Guest post – How people think those years were golden, and why we deserve much better from our newspapers
The following came in as a comment, in the early hours, under the name The Wall. I am uploading it as a guest post, even though I have no idea who wrote it, because I don’t want to risk having you miss it. Note to Anglu Farrugia and Karmenu Vella: guest post means I didn’t write it myself. Godfrey Grima knows that already.
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I have always wondered about how people manage to look at the miserable lives they used to lead, look at the infinitely more comfortable lives they lead now and still conclude that those times were better.
So it was with great pleasure that recently I happened to be in a Valletta cafe where two men (one who thinks that the Mintoff years should be written in gold and another more sensible guy) were arguing over this point.
They argued for what seemed like forever and others joined in. The Mintoffjan’s argument was “But what did the PN ever do for the family?”.
Part of me wanted to butt in but I like to keep myself to myself. Unfortunately, the other man, who admittedly didn’t seem like the brightest spark in town, didn’t know how to articulate the fact that having an open market, a university jam packed with students, freedom to do whatever you want with your money, a modern airport and power-station, access to an EU full of economic and educational possibilities and so on are indeed very good things for the family.
For the pro-PN guy it was just a logical conclusion that having a computer is better than not having one, that having access to all kinds of products in shops is better than not having them there, that being able to travel, invest and enjoy yourself as you please is much better than living under a socialist regime with very limited resources.
He just didn’t know how to connect that to the idea of how the family will benefit.
Needless to say, the Mintoffjan was wrong on all counts.
His idea of ‘family policies’ is more on the line of better children’s allowance, free this, free that and a cushy job tal-gvern rather than an efficient, well educated work force competing in an open and free market with cut-throat competition.
He’s too thick to realise that his job would not even exist (he works as a security guard in a shopping mall) if it wasn’t for ugly capitalism and the PN. How would a shopping mall even exist without a regular electricity supply, no products to sell and with would-be customers having no disposable income?
The simple truth is that liberal economic policies are the best thing ever to happen to families. They ‘effortlessly’ lift thousands out of poverty everyday.
Halfway through the argument between the two men, a woman who I regularly see smoking outside her Valletta shop decided to brandish a medicinal product to show to one and all how expensive medicine has become, inferring that the government is indeed insensitive to families’ needs.
No one bothered pointing out that maybe if she smoked less she could probably afford more essential products. Or that medicine is made and imported by private companies and not governments.
Or that medicine costs money to make and transport and that it’s about time people woke up to this fact.
Or that she should work harder to get a better job and therefore afford whatever she needs. Or that if left in socialist hands, there wouldn’t be expensive medicines anywhere to be seen in Malta and our life expectancy would be similar to Mintoff’s beloved Libya, China and North Korea.
Sant only ever did one good thing while in government; introducing a 50c charge on going to hospital. At least it would have made people aware of the cost of healthcare and stop people from taking medicine they don’t need and visiting hospital needlessly.
It’s a pity that the PN took full political advantage of that. Now it means they can never reinstate any charges.
I’m saying all this because I found that gaining insight into what makes people think Malta socjalista was genuinely better than a PN-led Malta truly fascinating. It answers the riddle ‘how can they, with all their heart and soul, still claim that such a miserable existence is better than the lives they lead right now?’, a question which many of your readers keep asking.
Obviously, this is not the whole story. There are rose-tinted glasses, collective amnesia and a few other bewildering facts involved, but at least it’s good to have solved part of the puzzle.
One thing I cannot understand is why The Times doesn’t try harder. From the newspaper which had had its printing house burned down but was still defiant and came to symbolise democracy and free speech in Malta, one expects much more.
Isn’t it logical that a piece about Karmenu Vella should be followed by a piece about his political history?
Why does the article read like a PL press release, simply calling him a veteran without any insight whatsoever?
The same goes for the piece about Mario Farrugia Borg. Shouldn’t this be logically followed by an article about his performance as a councillor and an analysis of whether his dismissal from the PN council was justified or not?
Claiming discrimination is so easy when you’re black, homosexual, Muslim, a woman or an Asian. Trying so hard to be politically correct, no one ever bothers trying to find out whether the claims are truly justified or whether there were other factors involved in the issue.
As the most read, independent newspaper in Malta, The Times has a duty to delve deeper into such issues.
And how did we manage to get to a point of collective amnesia?
Every nation which has suffered under a brutal regime goes through pains to keep the memories alive lest anyone forgets. I think Eddie’s biggest mistake was pursuing the idea of national reconciliation without punishing all criminals involved. Many of those men involved in terrible doings are now coming back to haunt us.
In trying so hard to be ‘sophisticated’, inoffensive and open to all, The Times has ended up treating big problems with kid gloves. For many young people, the Maltese socialist era is just something you like or you don’t, as if it’s just a matter of choosing between a brand of shampoo and another.
The Maltese public deserves better.
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That ass Reno Calleja yesterday had a letter published in The Times against you without actually mentioning you by name.
He was referring mainly to your ‘vitriolic’ writings against Labour saying that it is most unfair of you to ‘hurt people’.
He seems to have forgotten the difference between truth and lies, and is unaware of Super One’s connection with real vitriol and fact-twisting. At least you only give us the truth.
Reno Calleja said that he was always very careful not to hurt anyone in his speeches. He forgot how happy he was when the Chinese Communists shot down the protesting students in Tiananmenn Square.
That woman who complained about the cost of medicine while continuing to smoke is a perfect example of what is usually at the heart of the problem – the expectation that anything we need should be given to us so that we can spend our money on what we want.
People who are unable to cope need help, but handouts aren’t necessarily the kind of help they need.
Toni Abela said yesterday on Bondiplus that his father’s income was low but he was always around in the evenings and had time for the family, unlike today where parents both have to work for money even if they do not want to do so.
All I can say is, if you wish to live as people did half a century ago, you’ll have to take on the full deal and not just the bits that appeal to you. The first things to go will be anything that costs money and can’t be eaten or provide essential shelter.
Yes, life is difficult and things cost money. And, yes, the material demands of a growing family are a strain. But whoever said that life should be easy and everything should be free?
You must have been very bored. I could not watch more than 5 minutes of that ‘show’.
And then there are those who have got their priorities all wrong.
A visit to my local greengrocer, whose customer base is mainly the people from the government housing estate in its immediate vicinity, is usually quite entertaining.
There are those very poorly dressed people who come in to buy a packet of cigarettes for close to 5 Euros, together with, perhaps, a single slice of ham.
Then there are those who stock up on soft drinks and the like, while complaining about the rising cost of living.
Exactly my point in another of your posts. The reconcilation bit was taken far too far.
The terrible atrocities of the 70s and 80s were never really tackled, give or take a couple like Nardu Debono’s murder.
Here again too, only Pullicino bore all the brunt, while others directly involved and physically commiting the crime got away scot free, retained in the corps if not even promoted.
The perpetrators being ministers, police officers, or just ordinary thugs were allowed to get away with murder.
These events making up the island’s contemparory history were never brought to the attention of our younger generation.
Many have forgotten what the majority of the Maltese had to go through particularly between 1981 and 1987.
Hi Daphne,
I’m so glad that somebody is taking the time to remind people of the terrible times we lived through under the Labour regime in the 70s & 80s and how the same faces are now re-appearing in the ranks of the so called ‘New’ Labour.
Watching Al Jazeera over the last few weeks, and seeing live footage of the atrocities committed by the Mubarak regime and their murderous police force aided by hired thugs brought back so many memories of similar scenes I witnessed in my youth here in Malta.
I have been trying to find a picture of the SMU riot squad which beat us all up so brutally. They wore helmets with full-faced, black tinted visors with a slit that they could see through. It was therefore impossible to identify any of them, and they did not wear any police identification numbers.
There were rumours (never proven) that some of them were not even police officers but civilian thugs, and a few (due to their very small stature) were actually believed to be North Koreans since the squad was supposedly trained by North Korean officers. The first time we saw them was at a massive protest meeting in Zebbug.
It would be great if you could find and upload a picture of them so that people would be reminded of the Golden Years of Labour-sponsored brutality.
There was a book called Mhatra Li Diga Insejt with a picture of them on the cover but I can’t find it.
http://imgur.com/9gZsx
For a larger size just click the image.
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2002/10/06/sav.html
A Special Mobile Unit primer, courtesy of Saviour Balzan.
Those readers who are unaware of what the special mobile unit stands for, should read through Dione Borg’s book, Liberta’ Mhedda.
Then if that is not enough one should visit Tessa Balluci at Informa and look at the newspapers of the period to get a grasp of the taste of the SMU.
Just in case you missed the hint, being a member of the SMU did not call for any academic qualifications but for two requisites; being a staunch Labourite and not being a cissie.
Note: Special Mobile Unit (SMU), was a paramilitary unit within the Malta Police. It was set up under a Labour government primarily to deal with riot and protest situations. The SMU members were all staunch Labourite supporters and members of the police, they were trained in the use of light automatic weapons and were experts in the martial arts.
They were trained to confront Nationalist Party gatherings and often mixed freely with Labour thugs such as was the case at the Tal- Barrani 1986 mass meeting.
[Daphne – And, as always, note the date on the article: 2002. Before 2004.]
http://www.peterdarmanin.com/politics/imhatra-li-diga-nsejt/
I have the book at home though there is no way I will ever forget.
Daphne…I found it.
http://www.peterdarmanin.com/politics/imhatra-li-diga-nsejt/
This book should be reissued and if possible translated into English.
An excellent piece. Thanks for putting it up as a guest post. I fully agree with the arguments made.
I particularly agree with the comment of the 50 cents charge for hospital services. I always thought that PN made a big mistake coming out so vehemently against the idea.
A nominal charge on hospital services and (free) medicines would make people use them with some caution. This would reduce the pressure on medical services and also cut costs.
There will come a day when we will understand better those “terrible years”, when thousands who previously enjoyed the freedom of living in slums were helped into decent housing.
Yes, environmental mistakes were made. But environmental awareness 40 years ago was nowhere near its level now. Not in Malta, not in Europe. Though, in any case, environmental considerations should never be considered superior to human life and dignity.
Seems like the next election will again be fought with comparisons of life in the 70s with life in the 2010s. What a perversion!
[Daphne – You brought it on yourselves, Albert. If you announce that your electoral programme for 2013 is going to be written by a minister from 1976 to 1987, and if you elect as your deputy leader a former police inspector from the notorious HQ, and if you bring back Joe Grima and Reno Calleja and Censu Moran and AST as international secretary, then wait for the backlash. This is what I want to know – what role would Lorry Sant have been given by Joseph Muscat hadn’t he popped his clogs already? And where are all these new faces you keep talking about? Surely you don’t mean SILVIO PARNIS?]
So we will again hear the argument that we had no mobile phones in 1975, and today even children have them! Ignoring the fact that there were simply NO mobile phones in 1975, except maybe in laboratories! The political game in Malta is getting more and more bizarre.
[Daphne – There were no mobile phones in 1975, Albert, but there were proper telephony systems. In the 1980s, there were also colour televisions, but you had to bribe a minister to get those (or get a letter of approval from Karmenu Vella). There were VCRs, too, but they were subject to prohibitive duty of 3,000%. Yes, Albert, 3000% and today your people complain about 18% VAT. There were personal computers, but we only got to gasp at them in magazines. There were showers, too, in the 1980s, and even though we were lucky enough to have those, we had no water to put in them. Need I go on? The party you vote for, Albert, was and still is totally inept and a laughing stock. It could have done in the 1970s – certainly the late 1970s – pretty much what Fenech Adami did in 1987 onwards. But it didn’t. And do you know why? BECAUSE IT WAS AND STILL IS TOTALLY INCOMPETENT, AND INCOMPETENT PEOPLE IN RESPONSIBLE POSITIONS ARE DANGEROUS.]
“There were VCRs…” you say. Implying, for the young ones who have no idea of life before the VCR, that they were those small black boxes which we have under our TV sets and which we buy for less than a 100 euros.
VCRs were luxury items those days, not only in Malta, but everywhere in Europe. And, like luxury items, they were heavily taxed.
[Daphne – As if, what are you saying. VCRs were not luxury items in Europe in the mid-1980s. They were commonplace. They were luxury items in Malta because of the 3000% duty on them. That’s why you had to get them smuggled by a minister who would then sell them at a hefty profit, and it’s also the reason why ministers all had VCRs and il-popolin baqa bil-bleknwajt TV. And why should luxury items be heavily taxed, anyway? Because luxury is a crime? Because a socialist nation must wear hair shirts and suffer? 3000% duty on a bloddy VCR because it’s a luxury item – u halluna, Albert.]
Maybe young voters do not remember that, after Malta was “liberated” in 1987, it took more than three years for importation, including that of TVs and VCRs, to be liberalised. And, even then, for about 10 years after that, imports (ALL imports, including pasta and milk) were heavily taxed by means of an “import levy”. Maybe the young voters don’t remember this.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, Albert, but this is one field where I certainly know more than you do because I worked in it and you probably did not. Importation in Malta in the golden years of Labour was not only subject to duty – which on many items was what is known as prohibitive (meaning that the product might as well be banned) – but also to import licences (a permit to import X during Y period) and – drum roll here – quotas. So the agent for, say, a particular brand of ham would get a quota and licence to import a limited amount and then only at Christmas, subject to high tariffs. As for what happened after 1987, the tariff system was dismantled progressively. No tariff system can be dismantled overnight because the economy has to be restructured and other sources of revenue built. For example, removing the furniture tariff meant that domestic furniture manufacturing would have to be rethought. And then, when in 1995 the government introduced VAT to replace ALL import duty, what did your Labour Party do? That’s right….]
Daphne, one always forgets that to have a fax machine at that time, one had to pay a yearly Lm600 licence fee.
..so you mean to say that the “import levies” are only something I sort of dreamt up, right? They did not exist. There was no import levy on pasta, and milk could be imported freely from everywhere just after 1987, right?
[Daphne – Yes, that’s right, they could be imported freely from everywhere as long as duty was paid. Please make the distinction in your mind between levies, duty, import licences and import quotas. After 1987, all import bans and quotas were removed. You could import what you liked as long as you paid the duty or levies. Duty cannot be removed until its universal substitute, value added tax, is in place. When value added tax was introduced, against the Labour Party’s wishes, then duty went.]
“Maybe young voters do not remember that, after Malta was “liberated” in 1987, it took more than three years for importation, including that of TVs and VCRs, to be liberalised.”
Albert, in 1987 the Nationalist government reduced the price of colour TVs by LM100 EACH within months of being elected.
The monopoly in existence at the time meant that the price of a locally-assembled TV was about double that in a free country like England.
As Daphne correctly points out, importation was liberalized progressively. Bearing in mind that in May 1987 an import licence was required to import anything – and I mean anything, even a single paper clip (for goods with a value of less than LM100 clearance from the Dept of Trade, in the form of a stamp on the customs entry substituted a formal import licence) – it is little short of miraculous that importation went from 100% controlled to 100% liberalized (with the usual exceptions like arms/ammunition, explosives etc) within 3 years. As far as I recall the majority of items were liberalized within months, if not weeks.
I was working in international transportation (courier service) at the time and it was a big relief.
VCRs were no luxury items in Germany in the 1980s. In fact, there were several different systems (VHS, Betamax, 2000) and people had sometimes all three different VCR systems, because not all films were transferred to all three systems. We had a Grundig Video 2000, bought in 1979. It had cost around 500 DM (= LM 100). Hardly luxury!
Albert Farrugia may have his blinkers permanently on. Luckily, many of us do not.
I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with you that there will come a day when everyone will better understand those terrible years.
That will be the day when people like you will realise that economic chaos, the suffocation of freedom, the repression of basic rights and disregard for the rule of law are not essential pre-requisites to moving thousands out of slums and into better housing.
Daphne, There are new faces in Labour. Really moderate and intelligent people like let’s say Stefan Buontempo and why not? Jose Herrera.
[Daphne – Jose Herrera is not a new face. He is older than I am, which would make him around 50. And over and above that, he has the exact same mentality of Old Labour which, if you knew his origins, his family background, and his father’s ALLEGED links to land development corruption and Lorry Sant (which I suspect is the link between the new generation of Herreras and Lorry Sant’s henchman Ronnie Pellegrini), then you would think differently.]
Unfortunately we see too much of people like Toni Abela and Anglu Farrugia because the delegates who voted them in are old geezers who yearn for the ‘glorious days of Labour’ and are impressed by lots of yelling and a generally unpleasant (to you and me) demeanour.
[Daphne – You see too much of them precisely because they are running the show. If think Anglu Farrugia is unsuitable as deputy leader, then I cannot understand by what stretch of the imagination you are prepared to make him deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, which is the most powerful position in the cabinet after the prime minister.]
You did not comment on Stefan Buontempo… was just wondering what your opinion of him is.
[Daphne – A nonentity.]
http://archive.maltatoday.com.mt/2002/0407/report070402.html
@Albert,
What do you think Karmenu Vella will have to say as to how the government he was part of single handedly destroyed education in Malta, the effects of which we are still feeling today?
Thanks to the government he was part of I was locked out of school, had to study in hiding and my parents hosted these lessons at great risk.
Why were we only allowed to go abroad with only LM100 per person which included hotel expenses?
What excuses will this man dream up do you think?
Exchange control was not invented by Mintoff or the MLP. Exchange control is the normal state of affairs for countries still on the road of development.
[Daphne – There’s exchange control and exchange control, Albert. The Labour government didn’t have to sink to the pits of making it mandatory for banks to write into people’s passports the amount of money they had been given in foreign exchange, nor to set the legal maximum at such a low level that a holiday was impossible unless you took the risk of smuggling cash or, like many people did, had a secret overseas bank account.]
@Albert
And the closure of the schools?
And the constant cutting off of the water supply – and occasionally the electricity supply too … are those normal for “developing countries”?
The beating of civilians who dared protest against those water cuts? Is that normal in developing countries, too? Mr Farrugia, you might swallow that sort of rubbish yourself, but don’t expect others to fall into the same trap.
Hi David,
The ‘travel allowance’ was LM250 – per annum, immaterial of how many times anyone chose to travel.
[Daphne – That was two months’ earnings for most people, including me. And that was what you were allowed to take with you, which basically went nowhere. Buying an Air Malta ticket out of here cost another six weeks’ earnings or more.]
Thanks Gorg
Even more ridiculous though.
It was a pointless programme by any account. No one can credibly interview Toni Abela. They could have just run the video clips for the amusement of the masses.
..well then..take a look at this. Notice the use of the term “import levy”, talking about furniture imported in 2002.
http://www.mfmo.org/index.php?page=newsdetails&nid=3
[Daphne – Sigh. Albert, I have tried to explain to you, quite patiently, how the system works and the different terms used and what they mean. I have also pointed out that if you don’t know anything about importation systems over the years (and I can give you the rundown since the late 1970s), to the extent that you have to resort to Googling ‘furniture levies’, then don’t presume to speak or venture an opinion in defence of your party. I specifically mentioned furniture because that was one of the last sectors to have levies removed – precisely because the furniture manufacturing lobby made the case that they would need time and plenty of assistance to restructure before competition wipes them out. The purpose of duty is to earn revenue for the state, but the purpose of a levy is to protect domestic manufacturing by making imported goods more expensive, usually prohibitively so, than the domestically manufactured equivalent. You cannot remove a levy on imported furniture overnight, flooding the market with cheap imported furniture, when you have to take into account the fact that a domestic industry employing thousands needs to be restructured.]
…which all means that progress comes with time. One cannot compare the 70s with the 2010s, simply put.
[Daphne – No, Albert. No. You’re thinking ‘upside down’. Yes, progress does come with time – ironically, the very things you boast that Mintoff did, like social services and social housing, are prime examples. But what we are talking about here is how the Labour government HALTED progress and HINDERED it. With its short-sighted and inward-looking policies, the Labour governments of the 1970s and 1980s not only halted progress, but actually took Malta backwards, certainly in terms of free speech and the range of material goods available to people (there was free and open importation before Labour). Why do you think chocolate is held up as a symbol of much that was wrong with the Labour government? It’s not because we’re a nation of frivolous chocaholics, but because we had it and IT WAS TAKEN AWAY. It was the ‘taking away’ that incensed people. Dery mentioned elsewhere that people in the 1940s were happy even though they had nothing. They were happy because nothing had been taken away. But you can’t compare this with a scenario of finding less and less on the market every day, your choices more restricted, even cooking a simple meal becoming a dreadful struggle and a hunt for basic goods. One of my most vivid memories from childhood is of eating my last Mars bar. I was 12, standing on the school steps in Mdina and before I bit into it I told myself ‘This is my last Mars’. I was acutely aware that for some reason, Maltese people were no longer going to be allowed Mars bars. I had it, and it was taken away. That’s why people mention chocolate: because it was taken away, pointlessly.]
Er Albert,
Their reason for closing schools?
Government housing was given solely and exclusively to MLP supporters and to those who were really in need of proper housing. Up to this very day, if you check on housing estates you will find a large majority of Laburisti living there.
In Labour days, Mr. Farrugia, we didn’t have to worry about the cost of bottled drinking water. Even if they were available in the shops, the cost would have been beyond reach for most anyway. We had to make do with drinking tap water which had to be boiled for safety’s sake – when we were lucky enough to have water in our taps, that is.
Daphne, you forgot Freddie Micallef who was very actively helping the MLP during the last election campaign.
[Daphne – Oh, yes, Jason’s uncle. Mar jghin ftit in-neputi.]
There were cordless phones but you could be arrested for owning one. We were offered for consumption fruit the like of which the Sicilians fed to their pigs.
If I remember well the regime added a tax to the goods bought in bulk so that when the price increased, part of the cost increase would have been paid beforehand.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’—-George Santayana
Never forget the hard times the corrupt Labour regime for all those years.
I was a small girl in the 80s when I lived in Tarxien, so I do remember, I do.
My father didn’t even let us buy a newspaper as he feared we would be labeled or insulted or even assaulted.
I used to have this favourite blue t-shirt which mum wouldn’t let me wear.Not to mention the mass meetings, the presence of the police in our house because we lived in a ‘strategic’ point.
There was this climate of fear that even though I was young I could sense.
“I have always wondered about how people manage to look at the miserable lives they used to lead, look at the infinitely more comfortable lives they lead now and still conclude that those times were better.”
But surely you have heard of selective memory? I am not so well versed in local politics but I know a thing or two about people in general. One man I know well keeps telling me how people were so much happier in days gone by (he was born in the late 30s) than they are now.
[Daphne – Dery, I can assure you that our memory is not selective. On the contrary, it is so unselective that you will find my generation is the only one that never claims things were better when we were younger. Even my parents, whose childhood coincided with the blitzkreig on Malta, don’t have such oppressive memories because the enemy was external and not internal. You will never catch anyone of my age or background (and by that I don’t mean money or social class or anything like that, but ordinary decency and insight into situations) telling their children that things were so much better when we were younger or that people were happier. We say, on the contrary, how very lucky they are and their good fortune only serves to drive home the stark reality of our own deprivation in our Soviet era upbringing.]
I don’t think we can ever have a truly objective measure of ‘happiness’ but I’ve asked this man about certain aspects of his life way back in the 40s. They had no toilet. They all did it in pail which was then emptied outside. All the family slept in one bedroom. His mother died in childbirth. Very few of them got any education. There were no antibiotics so something that today is trivial such as a strep throat could lead to death. Morbidity, parasites and pain were considered part of everyday life. Nobody he knew had a car so they lived their life within the confines of a tiny hamlet. No telecommunications so anything happening in Italy, no what am I saying, Mellieha might as well have been happening on the Moon.
[Daphne – Ah, but the mistake you make here, dery, is to leave out the words ‘context’ and ‘relative’. In the 1940s, that was the general predicament throughout Europe. People in Malta had no antibiotics because there were no antibiotics and not because Mintoff or KMB woke up one morning and decided to ban importation. During the 1980s bull market, when the rest of Europe was zinging and materialism was at its zenith, we in Malta lived just like those people you saw rioting in Tunis. It was one thing not having stuff because stuff didn’t exist, and quite another thing switching on the television (Italian) and reading magazines (British) and seeing stuff, stuff, stuff and more stuff that we were not allowed to have because we were Maltese and living in Malta. When there’s nothing to be cheated of, you can’t feel cheated – hence the 1940s happiness you describe, which is largely a myth in any case.]
He himself suffered from pain and even hunger but now he says he is unhappier because of things like problems with his car and the cost of living.
[Daphne – There’s a term to describe that phenomenon. It’s called being spoiled. The tougher your life, the less fuss you make about things. The easier your life becomes, the fussier you become and you lose all sense of proportion. That’s why people who are diagnosed with cancer don’t worry about the problems with their car or even the cost of living.]
…while reserving my right to Google, and referring to your statement that “During the 1980s…when the rest of Europe was zinging and materialism was at its zenith…”, may I refer you to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession
The zinging happened after the mid-80s…and it was the PN government which benefitted from it…aided by vast governement spending.
[Daphne – Why Google the USA when we are talking here about Europe, or more precisely, non-Communist-bloc Europe? Recovery began in Europe in 1983, and we still had four years of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to go. You are being a little bit fatuous, Albert. It’s not as though I never left the country in the early 1980s or late 1970s. That sensation of passing from black and white into colour has stayed with me to this day. I still, crazily, expect to feel it when I step off a plane.]
I still, crazily, feel like a drug mule when walking out through the green or blue channel at an airport – and that’s even though I’m not carrying fun-size chocolates or toothpaste in my bag.
…but how could you, in the 70s, compare Malta, a small offshore island, with the city most Maltese visited in those times, that is London?
[Daphne – Who said anything about London? With my family, I travelled mainly to Italy. What struck me then is that even the smallest village had SHOPS. And people were not COWED. It was the ‘feeling in the air’ that was completely different to Malta. What also struck me, when I visited a Communist bloc country for the first time – Hungary in 1985 – is how similar the atmosphere there was to Malta, even though the place itself was completely different. The point I’m making is that the materialism was directly linked to freedom. We had no goods not because the country was poor, or because we were living in the Pitcairn Islands, but because somebody had decided that we shouldn’t be allowed any.]
This is the unfairness of it all. And, people DO go abroad nowadays too. And they also see quite a difference between Malta and cities they visit, even in 2010.
Oh, and it’s good to know you could go abroad in the 1970s and 1980s….reading your posts might have give the impression to young readers that this was impossible in those times, what with exchange control and general impoverishment! Thanks for correcting that!
[Daphne – It was impossible, Albert. I came from a supposedly ‘privileged’ background and family holidays were rare things even so. Many, if not most, of my friends never left the country until they were working and had saved up enough for a small trip of their own. And then yes, you had to smuggle money out or ask relatives overseas for a helping hand, unless your parents had an overseas bank account.]
La Redoute: I always feel like that whenever walking trough ANY security checkpoint, even if it is just a shopping mall. I am terrified that the alarm might ring :-) The way I look does not help I suppose.
Albert, the PL direction is clearly heading for the 1970s re-making with all the dirty linen it entailed and to add insult, with no regrets whatsoever.
If you think that decent housing was provided indiscriminantly to every one who needed it, then you have already rewritten history in your mind. The fact is that labour has missed the bus many a time to re-build itself seriously…..our present President was the top of the cake.
I came across this lovely piece by one of the young lasses in the PL stable. It was posted on her Facebook page. It goes to show you that all they care about is the handouts and not the environment that dispels the need for the handouts.
Labour brainwashes its faithful into thinking that the level of medical care, education and social benefits was in some ways superior to what it is today. They simply cannot understand that Mintoff scratched the surface and the PN made it flourish. Everyone does well under a Nationalist government.
To think that this young lass just cannot appreciate why she has the education she has, the job she has and the opportunities she has – having never lived under a Labour government and having been brought up under a Nationalist government.
The PL ARE trying to re-write history and they ARE glamorising the 70s and 80s. Their propaganda machine is vastly superior to the PN one and their lack of values means they can lie through their teeth without twitching – they will do ANYTHING to get drunk on power.
FB post
Annalise Aquilina
Ashley jien gejja minn familja fejn hija EX_NAZZJONALISTA igifieri naf minn xiex ghaddejna qabel ahna taht gvern nazzjonalista u ghalhekk iktar nifhem x qatt ma tani gvern nazzjonalista.
Kemm ili mdahhla fil-politika iktar irrealizzajt kemm ghandi ghal xiex nirringrazzja gvern laburista li bis-sahha tieghu tani SAHHA b xejn, EDUKAZZJONI b xejn u BENEFICCJI SOCJALI. Kien gvern nazzjonalista li lili cahhadni mic-children’s allowance – lele sorry tani 7euros f hajti!!
Dan kollu ghax ommi u missieri hadmu u stinkaw biex inkunu mal-middle class. Sfortunatament anke dil-klassi ta’ haddiema qed taqa’ lura fil-kwalita tal-hajja – grazzi ghal gvern nazzjonalista. Hadd minnha ma ha l-500 mitt ewro zieda fil-gimgha!
With regards to Karmenu Vella – usual character assasination – a nice tacthic by the PN!!
Good Day and hope li tifhem tieghi issa ghax jien naf x’ghaddew minnu familti taht PN.
Does someone have that photo shown yesterday in BondiPlus of Wistin Abela before he headed to court for that famous 1987 sitting ? Could anyone highlight the people who are show ?
Just came across this item:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12380433
Perhaps something similar can be created for the local market.
This post goes to show how poor the PN is in its PR. The PN has become a lazy party that expects others, such as The Times, to do the job.
[Daphne – Putting the appointment of Karmenu Vella into context is not PR for the PN, but proper reporting.]
And does anyone remember how at night all Malta was in semi-darkness?
One street light switched on and three switched off. Xi dwejjaq ta’ pajjiz kien hawn.
Please, mention one thing that was good during our growing-up years in the 1970s and 1980s. I, for one, do not remember anything.
Topless girls in Golden Bay and the TV show Colpo Grosso! And Edwige Fenech.
There were fewer cars, less pollution and no VRT tests. Gaddafi’s petrol was cheaper.
The public coffers were full. Fewer drug overdoses.
We were in heaven without knowing.
Kemm konna ahjar meta konna aghar.
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