Libya's shame under Gaddafi: being looked down on by the Maltese they considered inferior
I’ve cut-and-pasted the following from a discussion on libyanet.com. I think you should read it. Libyans measure how far they have fallen under Gaddafi by the fact that the Maltese, who they used to consider inferior in every way before 1969, now look down upon Libyans as ‘mahmugin’.
The description of Malta as a rock with few shops and many bars in the 1960s, when compared to the shopping glories of Tripoli, is accurate.
What is not accurate is the linking of our current comfortable situation with the injection of Gaddafi money. Whoever wrote this does not know that between 1971 and 1987 Malta was not that different to Gaddafi’s Libya, and that there were actually fewer educational opportunies and consumer choices than there were even in the 1960s.
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BEGIN QUOTE:
As for Libyan women working as maids or Saftoolat, as the Maltese call them, is actually a shameful phenomenon. You blamed the parents to have their daughters end up as servants in homes of Maltese.
Their parents are not to blame. Most of those saftoolat are either ex-army recruits or ex revolutionary nuns. Those girls either rebelled on their families upon Gaddafi’s inciting in the mid eighties when he was executing his social fabric alteration project. Ironically, only 31 years ago Maltese women were serving in Libyan homes as maids.
What do you think went wrong?
People served us prior to 1969 when we invested $130 million a year. Now we spend 100 times as much but our daughters are serving as saftoolat to make ends meet for their families.
. Isn’t that strange?
. Does that tell you any?
. Shouldn’t have been 100 times better than 1969?
. Do you remember the Libyan saying “Alf Crarty ula Malti”?
Sa’di Elgadafi, in an interview with a global satellite TV station a few months ago, described the Libyans in Malta as criminals and they who stand behind most of the crimes that take place in Malta.
Isn’t a great insult to the Libyans for the son of their ‘leader’ to call them as criminals over an international TV station?
. Wouldn’t be his duty to defend them in face of any criticism, let alone describing them as criminals.
. Shouldn’t he follow the simplest form of protocols when speaking in public, let alone on a TV station watched by millions around the Globe?
. In case the stories out of Malta are true, isn’t his father who drove the Libyans into desperation?
. Weren’t the Libyans almost worshiped by the Maltese prior to 1969 when they stop over in Malta on their way to Europe?
Going to Malta prior to 1969 was a shame. Malta was nothing but a big rock in the middle of the sea. A few shops here and there but a lot of bars.
Maltese were impoverished. Education was limited. They spoke Maltese Arabic and some English. After 27 years of steady injection of Libya’s money, Malta and the Maltese changed a great deal.
TheY live in beautiful villas with double car garages. The drive the latest models of BMW’s and Mercedes Benz. They profess English and Italian among others and applying to join the EU.
They have become too good to do the dirty low paying work. They left it for the Libyans who calculate that each Lira they make is worth 10 Dinars. It’s a bonanza. Working in a pig farm, dish washing, loading limestone blocks in a quarry is the norm for the Libyans. Maltese left those kinds of jobs to them since a few years ago. Now they say Alf Crarty ula Libiano. Ellibiyani Makhmoojeen.
. What does that tell you?
. Since when the Libyans have become Mkhamjeen?
END QUOTE
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http://www.libyanet.com/v17dec0d.htm
I found this on the internet:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/gaddafi-malta’s-part-in-his-downfall
It makes me sick. All Malta did throughout the revolution was sit on the fence.
The twat who wrote that doesn’t know what he’s on about. He says nothing of Malta’s involvement, other than as a location for other peoples’ (yes, the apostrophe’s in the right place) actions.
If we’re going to take credit for the uprising in Libya, then we have to take the blame for every wrongdoing that took place here or elsewhere because of Malta’s direct and indirect support.
Semtex to the IRA, used as recently as this year.
Execution by hanging of Ta’ Giorni students.
Inflicting Gaddafi on his people for two and a half decades after US bombers tried to take him out.
Allowing terrorists a safe haven and safe passage.
Actively aiding Gaddafi’s ‘stray dogs’ policy by joining a hit squad.
Allowing Moussa Koussa safe passage through Malta when he was expelled from the UK for his alleged involvement in the assasination of two of Gaddafi’s opponents.
Need I go on?
Oh, and Lockerbie too. Megrahi was an intelligence agent posing as an employee of Libyan Arab airlines.
One hopes that during these last months Malta was not being used as a base for Gheddafi agents and sympathizers to pass on vital information to help the tyrant and his close associates.
Yes, it was. A member of the Gaddafi clan was (is?) employed at the Libyan embassy. Various other spies were planted in apparently legitimate jobs in various Libya-backed/owned enterprises.
@LaRedoute;
If that is the case, then how come the scribblers in Salvu Balzan’s stables will not write a Pulitzer-winning article about it?
Or are they more interested in writing fairy tales?
My blood boils at the possibility of Malta being used as a base to help prop up the Gaddafi regime these last six months.
Don’t be so naive , this is an ongoing game played by all governments, good or bad. The icing on the cake is diplomatic immunity.
@Dee – 42 years, not six months.
Not all of Malta. Some of us did our bit. This site included.
Can’t fathom out any logic on Malta Today’s part here. Help, anyone?
And what about Saviour Balzan’s page sticking up for (hehe) Julia Farrugia?
Libjan girls were sent to Malta in the sixties to get a good private school education in nuns’ schools and not to work as maids. Someone who was born and bred in Libja told me once that menial work of any sort is considered dishonourable. I think it is something to do with the bedouin traditions.
[Daphne – Bedouin traditions? It’s the same all over the world, including Malta, where most women who work as maids don’t own up to the fact. Libyan girls were not sent to nuns’ schools in Malta in the 1960s. There were boarding schools – run by nuns or otherwise – in Libya itself. Gaddafi’s wife was at one of those in the 1960s. Libyan girls and boys first began to be schooled in Malta in the 1970s, after the education system in Libya was destroyed by Gaddafi in a process which Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici tried to emulate. The discussion above – please read it again – says that Libyan girls work in Malta as maids NOW, whereas in the 1960s, Maltese girls went to Libya to work in middle-class homes as live-ins, in the same way that Filipinas do now in Malta. This is correct.]
@Ms DCG, I beg to differ re Libyan girls sent to Malta to get a convent education in the sixties. Relatives of mine attending convent schools in the sixties had Libyan schoolmates in class together with girls from foreign families (American, Yugoslav etc) working in Libya.
[Daphne – You might be thinking of the 1970s.]
There were also, as you rightly point out, convent schools in Libya itself , which schools were later on closed down when Gheddafi seized power. Ooops, I missed out the bit about Libyan girls working as maids NOW.
@ Daphne
So what’s the bottom line here?
NYT: Libyan businessmen had contributed 2 million dinars, about $1.7 million, for the capture of Colonel Qaddafi dead or alive.
Won’t get you a decent villa with a pool.
I was not born before 1969, however to say that education was limited is certainly incorrect.
We have had a University for some 500 years. The Lyceum was considered a very good secondary school, and there many private and Church schools.
The author wants to run for office.
While reading this article I got a feeling that Malta could have gone down a similar road. Mintoff took a ‘wajs?’ decision to remove himself from power pre ’87.
Look, I tried to understand the quoted discussion . I roam around the island and visit many hotels, but I never saw any Libyan girl working as a maid. I doubt if there are any Libyan girls who are not with their family here in Malta.
You will find Russians, Eritreans, Bulgarians, Ethiopians, French, Slovaks, Serbs and sometimes a Maltese girl or rather a 50 year old woman who has been doing the job for years.
House maids/seftura in Malta are Maltese and in villas one will find Filipino maids and nurses/carers.
Reading the piece left me speechless. I would also add ashamed, although I feel that would sound contrived.
The only excuse I have is my age, barely sixteen in 1987.
I wasn’t aware of the Ta’ Giorni ‘suicides’, and that serves to change my perspective. The 80s, lately subjected to some very sly revisionist propaganda, I can now read in a much wider perspective.
The piece made me remember my uncle’s anecdotes. Having served in Alexandria in WWII, he fell in love with Libya and decided to remain there.
He came back when his friends advised him it was no longer safe for foreigners because of the revolution.
Little did he know it would follow him to Malta. He was wary of the Nationalists, but shared their respect human dignity.
I want to know who’s been on Gaddafi’s payroll, to what extent his cash permeated Maltese politics, whether those who redirected his agenda(s) were on it. And this doesn’t exclude Labour.
Daphne, Mintoff ghamel hafna gid, mhux hekk, igieled gwerra qaddisa mat-tobba, igieled gwerra qaddisa mal- knisja u gieghel lis -segwacci tieghu jobodu il- knisja, kisser il- liberta’ tal-espressjoni, kisser il min ma kienx jaqbel mieghu, kisser id-dar ta Dr Fenech Adami, bil- haqq instiga niesu biex jaharqu it- Times of Malta, u bewilna ma saqajjna biex hallina naghmlu meeting iz-Zejtun, u il- Lorry serqilna il- propjeta’ li hallewna l’-antennati taghana. Dan bizzejjed ghal min iried jitghallem, Daphne. Grazzi talli hallejtni nisfoga.