, the total university population was that of 300 students; in the 1970s it approached the 1,000 mark.”
May you rot hell!!!!!
well, I have readed most of the writings here, I am not going to say the rights and the wrongs- it’s a long story to talk about -But people can talk in a better way i think- I know if soemone was hurted the pain will be there and feels good when the person that has done us wrong is dying or so- But from all these sentences that I have readed- one conclusion is is this part of what the Hon.Prime minister said “we have a treasure in Malta” when he was mentioning that we don’t have divorce! is this what he have here in our country so much hatred between many reds and blues? is this part of chatolic ways- If you dont mind publish it all please or if not don’t publish it thanks- good day to all and peace……
I read all the comments above, and as I read recollections of my youth flashed in front of me. I was in 6th form from 1980 to 82. I was not politically active at the time. But thanks to the division that Mintoff created amongst us students I did eventually become active in politics.
My family had no political allegiance, as we had just returned from living abroad for many years. But it was very obvious at sixth form that you got selected for government sponsorship (student worker scheme) only if you were coming from a family that supported Labour.
Most of my friends got easy jobs, such as clerks at Mid Med Bank or Bank of Valletta, with Xandir Malta, at St Luke’s Hospital, Water Works etc.
I will give you the choice I had, in the private sector: accompanying a truck-driver from Malta to Germany (the company was called Island Truckers or similar) or a dogsbody in a tourism company. My job included making coffee and tea, counting bedsheets and towels in self-catering apartments, and best of all, spending whole mornings on a rooftop in Sliema filling water tanks with water from a well in a private home, so that tourists would be able to take a shower. There was no water in Sliema due to Mintoff’s famous water cuts.
For this, I was paid Lm26 a month and I worked a six-day week. My impressive salary came in two cheques every month: a cheque for Lm6 made out in my name and a cheque for Lm20 in my father’s name. What an insult.
My friends who had been blessed with public sector jobs got Saturdays off and could go to tutorials. They got two months summer vacation and I did not.
I applied in my second year for a bank sponsorship, but was turned down in an interview.
Was this fair treatment? Is it possible for me to ever feel that my youth was anything but living under a system where the saying ‘min mhux maghna kontra taghna’ was the order of the day?
I despise the man who was prime minister in those days, and also his joke replacement Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. And I must comment on the fact that he is in intensive care: he is there because he is Mintoff. How many 94-year-old men suffering from a mild stroke and pneumonia are cared for in the ITU? Privileged treatment for the socialist.
I suffer so much when I read comments from people calling him saviour, great prime minister, and the rest. These people were the chosen few.
Mintoff was a dictator who despised and tried to destroy anybody who he suspected of opposing him or trying to frustrate his plans.
Daphne
Maybe you are the least person on the island that can talk about past and track records. That’s because I am sure mintoff’s past is outstanding behind yours; a past full of corruptness, defamation, harassment and what else, basically all the wrong doings a public person can do in his political or say the life of a journalist… yours….. the life of a liar. Kif jghid il- malti “Traba f ghajn haddiehor rajtha u travu f ghajnejk ma rajtux”
Hint: Daphne review your past
The way to happiness is forgiveness not hate!
I am not going into the merits of who achieved most between Mintoff and Fenech Adami. I have my own ideas but that’s another story. However I am negatively surprised by the hate some people are capable of showing. As for the writer of the article, I am not surprised at all.
why was pmt called pmt? because mad cow disease was already taken. this sad excuse for a catholic definately has a severe case of it. whatever happened to turn the other cheek? its not that i like the man…i’ll celebrate his demise as much as the rest of y’all…but im a godless heathen and i don’t hide behind the hypiocritical sad pathetic excuse of christianity. you too will be judged by your imaginanry icon “tal-karta pesta” accordingly bitch ;)
To David Meilak, This was because we came from a better background and had better education then other people who could do nothing better than call on a minister or a minister’s thug to find them a job, like Lorry Sant in the south and Patrick Holland in the Sliema area, who ruled their territory like Sicilian or Neapolitan godfathers.
Daphne, why do they have to show all this hate and vulgar language on your blog? Could it be that they have been so long in opposition that the venom is more concentrated? Or because they don’t have the ability to keep a conversation going?
Your blog seriously makes me laugh!!!
though your ignorance seriously makes me cry !!! heh
Starting off, I’d like to point out that the PN were in favour of illiterism and not Mintoff! PN were against oligatory school to 14 year old where against school funding and against all types of fairness schools should have had in those times ( just to mention the student coming from labour back grounds where beaten and treated badly in church schools). This is to proof that youre wrong in stating that he wanted the working class glued to his shoes. He wanted the working class to improve upon their family background and succeed in school by providing various benefits to EVERYONE!
By the way fenech adami was Malta’s saviour ?? Heh he was only the cause of the complete suicide of Malta’s Money , as under eddie the country did end up bankrupt! as all the millions where spent and milllions of liri ended up in dept till this single day! (just to mention Mintoff did give every type of social benefit and kept Malta in a strong financial state , whilst eddie spent every single cent without giving any contribution to each and every citizen . Because he did contribute but only to the high class and some middle class families!)
Dear daphne your just a disgusting heartless ”public figure”…. Im sorry to say!! How come can anyone say to let someone rot in hell ??? . . . Theres no need to offend!! youre just showing your horrific blood genes… ehhh God did create the world with all types of people and Im really sorry for you for being a fruitless bitch!
But ‘howcome’ you don’t have any fruit, eh Deff?
After reading these comments, I note that there seems to be a pattern here.
His hour is near. On his death bed he begs for forgiveness.
The ghosts of his enemies past bear witness.
A shroud of mist envelops him into oblivion.
The king is death.
And I bet you all posters here had the guts to post on the LP web site,your thoughts about the perit?
Jesus, Jesus! Even I, at 33, remember the scary moments when schools where closed down and when people lived in fear of the ‘bad man’.
I still remember my teachers telling us to duck because some trucks full of ‘people’ were throwing bottles at the school. Yes – adults throwing bottles at small schoolchildren, just because they got an education themselves. The good old followers of il-Perit.
My father used to travel frequently on work-related business and used to bring home chocolates. He would have to smuggle these in and if ‘caught’ he would hand half of them over to the customs officer together with a Lm10 note – just to get his son some chocolate.
Surely most of you here remember the sad state this country was in. It is true that people tend to forget, but such trauma is hard to erase from one’s memory.
Then Mintoff started giving away plots of land, sequestered from private owners, to his followers and gained the title of sainthood in the Kingdom of Fools. A perfect way to screw up a country’s real estate economy (if it was ever to have one under his rule), to say nothing of abusing of the rights of those who owned the property in the first place.
A mess of a man without a doubt. Just look at a picture of him today: all that money and he lives in misery, always grumpy and ready to swear at anyone crossing his path, a gentleman only by the standards of those criminals and fools who look up to him.
Why don’t we consider burying him in Gaddafi’s Libya? That was his ideal, and it probably still is.
He wanted to be another Gaddafi.
Yes, you people who think this man deserves respect must have very little respect for yourselves.
Daphne – It would be so interesting to actually jot down this man’s achievements and compare them to Fenech Adami’s. A post-it note should suffice for that Scrooge and even that will probably be impossible to fill.
@ kurt bugeja
what kind of dept are we talking about?
Kellek Bzonn f’hajtek ghamilt farka mil-gid li GHamel il-perit Mintoff. Int kull m’ghamilt dejjem parlajt fil-vojt u qatt ma swejt ghal xej hlief biex idahhak in nies bik biss..
Minn daqs tant nis int kellek tkun il persuna li tiprova tinsulta ragel li hadem ghal pajjizu? Persuna li dardret il kulhad anke partitarji nazzjonalisti, persuna li qatt ma swit ta karlin al pajjizna.
Jekk minalik li bdan l artiklu u ohrajn bhalu ed izid il fama tighek u taghmel publicita lilek inifsek vera sejra zball.
Qieghda igighel in-nies joboghduk.
Nisthi meta niftakar li int Maltija Mrs. Daphne, bnidma bla valuri u injoranta..
Agreed 100%.
Daphne Daphne u talk too much !!!!! U qed tghamel hafna edewwa u iz zmien jasal al kulhadd!
DCG u will burn in hell 4eva …end of story !!
Jien la jien laburist u lanqas nazzjonalist pero nixtieq indur fuq il-Maltin injoranti li haw f’dal-pajjizi tal-pupazzi u nistaqsijom…… lili kieku ma kienx ghal mintoff hafna mill-beneficji socjali li haw u li hafna nazzjonalisti jibenifikaw kieku lanqas nehduhom, veru li aw hafna nies battew tahtu u li vera li kien aw it-tahwid dak iz zmien pero lil eddie ma tistawx tpennguh bhal xi ARK ANGLU nizzel mis-sema biex jiddefendi lil Maltin!!!!!!!!! ax jekk mintof kien iffoti f wicc il-malti eddie fotta wara sorm il-malti. U jekk jogobkom dan huwa is-sens ta religjoni li ghadna fil-pajjiz??????? nixtieq inkun naf kemm min dawn li kitbu kontra mintoff u jixtiqulu id-deni marru quddiem il-papa din is-sena?????? Ara tejdux li intom nisrana. puuuu ghal wicckom dan huwa is-sens ta nisrani, miskom tisthu jekk il-bnidem ghamel hazin ekk intom tamlu l-istess bhalu…. ghalhekk qatt dan il-pajjiz ma jista jimxi il-quddiem, xi kultant nisthi nejd li jien malti meta nara dawn il-kummidji …..
may you rot in hell daphne the witch
tibzax dephne il witch,alla jdejh kbira u lum jew ghada jilhqek lilek..
Prosit Daphne keep it up!
Insejtu kemm hqartu u sawwattu nies fi zmienkom u kemm baghtew nies minhabba l-egoizmu tal-partit socjalista. Illum il-gurnata m’ghadekx tisma b’dawn l-iskandli.
Fi zmien Mintoff “min mhux maghna, kontra taghna” dik kienet il-motto.
Imn’alla kien il-Partit Nazzjonalista li qajjem dan il-pajjiz fuq saqajh ghax li kieku minjaf kif qieghdin illum il-gurnata.
ara di xi nazzjonalista injuranta ohra! …purcinelli kolla kem intom!
Xi dwejjaq ta hajja ghandek daphnie l-witch! hajtek kolha tejxa f’gidba li ma tispica qatt.
kellu ragun mintoff jobod lil qassisin u lil kurja,meta kienet tidfen il laburisti fil mizbla u meta izewgek wara l artal,u meta kienu jghidulek jekk laburist tmur l infern dik hi l knisja li ghadna nhobbu???jew ikun ha jmutlek xi hadd u jghidulu halli l gid lil knisja ghax l infern jirbhek dik hi l knisja li ghadna nhobbu??u jekk mintoff imur l infern ha nghidlek f kumpanija tajba ha jkun ta ghax ma de marco,ma borg olivier u ghada fadal l ikbar 1 l isqof gonzi l ghar bniedem li qatt inqeda b isem alla ghal iskopijiet tieghu dawk it tip ta nies missom jisthu,u fil futur nispera qarib hafna jiltaqa mieghek ukoll u forsi hemm ipattilek ta kollox
prosit daphne qieghda tkompli turi l injuranza u il hdura l ghandek kompli sejra hekk ta forsi terga iduq il amdum tal airport minghand xi hadd iehor li weggajt bi kliemek .
I read most of the comments with an open mind, since i’m not politically biased to any one of the parties, let alone be a fan of mintoff. However I couldn’t help not noticing something. I think that everyone is a little bit obsessed over the 94 year old man. The past is past, and if he did anything wrong in the past he sure as hell wont be able to do it again. And i’m pretty sure theres isnt going to be anyone close to him or close to the wrong doings he did. Even this on going battle between MLP and PN going on about the 70s and 80s….its a bit too old of a story. li gara gara, u issa qedin ahjar.
“Those who dwell too much in the past do not see the path to future.”
I do believe someone here is completely neglecting the fact that Dom Mintoff re-built Malta from the ruins of WWII. Do any of you know of the British Rundown? When the British empire slowly started dismantling the local dockyard, leaving many Maltese workers jobless?
Mintoff redesigned and restructured Malta’s economy. He built the Central bank, Air Malta and Sea Malta [now obsolete] to name a few. Sure, Mintoff was not the most charismatic or “man-of-the-people” type of person, but he did what was necessary. There was a lot of poverty, yet one must take in consideration the fact that Malta’s financial power was extremely limited.
Thus, I conclude by saying that it is shameful to wish anyone’s death, especially if that someone is Dom Mintoff.
Daphne,
You’re a JAQQ person. You should be ashamed of yourself. I never came across anyone who has such a LOW level of reasoning, attitude, speaking and thoughts. Nisthi li jien malti meta naf li hemm inti wkoll maltija. I recommend the ecclesiastical authorities to send an exorcist to asses and clean up Daphne.