Real history – not Labour's rewritten 'Mintoff kecca l-Inglizi'
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September 13, 2011 at 11:19am
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“Mr Mintoff’s plan is new but strange” – a legacy of crackpots.
He spoke ‘bhal puliti’ to the British but coarsely to the Maltese.
As a PN supporter my instinct is to recoil at the mention of Integration but, when you think about it, it would have spared us so much trouble.
There would have been no dictatorship of Il-Perit, no KMB, no Labour thugs, Gaddafi would not have been warned of the US air raid . . .
What’s more, we would have become part of the EU automatically when Great Britain did.
Yes, but you should also add that our flag would be history, our nation effectively gone and it would not have been a matter of part of our land being controlled by Britain, it would have become its sole property in its entirety.
Think about it. Had Borg Olivier and the NP not had the vision built on a ‘Dominion Status’ model (as was Canada at the time), we would have continued to be the carpet underneath a foreign power’s feet.
Mintoff and the Labour Party have to keep it in mind that Malta becoming a Republic was only thanks to achieving independence in 1964.
“Yes, but you should also add that our flag would be history…”
And what’s the problem with that?
“…our nation effectively gone…”
So?
“and it would not have been a matter of part of our land being controlled by Britain, it would have become its sole property in its entirety”.
Malta would not have been British property. It would have been part of Britain. We would have become British.
And we would have been spared all our incompetent MPs.
“Our flag history and our nation gone.”
Tell that to the Welsh, or the Islanders of Wight (is this the right adjective?) for that matter, whose countries have been UK territory since donkey’s years.
@ Kenneth Cassar
Please tell me that you are not real.
Are you, by any chance, embarrassed by being Maltese or perhaps, ashamed of our flag?
Maybe it is silly of me to ask a person with as confused a mind as the Labour Party’s confusion in the last fifty years ever since Mintoff wrenched control from Boffa.
Integration or Independence?
Becoming one with Britain or “British go home’?
Independent within the Commonwealth or ‘Neutral’ Republic with a preference to Libya’s Gaddafi?
Renew Defence agreement with Britain or go abegging to Kim Il Sung, Caucescu, Gaddafi, et al?
Such was/is the tahwid fl-imhuh (jekk jezistu) tal-Lejber. There is nothing new.
This is not even going into what KMB , Sant and Muscat have been and still are confused about.
No2EU – but in hindsight it was OK.
No2EU – No, abstainers and dead men voting won, but….
No to euro – but as it turned out the euro saved our skin.
Reception class – or ridiculous computer missprint?
Humanitarian assistance to immigrants – or let them drown?
Post a quota on immigrants – then send them back?
Reduce electricity bills – but don’t tell them about much higher taxes?
Accuse NP government of coming charges for Health services – in case Joseph is elected and then say ‘the Nationalists would have done the same’?
Hide behind Marsascala Council and obstruct the construction of the PS extension – but to hell with Marsa residents who will have to suffer longer the pollution of their PS?
Such confusion, only confused minds will ever vote Labour.
What makes you think Kenneth Cassar votes Labour?
I myself voted PN and Yes in 2003, but I would still have voted for integration over independence if I’d been offered the choice.
I still believe this country is too small to be independent. However, we cannot undo the past, and EU membership is the next best thing, since Cecil Rhodes’s gone out of fashion.
Integration would have meant that Malta would have been since the 70s a member of the European Community. On the other hand it also possible that Malta would have been a second Northern Ireland.
Only a few years after the integration issue subsided, in 1958, there were the so called riots aginst the British administration, and many of the rioters were Labour and GWU members.
I recall that Dr Herbert Ganado had written that integration was the baby of Ms Mabel Strickland who was brought up by Mr Mintoff.
[Daphne – Why would Mabel Strickland have been brought up by Mintoff, David? She had parents, nannies and governesses, and that apart, it is he who is a generation younger than she was, not the other way round. You’re a bit confused.]
He means the idea of integration was hatched by Mabel Strickland, and nurtured by Mintoff.
Thanks HP Baxter. I meant the baby (Integration) was brought up by Mr Mintoff.
What a cool video!
“Mr. Mintoff’s plan is new and strange,” that’s polite speak for “this man is cuckoo.”
That should get their knickers in a twist.
Did he say ‘a union in exchange for a base where the risks are shared’ ?
What he didn’t manage with the British, he got from Gaddafi.
Better with the Allies than with the Axis.
Joking apart if integration succeeded we would not have had the dark years of the 80s.
Integration was an impossible fantasy. For the thousandth time: we should have gone for dependency status. We’d have been Gibraltar in the central Med.
At what point did he lose the plot and become a total prat?
This is the same man who claims Jum il-Helsien to be the highlight of his political career. One minute he’s begging for dominion status, the next he’s the salvatur ta’ Malta.
Inkwiet gdid bil-gass.
Mintoff never begged for ‘Dominion Status’ – that was for decades, the Nationalist Party idea of an autonomous status within the Commonwealth. Eventually, in 1964 the Nationalist government obtained Independence within the Commonwealth and Malta became a nation and no longer a colony of Britain.
Mintoff having changed his mind (forced by the electorate) regarding integration, went helter skelter against the British. “British go home” became the MLP’s slogan.
Malta’s baptism of fire came during Mintoff/KMB’s reign and we were lucky that we experienced that period with relatively low casualties although I would not dare tell that to Raymond Caruana’s relatives.
The sacrifices of Raymond Caruana and others were the bitterest prices Malta paid for the eventual restoration of democracy and freedom of expression and the relegation of the (M)LP to the status of an Opposition Party for all twenty five years less twenty-two months.
I once mentioned this to some PL supporters and they laughed, and then told me that I was brainwashed.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Why did Mintoff change so much over time?
[Daphne – The British rejected his proposal.]
Why did the British reject the proposal? Was it because the cost of welfare was too much, or was it because of US pressure post WWII for Britain to retreat from empire?
[Daphne – Instead of asking why Britain rejected the proposal, ask yourself why on earth it would have accepted it.]
I remember the oldies saying that Mintoff was always ”British go home ………. imma come in fil-villa tieghu.”
It was ‘British pay up and go home’. There’s always money involved when Mintoff’s around.
@ John
“British pay up OR go home’, is more like it, if I remember correctly.
I doubt that the British would pay up (Mintoff’s asking price) and leave the island at the same time.
This further proves Mintoff’s confused mind because after the Integration failure he was using the above slogan which, in reality meant that at a price he was ready to accommodate the British and let Malta continue to be its colony.
Such clear thinking baffles minds.
One major fundamental difference between party leaders and hence political parties is vision.
Labour never had one and are only motivated by political opportunism.
First of all, Mintoff did not get the British out, in fact, if researched properly, one would find that Britain had already decided on a limit they would pay for the retention of bases here. Mintoff wanted more and the British told him (diplomatically) to stuff it.
Naturally, Mintoff spun it to make us believe that he had kicked them out.
Freedom Day is simply the termination of a contract and the refusal of Britain to accede to Mintoff’s terms on a new one.
Instead, he befriended Gaddafi, who was the only foreign ‘dignitary’ to attend the ‘celebration’. Impressive indeed.
Mintoff became an arse kisser, and whose arse? Gaddafi’s.
For the sake of the truth, which is the only thing I serve, Borg Olivier did not get the British out either.
They knew they’d have to give up the Empire way back in the 1920s, and before the War they even considered handing Malta over to Italy.
That was Option B. Option A was dominion status as part of a much tighter Commonwealth than the present-day big joke namesake.
But this nation of pimps and hawkers always had delusions of grandeur, and we went down the slippery slope of independence, then republic, then international pariah, then EU microstate and now 2015 Hub of Everything+.
Correction: The island at the centre of the world:
http://www.amazon.com/Island-Center-World-Manhattan-Forgotten/dp/0385503490
Yeah.
Int sabiha, Malta taghna
Mhux ghax Malti nfahhrek jien
Izda ghax qatt ma mort imkien.
Yea, “L’ombelico del mondo” by Jovanotti.
George Borg Olivier never claimed that he got the British out.
Borg Olivier NEGOTIATED the terms of obtaining Independence and signed a 15 year Defence agreement with Britain which was designed to provide basic funds to enable the government change Malta’s economy from that of a military base to one underpinned by tourism and light industries.
This agreement expired in 1979 (1964 + 15) and is the same one Mintoff did not renew.
There was no ‘kicking out’ by Mintoff, but rather the Brits left as they had intended even before Mintoff started his antics.
A couple of years ago I researched this and came across declassified minutes of the British government cabinet setting limits to compensation for the use of Malta as a British forces base.
The MLP then as the LP now, had a tendency to spin unfavourable news into an asset for the party. They have the expertise since this way is the only way they can ever try to justify their existence.
You’d posted this video already. I had remarked on Mintoff’s affected toff accent.
Baxxter: Borg Olivier and the Nationalist Party never said that they had kicked the British out.
True. But note the oft-heard expression “GIBNA l-indipendenza”. Sorry. We did not obtain or achieve independence, still less fight for it. We were GRANTED independence.
See my comments above. You seem to be implying that Britain sent for Borg Olivier and told him to prepare for Independence.
For accuracy’s sake, I would like to remind you that Borg Olivier went to London to negotiate for funds to balance the Budget and had asked for somewhere around a million sterling.
The British offered 200,000 sterling.
It so happened that shortly before the London meeting an English football player had been transferred to an Italian team for exactly the same amount. Upon hearing about the amount Britain was offering, Borg Olivier replied, “If you are treating our nation the same way you treated one football player, then I request Independence”.
The rest is history.
To claim otherwise, it means either of two things: either you are misinformed or forgot the details, or you were born after 1964.
Oh come. It’s not as if the British were going to hold on to Malta, and keep it as a permanent drain on their national coffers. We needed them far more than they needed us.
@ HPB
“Oh come. It’s not as if the British were going to hold on to Malta, and keep it as a permanent drain on their national coffers”.
This is a non-starter. Then, why would Britain have offered to renew the Defence agreement with Mintoff (on their terms)?
With regards to your comment “We were GRANTED independence”, how else?
If you mean, we did not have to shed blood to obtain independence or declare it unilaterally, then you may hqve a point. However one cannot obtain anything unless one asks for it.
You’ve all overlooked the most important point.
WE WOULD HAVE WON THE WORLD CUP.
with a phantom goal
Actually we wouldn’t have won the World Cup. Malta would have been part of Britain, not England.
And we’d have invaded Afghanistan and all.
If Malta had been (or remained) part of Italy we’d have won the World Cup four times.
[Daphne – There you go again, David. Allow me to return your pedantry: Malta was never part of Italy and Italy did not exist until the 19th century.]
There is an excellent article in The Times today written by PN Executive President Marthese Portelli. Spot on.
Actually, the Nationalists didn’t achieve the island’s independence, they simply restored it.
The only thing that saved us from paisley, tartan and A line dresses with matching belts, was our penchant for polychromic statues with manicured toes at the ends of graciously curved legs, one showing to the lower thigh in between folds of damask and ermelline.
We have enough scouts terrifying children and other innocents with their bagpipe abuse, all we need is an annual tattoo with those lifesize souvenirs with furry pouffes on top of their head strutting around St.George’s square.
Spare us.
And we would have had an Italian as our football coach.