Surreal – but sadly, all too real because this country is NUTS
I was grown up in the 1980s when both Joe Grima and Karmenu Vella were ministers in Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s Cabinet of Horrors.
Yes, cabinet of horrors, not cabinet of curioisities, because that is precisely how we saw them. They were not the government. They were the oppressors, part of a hideous and anti-democratic regime that split this country asunder and broke its back.
I was what – 20 at the time? Now here I am, 46 years old and reading a po-faced report on timesofmalta.com about how Karmenu Vella, the very same one, plans to write a visionary Labour electoral programme that will deliver Malta from the various evils wrought by the post 1987 governments.
Beneath the story, there’s a comment from Joe Grima:
A step very much in theight direction. Karmenu Vella embodies experience and a modern view of party affairs. This is Joseph’s way of achieving a balanced mix between the valued experience of one who has had cabinet responsibilities under a great Leader and who has achieved well recognised results with the enthusiasm and vision of the LP’s young turks and that includes Joseph Muscat himself. No wonder PN spokesmen have already begun to pooh pooh this appointment. Had it been a bad choice as they try to describe it, then as Government apologists thirsty for a return to power they would have welcomed it. Go for it Karm. Malta needs to take back its future.
Give me strength. I feel like Alice, who has just passed through the looking-glass. This island is so damned weird, and the people who live on it are so very undiscriminating. It’s unbelievable.
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If these people failed in the 80s, how can they succeed in a more challenging new century?
Every time Joe Grima has the chance to do so, he mentions the pre-1987 government as if its politics were highly successful, something glorious which is to be admired. I think he is missing not the way that they use to do politics but the way to amass dubious prestige and influence, and perhaps fortune.
The Generazzjoni Gdida has resorted to the Generazzjoni Qadima for an electoral programme for a new generation. I thought Joseph Muscat would appoint someone his age – or younger, now that he is visibly not young anymore – to draft a fresh programme for his progressive and moderate party.
If the experience he will be using to draft the electoral programme is the one acquired during the Mintoff years, we have something to look forward to.
Back in 2001, he was already feeling not young anymore, and apparently he was even considering himself “ready to move on and make way.”
“Asked whether he would be standing in the next general elections, he replies, “Within the Labour Party we have some very good young people with new ideas and a more dynamic approach. When the time comes, all MPs should be ready to move on and make way.”
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2001/0826/people.html
Now, 10 years later, and older, he seems to be staying on forever.
Generazzjoni Gdida indeed.
“…of one who has had cabinet responsibilities under a great Leader…”
Great leader, who? KMB or the ‘traditur’? Be a bit specific, Joe.
Baqghalek zmien, Guz! In spite of the efforts of the make-up artist at One TV, you look like you should be sitting on a rocking chair enjoying a few more capuccinos. Or, maybe not, getting motion sickness and drinking do not mix well.
These are people who just don’t know how to ride off into the sunset (if they can find a carthorse strong enough to do it on).
And then they accuse Gonzi of clinging to power when he has been democratically elected.
I thought I saw the last of this fat trash back in 1987. How wrong I was.
“experience of one who has had cabinet responsibilities under a great Leader”
Which “great leader” is that, do you think?
The ghastly KMB or the one nobody in the afterlife seems to want?
Both ran Malta into the ground, the latter one intentionally, bringing everybody DOWN to the same level as it was far easier than improving everybody’s lot like Fenech Adami did. As for the former, the less said, the better.
“Great leader” a la Kim il Sung?
Joseph Muscat’s progressive new shadow cabinet for a new generation:
Joe ‘Naqdi l-Laburisti Biss’ Debono Grech – KMB and Mintoff cabinet relic
Inspector Anglu Farrugia – Lorry Pullicino police force relic
Karmenu Vella – Tunny Net escapade veteran and KMB cabinet relic
Leo Brincat – 1980s relic
Evarist Bartolo – Commie hasbeen
Marie Louise Coleiro – General Workers Union relic from the 1980s
Now for the new faces.
Silvio Parnis
Silvio Parnis, who loves enticing ladies with plastic roses, please note.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRXVY1E4tA
http://hi5.com/friend/photos/displayPhotoUser.do?albumId=190993063&ownerId=153369394¤tIndex=0
“the one nobody in the afterlife seems to want”
One of the best comments I have read.
Good thing the Facebook Peasant Army doesn’t know what afterlife means, or they’d be in here with the usual threats of assassination.
Kemm hu laghaqi dan Joe Grima. Nesa kemm kien jajghrek, Karm.
The Labour Party under Sant spent many years and put much effort into persuading us that they have changed. The present policy of reappointing old-timers to official positions makes me wonder whether Muscat feels there is no longer any need to pretend.
Will “disgruntled Nationalists” vote for him anyway?
Jo Grima was the minister of tourism during the eighties when his sons hijacked a prime piece of property near the St Andrew’s Parade Ground and converted it into a discotheque. The same Joe Grima who mounted a crusade against Labout when Alfred Sant was in power over some internal tug of war.
The same man the Nationlists welcomed on Net and gave serious airtime to voice his anti-Sant venom. This is a man who craves attention and like his brother needs desperatley to belong.
As far as Karmenu Vella is concerned, his charm exceeds his tainted past and as much as we would like to hate him for his crooked behaviour, he was never one to indulge in thuggery, lead the mobs or fuel hatred as did his counterparts. In spite of his trail of misdeeds, I still believe the man from Birzebbugia might still have some marriow in his bones and be able to offer some value.