EU Commissioner John Dalli tells us he was right as usual – in The Times today
LIBYA – LOOKING AHEAD
by John Dalli
I would like to make some observations regarding the comments made by Roamer in yesterday’s The Sunday Times. Not that I usually react to these biased, controlled, agenda-driven commentators who every intelligent reader can see through.
But the Libya tragedy is of mammoth importance in its own right and to the Maltese people.
Hours after it was reported that the Rebel Army took over Tripoli, I was asked by a journalist of The Times to give my comments. I stated that I do not have the full facts about what was happening and I reserve my comments.
The events that unfolded later proved me right.
The counter attacks by Gaddafi loyalists, the genocide in Tripoli, the pictures of corpses littering the streets, the atrocities that were reported, the journalists besieged in the Rixos Hotel, the hundreds of corpses found in hospitals show how premature it was to make any statement at that point.
I made my first comments back in March. I belied those who stated that Gaddafi would be thrown out in three days and stated that this was going to be a protracted, messy affair.
I was proved right even if the GonziPN propaganda machine tried to warp this – both here and in Brussels – as some kind of freaky statement.
I stated from the outset of this tragedy that I did not rely on what the media was feeding us.
My analysis – and I have a right to such an analysis (unless we are also redrawing the concepts of democracy) – is that this human tragedy has been treated by the media as a reality TV show with journalists competing to get the “best angle”.
The reported control of Tripoli, the reported capture of Seif al Islam Gaddafi, the cornering of Gaddafi and his clan in an apartment building, all proved to be false.
I heard one commentator on France24 state that such news could have been given to boost the morale of the rebels in their incursion in Tripoli.
Does Roamer expect me to make a serious comment on such superfluous data?
At this very moment of writing, the situation in Libya is far from certain. Not whether Gaddafi will be out of the government of Libya. That is certain.
Not whether democratic Libya would be a better option for all than a dictatorial regime. Contrary to the present oracles in the media, I used to tell the Libyan politicians and technical people (to their faces) that their system was inefficient and fallacious.
But now many questions have started to be asked. And intelligent journalists and commentators should be focused on these questions – in the interest of Libyans and in the interest of Malta.
Will Gaddafi be captured? Will he relinquish power? Will a deal be struck with him to move out of the scene? Or will he become the Osama bin Laden of the region?
Will the extremists and fundamentalists who were not allowed to raise their head during the Gaddafi regime now seize the opportunity to extend their influence and make an attempt to seize power?
What will that mean to Malta and Europe’s security?
Will the National Transitional Council manage to coalesce all the factions, tribes and interests into a viable government that builds from scratch credible institutions, to have democratic elections, freedom of information and good governance?
It is in our interest as Maltese to have a secure, organized and viable Libya. That is what we should be working on. And on this we should not be spectators but should be active actors.
Roamer, being an apologist of GonziPN, has asked me whether I was blind to the action of the Maltese government over the past months. I was not. There was the evacuation of expatriates from Tripoli. Excellent.
Could we have alleviated the suffering of Misurata and Zawija?
Could we have given refuge to the Tripoli civilians who were besieged in their city? Women and children could have been removed away from the danger they are now facing in Tripoli.
I have talked to the government, to the Red Cross and to some people who were pushing the dissident cause in Malta to set up a medical support centre to assist in the medical apocalypse that is now unfolding and which could have been foreseen.
I suggested the conversion of the existing non operative St Philip’s Hospital (after acquiring it from its present owners) into such a facility.
I offered my help as the European Commissioner for Health to work with my fellow commissioners responsible for these areas to bring this to fruition. Now, at last, the government seems to be talking about it.
I have one comment to make after all this. This is the advice I gave to the Libyans I talked to over the past months: Reconciliation.
We achieved this in Malta after the 1987 election, thanks to the strong leadership we had at the time. The Libyans must make this their policy if they want to move forward with a unified democratic, secure, viable Libya.
Mr Dalli is European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy.
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Aktar skart potenzjali ghas-skip ta’ Joey.
Is it desirable to have a European Commissioner who talks about “GonziPN apologists” just like Labour elves?
Far from it, but it looks like the man himself has no discretion.
He mentioned ‘GonziPN’ twice. He just cannot accept that he was heavily defeated in the leadership race and thinks that by running the PN down he stands a flipping chance of one day becoming leader.
Dalli has to accept the fact that he is a loser and only became European Commissioner because he was politely kicked out of the way.
That sarcastic reference to “GonziPN” should be enough to have him removed from European Commissioner. He owes his job to the current administration, and if he doesn’t like it, he can grow a pair of balls and resign.
You are absolutely wrong. An EU Commissioner represents only the EU. He does not act in the name of the country or the government which appointed him or her and cannot act or speak in the name of or favour any government or State.
He or she, as any other person, has the right to speak his or her mind and criticize any government.
[Daphne – It is precisely because John Dalli is an EU Commissioner that he may not speak his mind and criticise any government. He is clearly too small for the job.]
Had he not infamously said that he considers his term in Brussels akin to a prison sentence, or am I mistaken? He never had any intention of resigning, did he? Too cushy.
‘I suggested the conversion of the existing non operative St.Philip’s Hospital (after acquiring it from its present owners) into such a facility.’
A apt description of John Dalli’s piece would be ‘Seminare zizzania’.
So now he’s brokering the sale of St Philip’s Hospital.
It might be quite interesting if someone had to check the shareholders of St Philip’s.
Dejjem hemm is-senserija jew “finder’s fee”.
After reading his article this morning, I think that DalliPL is in the making.
Did you ever have any doubt that it has long been a-brewing?
I am thoroughly disappointed at the way John Dalli has succumbed to the evil forces of envy.
“evil forces of envy” – lanzit
Again with the GonziPN!
What is it with these people and that slogan?
Who in their right minds feels oppressed by it?
Who?
And please give me details as to what it is that you find oppressive about it?
Are people stopping newspapers from using certain words like ” Nazzjon?” Are they burning down The Times of Malta building? Are they attacking people? Burning band clubs? Turning off the water supply to areas they think don’t deserve water?
Are they tipping off foreign dictators about incoming attacks? And all in the name of this elusive GonziPN?
Mr Dalli, could you please stop going along with the PL propaganda machine and its quest to dehumanize the PN and its supporters?
It is dangerous because it can give others the feeling that they can discriminate against such supporters.
As a politician, or more simply – an adult- you should know better.
I would expect such rubbish from uneducated yobs, but wouldn’t mind it so much if their leaders, for want of a better word, were not promoting it.
You can hardly ask Mr Dalli to “stop going along with the PL propaganda machine and its quest to dehumanize the PN and its supporters?” when you’ve just written a few lines about the total evils of past Labour administration without any mention of anything remotely positive.
[Daphne – Might I butt in to this conversation? As somebody who lived through the entire 1971-1987 period and even, God help me, 1996-1998, I am very interested to hear of any positive aspects which you, in your parallel experience (assuming that you are not younger) observed.]
The problem with politics in Malta in general is that there is no party which is willing to admit its own mistakes and criticize itself as well as others openly. Similary it would be refreshing if PN/PL could genuinely compliment/agree with solid ideas/achievements from PL/PN.
I am not referring to your post in particular as I have no idea whether usually you level your criticism both ways.
I guess the undecided voter would appreciate such an approach and the blind PN/PL supporter would not care (sometimes I wonder what the threshold is for a traditionally PN/PL supporter to cross the great divide to PL/PN) – so I guess the honesty/open-ness can only result in more votes..
I hands down agree it was no bed of roses, my point is that perpetually referring to the 70s and 80s as the darkest days since the Early Middle Ages, sandwiched by the pure perfection of angelic PN governments can only serve to alienate floating voters.
[Daphne – There is no such thing as a floating voter. There are only dumb people, and very little can save that sort of person from himself (or herself). Efforts are made in this regard only because they risk taking down everybody else with them, and not because anybody actually cares about them as such.]
The MLP introduced the first real welfare state, civil marriage, decriminalized homosexuality, etc just as they wantonly burnt down the Times, forced the closure of church schools, etc. Similarly the PN had the foresight (and perseverence!) to get us into the EU, make Malta a modern nation etc but also had their share of violence (Birgu 89, Tarcisio Zarb, 98) and dubious decisions (now…).
[Daphne – Oh for God’s sake, can’t you do better than reading Page 1 of the Doctrine of Labour Elves? Real welfare state? Yes, by taking bribes from Muammar Gaddafi and seizing people’s land and houses to redistribute to party lackeys for ‘social housing’, then locking doctors out of the state hospital and bringing in some cobblers from behind the Iron Curtain instead, while recruiting thousands of people into the Dejma and slapping on a 95% top tax rate to pay for this largesse, as a result of which people either stopped bothering to earn money or smuggled it out of the country, to be brought back decades later under a PN government tax amnesty. By repeating that rubbish, you reveal that You Weren’t Around and Don’t Know What in God’s Name You’re Talking About.
Civil marriage? That was part of Mintoff’s personal desire to get up the Archbishop’s nose. You will note that even though logic dictates that a law for civil marriage should have been introduced with a concomitant law on divorce, your hero failed to do that. Maybe he was too frightened that his wife would divorce him on the spot rather than flying to England to do so, as she once tried before being persuaded to return. It was all over the London newspapers. As for ‘decriminalising homosexuality’, don’t be a frigging idiot. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you should have been straight about that by now. It was sodomy that was decriminalised, and the law against sodomy was there to protect married women from anal rape – used as a form of ‘contraception’ – by their husbands. You can no more decriminalise homosexuality than you can decriminalise red hair, so don’t talk crap. ]
“There is no such thing as a floating voter. There are only dumb people, and very little can save that sort of person from himself (or herself). Efforts are made in this regard only because they risk taking down everybody else with them, and not because anybody actually cares about them as such.”
So people should be perpetually aligned to a single party, irrespective of what that party does? No wonder we are doomed in Malta.
[Daphne – No. Precisely the contrary. People should think before they vote. I think before I vote and it takes me, oh, all of three minutes to work out which party (and leader) is going to be better at running the country. But then, of course, I am blessed with the ability to cut out all extraneous side issues and irrelevant considerations. Given the situation in the parties, and how bloody obvious it is which one should get the job – think of it as a recruitment interview – when somebody tells me they’re ‘floating’ I think ‘what the hell.’ In my experience, in any case, when people say they are ‘floating’ what they mean is that they were raised to support one party but are having doubts and finding reasons to mentally and spiritually defect. That’s not floating; that’s coming to terms with something.]
I beg to differ regarding the “dumb” comment: People/parties/policies change – for better or for worse – and such changes should cause the semi-intelligent person to think about whether they want to vote for the same party they voted for previously. This does not strike me as dumb.
[Daphne – I haven’t noticed significant changes in either party. Have you? And my perspective is a lot longer than yours.]
– Mintoff is definitely not my hero – I have higher standards and my interests in life are mainly non-political, ergo I would not aspire to be any politician – let alone one who hindered education in the country.
– Why Mintoff decided to introduce civil marriage does not interest me. The fact that he did it to spite the Church might add some bonus points however.
[Daphne – Yes, if you’re 16 and still have a Che Guevara poster on your wall.]
– Evidently I am not a regular reader of this blog, as I had never spotted that sodomy was legalized and not homosexuality. Irrespective of this I am pretty sure it was not legalized to start allowing anal rape of women, and hence that it was introduced as a means of increasing tolerance (at least in a Sexual + Legal setting)
[Daphne – Sodomy was not ‘legalised’ but ‘decriminalised’. There is a fine distinction in meaning. Saying that sodomy is legalised is like telling everyone to go off and have anal sex and enjoy it. It was decriminalised for one reason only: it had long been a dead letter law and nobody had been prosecuted for sodomy in living memory. Times had changed, it was ridiculous and it was taken off the statute books. The same thing happened in Britain, except that nobody is still using it as an electoral ploy in the 21st century.]
Like I said it was (20+ years ago) no bed of roses, but the PN is not the pure party it makes itself out to be – and some voters such as myself (and other dumb ones it so seems) would enjoy seeing either of the 2 party media machines not purely built around mud-slinging and history-book-reading. This of course refers to both side of the spectrum.
[Daphne – Actually, it was pretty good 20 years ago, which is why the Nationalist Party won by a landslide in 1992. To this day I have not been able to figure out the mentality of those people who voted, in 1992 and after all that blissful change and freedom and prosperity, for the return of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as prime minister. What insanity. Please don’t tell me they were thinking straight. If your parents were among them, sit them down with a stiff drink and ask them why they did it.]
Tarcisio Mifsud – not Zarb, he is Alfred Mifsud’s brother – can hardly be called a victim of ‘political’ violence.
The two chaps who saw fit to belt him a couple of times with a bicycle chain were actually his co-workers, or rather underlings at Enemalta, who were far from happy at his work ethic in their regard.
After a few too many beers at the kazin (celebrating the PN victory, I think) they decided to pay Mifsud a visit, bike chain in hand. It was a very cowardly and stupid thing to do.
They were picked up the very next day as I recall, but surely the most painful part for Mr. Mifsud was appearing on the Super 1 evening news, without his customary wig, to show off his stitched pate.
Nowadays they call it ‘taking one for the team’.
Pointing out the wrongs of a politician or a political party is not propaganda, it s common sense.
Using labels and endowing them with evil connotations is propaganda.
U Werner, it is important for the memories of the 1970s and the 1980s to be kept alive, especially since many of the people involved in the Labour party at the time (such as Karmenu Vella and Anglu Farrugia, to mention but two) are very active in the “new” Labour Party.
How very shallow of John Dalli to refer to GonziPN.
John Dalli is just another Oliver, always asking for more.
Utter rubbish from John Dalli, trying to save his interests in Libya. He should resign from European Commissioner. He really is a disgrace to Malta and the European Union.
Instead of resting, poor Johnny seems to have spent his Sunday typing away to have his article printed the day after. Very accommodating of The Times to give him the the space and prominence so quickly too.
I’m SOOOOO glad it’s GonziPN and not DalliPN. Here’s another one who needs professional help to help him get over his disappointment.
Even in this article about Libya John Dalli cannot resist the temptation to show his envy towards Lawrence Gonzi.
Min qatt ma libes qalziet meta jilbsu jahra fih.
Is it me or is it more than a little unseemly for a commissioner of the EU to adopt this sort of tone, particularly when making a public statement?
And doesn’t he have anyone who can explain to him the difference in meaning between superficial and superfluous – though both apply to him?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110305/local/john-dalli-casts-doubt-on-libya-footage.353168
John Dalli, with his sarcastic ‘GonziPN’, is an absolutely disloyal, abysmal, and bitter creature.
It is no mere coincidence that Malta’s economy is doing well in these precarious times.
John Dalli is infuriated and miserable that Prime Minister Gonzi is doing such a great job, and that life in Malta has gone on very well without him.
I was a PN delegate when Dr. Gonzi was chosen as leader. John Dalli campaigned most vigorously to promote himself. I was there for the presentations by all three candidates, and when I heard John Dalli’s speech, I said to myself, I will never, never vote for this person.
His speech was one big exercise in egocentricity: I, I, I, I, I. I did this, I am this, I will do, I will not do, and so on. Dreadful.
“the GonziPN propoganda machine”, eh? Errm, is Dalli not part of the Nationalist Party, or have I missed out on some “cross-over”?
Oh, silly me! Maybe Dalli got his bit written by Balzan and forgot to edit it himself. Ah well!