Unbelievable – read the latest by the independent and unbiased Josanne Cassar
My former (thank heavens) colleague Josanne Cassar was so independent and unbiased in the early 1980s that she couldn’t have cared less about politics. Imagine that.
What a carefree soul.
Instead, she wrote on her website – about which, I am fascinated to see, she is as lazy and sluggish as she was in her previous incarnation – that she was too busy going to parties like a normal young person.
Well, so was were my friends and I, Josanne, but it didn’t stop us caring about politics or getting involved. It was impossible not to care about politics in the 1980s if you were a normal person, because politics permeated and blighted every bit of life – including those parties.
Maybe Josanne went to different parties than I did, parties with lots of socialist johnnies, parties, maybe, at Raffles Disco which the police never raided because the operator – I don’t want to drag him into it, because he’s a nice man and I like him – was the son of one of the worst and most aggressive cabinet ministers.
But the parties and clubs I went to were regularly raided by the police. It was supposed to be for ‘drugs’, but the reality is that it was just for sheer joy of harassing dawk il-qabda tal-pepe bin-nejk li ghandhom, especially when the parties were at Gianpula, where the crowd was VERY tal-pepe (I’m talking the early 1980s, certainly not now) and when the owner, who is now an owner of Malta Today, was extremely active in the Nationalist Party.
Not caring about politics in the 1980s was not a sign of independence, free thinking and lack of bias, Josanne.
It was a sign of indifference due to ignorance, blighted stupidity, disengagement and probably having grown up in a Labour family (I don’t know about this last bit, but I’m hazarding a w-i-l-d guess) so though you could see what was going on because you’re not blind (oh! another man dead at Police HQ? they’ve found somebody sawn to pieces and in a well? fancy that) you felt you couldn’t oppose it because of the way you were brought up, and so blanked it instead.
There is no other rational explanation.
Whatever the reason, I wouldn’t boast about having been indifferent to politics in the early 1980s if I were you, Josanne. Not unless you want to come across as even more perversely shallow and falsely disengaged than you do already.
I say falsely disengaged because the reality is that all along you’ve been rooting for Labour. How do I know? Certainly not because you write in favour of the Labour Party, but because you avoid criticism. And mainly because, and here’s the clue to your background in the 1980s, simmering class hatred and resentment for those ‘tal-pepe’ oozes out of your articles like something rancid which you can barely contain.
No wonder you’ve formed a two-headed hydra with Claire Bonello, friend and lawyer of – oh, the shame – Norman Lowell’s racist lady friend, Letty Baldacchino.
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Here’s carefree Josanne, kemm kienet cool u light-hearted fl-Eighties:
I doubt whether this re-hashing of Malta’s violent political history is going to endear the PN to floating voters. After all, not everyone was in the thick of things, going to demonstrations and being politically active, because not all of us cared to spend the best years of our youth in that way. I could not have cared less about politics. I honestly could not relate to friends of mine who were more determined to go to mass meetings on the weekends… but to each his own.
Speaking personally, I remember the early 80s as a great time when I was enjoying being young, single and going to parties. A song from that decade is enough to bring a smile to myself as it takes me back to when I was in my early 20s and having the time of my life. I’m quite sure a lot of you have the same great memories.
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Is that a Labour flag in the background?
No.
Hint: three words and a proposition (Adjective, plural noun, preposition, proper noun)
Sure – great memories of people found dead – even in hospital
I was 6 and only remember fear and violence and evenings of playing cards in the light of a gas lamp.
Hey Bob, we used to do the same. I too remember the gloomy atmosphere even though I was kid.
We had more reason to feel the tension as my father was still in the police force.
Taking the scene out of the political context brings about a bit of nostalgia (i.e playing cards by the kerosene lamp).
She doesn’t mind being seen at charity dinners at the same table with Kate Gonzi though.
You should see her upstaging Marie Benoit by accompanying Mrs.Gonzi to her car before coffee was served.
She didn’t go back in, wonder why.
“I remember the early eighties as a great time”.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves ………. (Winnie).
Josanne would not have remained unbiased if as a 9-year old she had a rifle pointed at her head next to a church and was ordered to run or he would shoot.
Josanne would not have remained unbiased if every night she prayed that they wouldn’t arrest her father in the morning (or during the night).
Josanne would not have remained unbiased if you was harrassed by her neighbours after the 1981 election.
Josanne would not have remained unbiased if she couldn’t go to school because the teachers were on strike to call for justice..
Where the hell was she when all this happened? In Australia like the rest of the chickens?
[Daphne – She was in Malta, her father having decided to bring the family back from the United States just when everybody was doing what they could to escape from the island because things had got so bad under Labour. Which tells you a lot about the sort of home she grew up in and why she is ‘unbiased’.]
She’s been giving Labour a free ride in her column for months. Now, jahasra, she is feeling sorry that Joseph didn’t live up to the expectations he created initially. Joseph is all about PR and media and lacks ANY (strong word but….) substance.
Exactly,
She’s one of those who thought Labour could change and that this country would gain a credible alternative.
Little did they realise it was their wishful thinking which imposed this thesis, and their reaction was to project their anger onto the Nationalist Party.
Here they are, pointing fingers at a government bound by its programme, in the middle of a global crisis, when they should be grilling the opposition.
It’s what Marisa has been trying to do all along, going to great lengths to compose a ‘movement’ with a barely concealed umbilical cord leading to Pieta’ itself.
My early twenties were totally fucked by Joseph Muscat and his anti-European party. Instead of living the carefree life of a “youth”, I wasted the best years of my life worrying about getting a European passport. The fuckers.
She IS good looking isn’t she?
[Daphne – Yes, she is. Probably one of the best Miss Maltas.]
Martin, just for curiosity’s sake, are you the Martin Borg aka balky aka thor aka TYOM site contributor?
[Daphne – Yes. Il-vera miskin.]
She s definitely better looking than you Daphne because you look like a scarecrow !!!!
Which 1980s song would it be that brings a smile to Josanne? Mietna għall-Barrani? Or Run Rabbit Run?
“Mietna”?. Shame, Antoine, shame!
How could one ignore the call to “stand up and be counted” back then unless for obvious reasons.
To ignore the call of duty was a sign of selfishness and callousness. These words where the words of the then prime minister H.E. Dr. Eddie Fenech Adami. God bless him for leading by example. We owe him a lot.
Thank you Ms Daphne for all the good work. Keep it up and God bless you too.
Josanne is simply lying. Party goers were harassed in road blocks from eight in the evening onwards on any day during the week. .
She’s trying to keep away from those horrible years.
Sometime or another she either saw some dockyard workers banging on trucks, some debris in front of a PN club after an MLP meeting, read the Sunday papers, experienced power cuts, water shortages, low voltage or low pressure in the water system, and serious scarcities in the shops.
If she was that nonchalant in those days when she was already in her 20s, to the extent that she does not recall anything of the sort, than she is the wrong person to be writing about politics and can’t be taken seriously..
This is like Alfred Sant’s typical excuse: “I wasn’t in Malta when that happened, I was living abroad”.
[Daphne – He wasn’t living abroad. He was in Malta, married to my husband’s cousin, and they had a baby at the time. They lived in Three Churches Street, Hal Balzan.]
I think at that time he was chairman of a “parastatal” company called Metalfond, which of course never got off the ground and remained a lame duck until put out of its misery after 1987.
[Daphne – Indeed he was.]
His ex wife was, if I am not mistaken, on the board selecting who will be allowed to join one of the few remaining courses in University and who will stay out .
[Daphne – She wasn’t his ex wife at the time. She was his wife, or about to become his wife. They married on Republic Day (so tacky) 1984, and he went straight from the ceremony at the Public Registry to a meeting at the Labour Party.]
You did not understand me – the argument is that even if the person was not there or couldn’t care less, bad things still happened. Sant was talking about some other happenings during the 70s probably.
Is this the same person who used to produce LP records for the Libyan Gemahirija way back in the eighties? seething with propaganda for the green book, Gaddhafi, the revolution, and obviously all out against the West. If it was, Maltese authors and composers were chosen by her to pen words and compose music of a Western nature but ‘celebrating’ the themes mentioned. If it was, no wonder she was carefree. Also, if it was, her uncle was none other than the then Minister of Education – Philip Muscat…the guy who introduced the damned student haddiem scheme to Malta. Yes we were very happy go lucky back then. Hafna wkoll.
Carefree? Back in the 80s I was struggling to get a job. I had just finished 6th form and didn’t “qualify’ for a bank job, unlike my Labour friend who didn’t have more than 3 ‘O’ levels and did get the job.
In the 80s (pre 1987 of course), you might have been considered for a job in a ‘taks fors’, or ‘pijunieri’, all this because our leaders at the time were so good, they had so much foresight.
In the pre ’87 years you got beat up for reading ‘in-Taghna” (and yes the name was changed from In-Nazzjon Taghna because everything was controlled) Yes pre ’87 you got beat up for expressing an opinion. Pre ’87 you had to pay extra to get a colour tv. Pre ’87. In the pre ’87 years at secondary school Arabic was compulsory….yes Arabic so that we could please our blood brother none less than Ghaddafi. In those glorious years they say that il-kaxxa ta Malta was full. So??!! Nowadays they tell us that when the PN got elected in 87 they found the money ready and started spending.
Bloody hell they should have started earlier. And you know what? the ‘full’ kaxxa ta Malta was not even enough for all the things that we lacked under socialist governments. We had to borrow yes, because the full kaxxa ta Malta would never have been enough to pay for a new Airport, a new Power Station, a completely revamped and created infrastructure especially in the telecommunications sector, new roads everywhere, IT, and so many more things that have made Malta rise from the doldrums and be respected once again.
One last thing and this is important. Today we are being told not to keep mentioning those days because we have to l ook forward. yes of course but for Labour supporters it hasn’t changed, because they were free to speak their mind under Labour without the fear of getting beaten up and now they still do. For PN supporters it wasn’t ……not until 1987.
Trid tkun altru vojt ‘not to have cared about politics’ in the 80s.
Exactly. M’hemmx x’taghmel, din ohra ghal go l-Iskip.
I had no choice but to be involved. We found dead rabbits at our front door – not once..twice.
My mum was different cos she was not ‘ tal-Labour’ and she did not go to coffee mornings with the rest of the neighbours.
Instead she preferred to drive to Sliema and have a coffee and chat with her friends, who of course like her were not ‘ tal-Labour’.
I went to a private school but I feared I would not finish my education there because the government was threatening the church schools.
I was afraid to say my parents supported the Nationalist Party because I lived close to a government estate and they were all die-hard Labour. Those days they would ask you ‘ inti labour jew PN ?’ after they asked you ‘ Hey what is your name?’
Now I am disappointed in the PN. Yes it s true. I will not hide that fact. But I can’t forget my teenage years of deprivation from everything starting from education to toothapaste.
Daphne, I would not give Josanne Cassar any importance, if I were you, she is just someone who likes to talk about herself, tells the same stories over and over and loves the sound of her own voice.
Let’s not blame her, because that’s the environment in which she grew up..