Mintoff: ‘He gave them nothing and took a great deal away.’
L to R: Guze Cassar, Karmenu Vella, Joe Debono Grech and Dom Mintoff, in the Golden Years that wrecked Malta. And two of these men are still in parliament and still revving up to govern.
A woman I have met several times over the years at work-related events has sent me the following email.
Dear Daphne,
I am writing to share my anti-Mintoff sentiment, to put it mildly.
I often wished that Mintoff lives long enough to suffer in a state in which he could not help himself, to vegetate and smell his own rotting body. The longer he lives in that state or worse, the better.
May we cherish the freedom to think, to dream, to aspire, to dare to be different, and to express ourselves and have the strength and possibility to do all that we aspire the do.
I always had those rights, like everybody else, but Mintoff deprived us of these rights.
I am slightly older than you are, went to state schools and was born and raised in a rural part of Malta, with semi-literate parents who lacked the means to provide us siblings with more than a suitable home and the basic necessities available at the time.
I worked in the fields after school and read my Famous Five and the sort, or studied for my tests and exams, while rearing sheep until I was 16. That was in 1979.
It was in this setting that my parents shared with me and my brothers their wisdom, their values and the sense of freedom to think, to hope beyond the obvious restraints at the time, and to work for our self-sufficiency and growth, never to depend on others, including the welfare state.
In my view, this is a basic distinction between a Mintoffjan and a Nazzjonalist, irrespective of whether that person is working-class or not. Those who choose the Nationalist Party are the sort to take pride in what they are, in what they do, and in what they stand for. They understand the basic concepts of rights and freedoms and above all, the concomitant duties and obligations.
Mintoffiani, for that is what most Labour supporters are in reality, are blinded and cannot make the link between cause and effect, between policies and results. They feel permanently indebted to Mintoff for giving them a children’s allowance, while taking all the far-reaching changes successive Nationalist governments have made completely for granted. Worse, they are angry about them, or indifferent, and complain that life has never been so bad.
It pains me to say that in their majority, the class I come from are of a Labour orientation, and they can never value what the PN in government has achieved. This is because they measure a government’s performance by the scale of its personal handouts. An excellent hospital which is completely free of charge, and a university which pays you to study rather than asking you for fees, are not considered handouts.
They will ignore this and consider instead the cheques that come through the post from the Social Services, or the plots of land distributed by the state, at the expense of private landowners who have been deprived of their property.
The basic distinction between PN supporters and the PL supporters is not a matter of class (I still consider myself of working class) but a matter of Labour supporters thinking what the state can do for them personally on an individual basis, rather than what they can do for themselves by making the most of many opportunities, or what they can do for the country.
I thank my parents who encouraged me to go off to London, alone with a meagre £35, where I worked until I could pay for university education, which I could not do in Malta because there was no work to be had here and more crucially, because access to university for someone like myself was barred.
I hated Dom Mintoff with every beer glass I washed in pubs, with every morsel of tasteless grub I had to eat, during all the cold nights I had to endure in a room the size of a shoebox, away from my country, my family and friends. I worked hard and was 25 when I got my first degree, but I did it, and then with that knowledge and another two degrees that came later, I served myself and my country.
Mintoffiani can never value the transformation that took place in Malta under the PN. They cannot even acknowledge it, because to acknowledge it would mean having to face the stark fact that the Mintoff years were a disaster for Malta, that he gave them nothing and took a great deal away.
So, this comes from one of the working-class: I join you, Daphne, in saying “Let him rot”, but in this life and not the afterlife.
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A-bloody-men to that. What a contribution. Perfectly put.
Now how will the beetles and elves translate this when they read it – and they ARE reading it?
Will a sense of truth click in the back of their mind, but be instantly dismissed?
For some yes. But many won’t ‘get’ it. Or understand it. Or most will just immediately discard it as nonsensical. They don’t or can’t digest it.
Excellent post.
This is so very true. people like us who lived during the Mintoff regime still carry scars (both physical and pyschological).
@neil – to answer you neil I will just quote SALVU L-LAJBURIST of the Bla Kondixin fame: “lili spjegali bil-mod ghax Laburist”.
Pity is, not even someone who scored 100% in Religion in Form IIc would understand it.
After all, who suffered more than him?
Brilliant piece of writing. Thank you.
How apt. I am much younger than you and only remember the terrible 80s (I was born in 1977), but something which this lady did not mention was the pure, unadulterated , visceral hdura (for lack of an English word) which sticks to Labour like a thick pong which will never go away.
They were happy with their social security cheque or a ‘gopp ta’ wacmen mal-gvern’, a ‘plott’, and then if you decided to set yourself up in business and do well, nothing but jealousy and spite comes out.
I come from a family of Mintoffjani on my mum’s side and because my dad was courageous enough to set off as self-employed in 1975 (and that in itself was a hugely bold step under Mintoff), our family was treated simply with jealousy, scorn and spite by the rest of the Mintoffjani hodor on my mother’s side.
As a young boy, running away from tear-gas on the Floriana granaries, during a PN mass meeting, was little more than an adventure. I remember the meetings, the paint-splattered walls, and very vividly the Zejtun riots (my father is from there). But as an adult, looking back, I thank god I spent the prime of my life under PN governments.
I got four degrees from the University of Malta, which probably I wouldn’t have been allowed to step into under Mintoff given my father’s politics. I am a citizen of an EU state. I live and work in a free market economy.
I am not afraid to voice my opinion.
My country has been changed from a Third World country to a recognisably modern one. I look at my son and feel optimistic about his future, and only hope that Malta remains under more Nationalist governments for as long as it can.
No, the Nationalist Party is not perfect, but in spite of its shortcomings, the Nationalists are really the better choice at present, because nothing has really changed within the PL ranks.
Thank you for giving me this space to express my views.
What is the equivalent to a standing ovation online, because this person certainly deserves one.
Couldn’t agree more!
Naqbel mija fil-mija – prosit.
“Post mal-gvern u post tal-gvern” mentality.
Servile people who make up around 50% of the population.
Easily manipulated and utilised by cunning leaders like Mintoff for their own ends.
People who, sadly, give up their human dignity for a bonus, a children’s allowance or any other handout.
The lady behind the above email is one of a small minority, unfortunately.
I salute her in awe.
Excellent piece.
Bravo.
Wow. Well put. Earlier, I was arguing with colleagues along these lines but I was nowhere near this eloquence.
Excellent. Fejn huma il-Mintoffjani issa?
I find this level of conversation very refreshing.
The way i see it is that the Mintoff years were part of a process to arrive where we are today and you have to see it in that context. In the context of how things were done in those times 30 years ago.
Seeing it in context does not excuse the atrocities done by the likes of Lorry Sant and others, (with Mintoff’s blessing we presume) but it gives some insight into how things were at the time.
Whether Mintoff rots alive or not is of little consequence to everyone except his family now, as he’s just a has-been confined to history. Mintoff today is as anachronistic as GonziPN would have been in the 80s.
The problem is how this affects present day Malta. The lingering problem with Labour is that it is still not attracting the right minds, so it’s mediocre in everything it does. To make matters worse, it’s still carrying some of the veterani dinosaurs that were the young guns of failed past regimes. So the outlook isn’t good overall.
The fact is that the PL does not put forward any relevant suggestions, let alone a programme.
I could not disagree more:
The Mintoff years were not part of a chain of events. They were a dark blemish in Maltese history, years we could have done without.
[Daphne – I was about to say that, coincidentally. Mintoff’s brand of post-colonial change wasn’t necessary. We forget that seven years went by between independence from Britain and Mintoff becoming prime minister. In those seven years, George Borg Oliver and his Nationalist government had got the country on the right track towards becoming a modern European democracy with a market economy. They even had the right recipe for tourism, with glamorous hotels (laid-back glamour of the European kind, not the Middle Eastern variety) which attracted the right kind of crowd. When Mintoff came in to power, he undid all that, put the country into reverse, and began implementing the North African method of taking the country out of colonialism – when it was long out of colonialism already. The result was as disastrous for Malta as it was for North Africa. Had Mintoff been a dictator like his 1970s and 1980s counterparts in North Africa, rather than an elected politician or one who governed when he wasn’t elected to do so (1981-1987), today we would be where Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria are.]
Mintoff was motivated by envy and class distinction. He hated the people from the 9th and 10 th district or anybody who followed Gorg Borg Olivier.
He made it his mission to cripple progress and turn us into a nation of subliterates and thugs who were protected by the tentacles of the state. He reduced the law courts into a joke and whenever his disciples thought that justice was going to come in their way, they would simply walk in and ransack the archives or the registry.
the Second world was was a chain of events.It was what transformed Europe into what it is today. Secondly, Europe in spite of its multitude of flaws and economic problems, is still an economic power house with a Union of 25 sovereign states.
The years under Mintoff were scourged with persecution, scarcities, restrictions, cheap socialist propaganda, affiliations with communist states and Arab terrorists, bulk-buying systems fit only for the Chinese and i shudder to think how the people who glorify this monster until this very day, can claim to have changed their mentality.
“Mintoff was motivated by envy and class distinction”. May I take this point a little further?
On this blog and elsewhere, Mintoffjani boast that the Labour Party created the ‘middilkless’, and you know, they are right?
Mintoff lowered the middle class to the level of a pauper class and having achieved that, called it the new, larger middle class. Anyone below that, was unemployed and secretly begging for alms, secretly because doing so in public became unlawful. Hence the Mintoffjan myth that Mintoff had erased poverty.
Mintoff’s plan was Gaddafi’s plan, Mao’s plan, Caucescu’s plan. One class of ‘call it what you like’ (so why not middle class?) and the elite class who plundered and stashed away their loot in foreign banks.
What if we were to ask how much income tax Mintoff paid while PM? What about the settlement he received from the deprivation of enjoyment of the ‘Gharix’? I hope that the inheritance tax laws will not be changed downwards until the State claws back half of the million euro settlement he received. And since it is tax money he received, is the appraisal of the property public and available for scrutiny?
And what about the quater million euro he received from Gaddafi in recognition of defending human rights?
This Maltese dictator deserves nothing more than an unmarked grave when he passes on. Osama got the privilege, Gaddafi got the same, why not Mintoff?
Excellent piece.
It gives me shivers down my spine when I remember that Joseph Muscat is a rabid Mintoffjan.
What the lady said is true. People who never left the island have the mentality that they want everything free from the goverment.
When I was young I emigrated to another country, and I got accustomed to different way of living.
In other ways you grow up. You learn that nothing is free, and to live in countries like this you have to work hard.
In Malta they complain about everything and they don’t stop and count the blessings that we enjoy.
Children in Malta who have a disability consider themselves lucky under this goverment because in countries bigger than ours, they don’t have facilitors like we do, almost one to one. In a class there is only one and if you want one for your child only you have to pay.
This mentality is Mintoffjana: they used to say ‘Jew b’xejn, jew xejn. I believe that if I’m working I have to be taxed because the goverment has to get the money in so that they can distribute.
How can goverment give us free school, free hospital, help the disabled and so on without collecting it through taxes?
When I hear Muscat talking about cutting from here and from there and giving the VAT back on cars I think it’s fake promises.
Dr Gonzi is doing well and I hope and pray that he keeps it up.
For Dr Muscat I say he is still a baby and needs more time to grow up.
He is still green in politics. Heard him today in parliament: he still has a long way to go, especially with the people he choose to be around him.
Joseph Muscat famously lived in ‘Brussil’. It doesn’t seem to have much impact on his way of thinking.
He’s still into scrounge politics.
Even his grasp of international relations is cast in that mould. Who can forget his reaction to revolution in North Africa?
He thought that exploiting their tourism industry was an appropriate response, with not a word said about the uprising of the masses.
A true Mintoffjan, if ever there was one, only he wears a suit and tie rather than garish checked shirts with ghastly belts with a built-in shield as a buckle.
This piece actually brought tears to my eyes. Real tears mark you.
It is better penned than any of the many current opinionists and bloggers could ever dream to write. One feels sincerity in every sentence. In every word. There is no attempt at sarcasm. She speaks truth. This woman is real. Very real.
What a great memory-refresher.
What a pity sometimes we just look at where we are and forget where we came from.
I’m a 1960 baby which means I spent most of my young days discussing politics, thugs, schools, mass meetings and colour TVs, somehow feeling I came from an inferior country with Labour PMs who were, frankly, embarrassing.
I was apologetic about being Maltese.
We used to travel and bring back Cadbury chocolate like it was gold dust. How much lower could we sink? I shudder just remembering.
Now I look at my children, aged 21 and 23, and they consider Maltese politics as we would local council politics.
They wonder with bemusement what all the fuss is about.
They are proud to be Maltese but more interested in what Obama has to say than Gonzi.
Which is probably how it should be. And that is probably the greatest gift given to the nation [and to me] by PN.
Thank you very MUCH INDEED.
Great letter. I admire this woman’s sense of self pride and self reliance – the antithesis of Mintoffian socialism.
‘to acknowledge it would mean having to face the stark fact that the Mintoff years were a disaster for Malta, that he gave them nothing and took a great deal away.’
Which is why Joseph this afternoon, and Manuel Mallia on Bondi+ this evening, resorted to 1981 as an analogy.
It may look facetious at first, but 1981 is being codified as the ascent of Fenech Adami, and Mintoff’s stepping down, those five years lumped onto KMB.
In their twisted minds, they would have us believe we’ll be led to a second 1987. No prizes for guessing what Lawrence Gonzi signifies.
It’s all about the audience. Mintoff to the Mintoffjani, Fenech Adami to the Nationalists.
I lived through those times. AST summed it up. The world used to say “Malta? Mintoff!”
I say what a horrid way for a country to be remembered.
Thank God the world forgot.
Not the Yanks they didn’t, bless their cotton socks.
Nor the Canadians, for a different reason. The more venturesome, work-oriented Maltese immigrants contributed greatly to Canada’s growth and to their own prosperity.
That’s something at least. I only ever met two kinds of American: the ones who say “Malta?” and those who say “Malta! Is Mintoff still ruling?”
Amen to all that.
If only the rabid Mintoffjani would follow this woman’s example and change their attitudes and, yes, that includes Joseph Muscat too.
Excellent epitome of Mintoff’s legacy to Labour.
‘Let him rot but in this life’
Hats off to Spiru and the woman who wrote this piece.
If anyone is in doubt about the veracity in what she writes, I suggest they have a look around them and try to count how many people in their fifties had post-secondary education. Then compare the numbers with the younger generations.
In his autobiography, Lino Spiteri recounts when Mintoff discouraged him from furthering his studies (Commonwealth Scholarship?) at Oxford University. He told him to stay here in Malta. That says a lot.
It is true that Mintoff introduced many social services (before every election) but the hard part was always funding them when GDP was so low.
It’s like buying an electric heater for €30 euro as a ‘present’ to someone, and after twenty years you claim that you kept him warm for all those years.
Prosit tassew!
Kemm insiet issemmi affarijiet is-sinjura…….
Fakkarna int, jew il-lista hi twila daqs is-sentenza tieghek?
Missieri jsejjahlu “zmien il-hruxijiet”.
Meta ingerger ghal xi cucata niftakar minn xiex ghaddejna, u Daphne taghmel sew li ma thalliniex ninsew.
@ Mintofjan, I agree. The lady in question forgot to mention that in the golden years of Mintoff’s tyranny, one needed to bribe friends in high places at Xandir Malta to put you on a waiting list in order to get a colour tv.
You then needed to pay Lm500, the equivalent of 1000 Euro to be able to buy one.
We had no choice, everyone had the same make whether you liked it or not. The same applied if you needed to have a telephone line. Some may remember the Lm1 fee required months before your application was even considered. If you complied, you might qualify for such a luxury.
Arabic became a compulsory subject in government schools, just because our salvatur wanted to please Ghaddafi.
When I had my first child in 1984, we could only buy the same ugly grey buggies. Nappies were only available in bulk; most did not have adhesive. I remember strapping them with tape.
To go abroad on holiday we needed to declare how much money was being taken out of the country. There was a quota on the importation of cars. And the list goes on….
Il-hmar taqlaghlu ghajnu jifrah.
Spot on…….should be compulsory reading for everyone in Malta and the basis for an election campaign.
I was born in 1951 so I can perfectly understand what the lady is on about. Her life experiences are quite similar to my own.
Madam, I empathise with you for having the courage to accomplish what you did notwithstanding the adversity, but mostly I salute you for having the wisdom to publish it. Whether it is read and followed up is besides the point.
I lived it and I will NEVER forget. I agree, this should be a compulsory read for everyone in Malta. It could save us from disaster. I would rather be dead than go through those times again. God help us and our beloved country.
The way I see it, the Labour Party always represented those who were not endowed with the ability to think.
They always needed someone to think on their behalf.
That is why Mintoff is regarded so highly and is still venerated by that lot. He used to mesmerise them to a point where they would have him spit in their faces and they would thank him for it.
That’s why he was allowed to ravage the country for so long.
But ever since the PN flung open the doors of education to everyone in 1987, more people have acquired the ability to think for themselves.
Election after election the PN’s voter base was made up of fewer voters coming from the ‘grass roots’ and more free-thinking voters – what we call floating voters.
That is why I believe that the Nationalists still have a fighting chance to win the next election.
The advantage that the PL is now, more then ever before, not only made up of idiots who cannot think but also run by idiots who cannot think needs to be exploited.
And this phots sends shivers down my spine – of fear.
Of course Mintofjan, “kemm insiet insemmi affarijiet is-sinjura…”
Do you want me to style out a list for you? I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I can assure you there are so many things that cannot be forgotten.
You see, what makes us different are, as the lady in question said, our expectations.
Malta today is a real paradise and I know first hand because I can compare it to other countries where I’ve lived. If you think that the years under Mintoff and KMB, especially 1977 to 1987, were not tantamount to being under a “regime”, then I think you’d need to get your facts right,
Mintoff and his close bosom friends had only one thing in mind – instilling fear, controlling Malta and the Maltese socially, promoting ignorance (because it is the bliss of many) and ruining our culture and education, coming up with those ridiculous Gensna musicals and taking over as much of the media as they could, while destroying those they couldn’t take over.
800 ‘sahhara/hadra/kerha/wish you twice what you wish me’ (and here I was thinking it was just a bus sticker) comments to your ‘Mintoff can rot in hell’ post, yet only 24 comments to the e-mail above.
Some cannot digest what was written.
Clearly. I doubt they’d even understand this woman’s very good command of the English language.
Probably most can’t understand it.
Superb post. It really makes clear how terrible a thing a ‘Lejburist’ mentality is. Thank you, author and you, Daphne for sharing this.
It is exactly how I feel – but I could never have put it so clearly.
That is why, despite mistakes made by the Nationalist administration, I can never vote Labour or not vote. I was a teenager in the terrible 80s. Sometimes I cannot believe that we actually came out of that terrible time with little bloodshed – that you Dr Eddie Fenech Adami.
I remember all the violence and wonder whether it was a terrible nightmare.
Imagine living your teenage years – our entertainment was the Sunday meeting or a protest (no free media available to spread the word), being chased by the police or thugs and being hit.
Come on people – nothing has changed – yesterday’s mob proved that. How can it have changed when the same people are still leaders in the Labout Party?
And those hideous faces, especially when you recall that the marmalja had the blessings of the Salvatur (because they are now adulating this dribbling old man) and his Alex Sceberras Trigona and was manoeuvred by Joe Debono Grech and bella compagnia… and they are still there. You can change all the colours of your façade but the essence is always the same… marmalja.
I have read this post and the comments beneath it and I always realise that we’re all scarred by what Mintoff did to our country.
I’m as old as Spiru (the commenter) and I haven’t had the “pleasure” of living in the 70’s even though my parents and so many colleagues and friends old enough to remember them make it a point to remind us (the younger ones) that the 80’s had a prelude,as it were. However, the fact remains that the 80’s were bad enough in themselves.
I remember only one thing from my childhood: fear and that my life was laced with fear. That of my family, a young otherwise-happy fear, gripped by fear. The fear that gripped me when I went to church, the fear that gripped me at school, the fear that haunted my family when labour thugs used to gather outside our home in Paola dressed in red to intimidate us, the fear that my parents felt ahead of any mass meeting (we used to go to all). The fear at Rabat, Floriana, Zejtun. Fear.
I remember sad moments too: my father suspended from work, my mother trying to make ends meet, my father’s career ruined because he had a blue next to his name, Raymond Caruana’s death. I remember going to school underground (literally in a basement in Tarxien) and craving to eat the food which was advertised on Italian TV whilst we had sawdust to eat. There was sadness in the air. The air was heavy. Perhaps, I was imagining it with the imagination of a young child, but the air was heavy. I could feel in me a sense of foreboding.
This is what Mintoff gave Malta.
But I am grateful that we lived through those years: I am grateful because now I appreciate what it means to be able to write on this blog without fear of persecution (though my writing under a nome-de-plume show that I am still haunted by a stagnant, lingering fear),to be able to work, irrespective of whether you’re red or blue, to be able to travel and, above all, to be able to say: I’m a Maltese citizen without shame or fear of ridicule.
Daphne, I think your blog has also the function of healing for so many of us, I count myself amongst them, that are scarred and still in the process of healing. Fact is that when the going is good, when the government is functioning well, I don’t even think about these things and about our history. However, when I see Labour gathering momentum, I start reliving what has happened so many years ago because the same bloody people are there and the new people are only protracting a culture which, I would have hoped, would be dead by now.
So, back to this lady’s post. She touched a very sore point in me and, I see, in so many others.
Thank you for your patience with my long posts.
You moved me to tears. All that has been said here is so, so true.
What scares me is the fact that unfortunately there are people around who think it is cool to vote Labour now (‘heq, to be different hux?’).
Others who have taken the good life they are living for granted ‘as if I give a hoot who’s in government, u mhux xorta!’.
Others say they will vote Labour because of some imaginary grudge, forgetting that they would not be living the good life they are living in the first place if Malta had remained the semi-pariah state we had become in the 80s.
My glasses are not tinted so blue that I cannot see the need for rejuvination in the Nationalist Party. There is a need for the party to pull its socks up within its structures.
However, I sincerely do believe they are still the better option, BY FAR, for these islands.
The Labour Party is trying its damnedest to portray a fresh new look, but underneath all the gloss the rot of old is there still.
As the French say, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And when I look at this photo my stomach churns.
When I read such posts, I become aware of my lack of eloquence but I am thankful that people like this lady and yourself can put across what most of us feel and cannot put into words.
your neck shoul;d be slit and fed to pigs! bastard! bitch and whore!
Mintoff gave us fear and no work.
Yesterday at the press conference following the vote in Parliament, Joseph Muscat said that the political situation today is exactly as it was in 1981.
This guy has no shame comparing yesterday’s events with the most obscene anti-democratic period in this country.
I lived through the weekly mass meetings, inhaled tear gas, served as target practice in Zejtun, not mentioning the daily fear purely because of being brought up ‘on the other side’. Unfortunately the Mintoff legacy lives on.
Daphne, can I send you a private email message please?
[Daphne – [email protected] ]
Prosit, but believe me there are worse stories than this.
There are. Just living and working in Zejtun was hell.
@ Lomax,
Your experiences are uncannily similar to those experienced by several members of one of my parent’s family. Same locality too.
They had bomb threats, people dressed in red intimidating them, decaying rabbit carcasses nailed to their door, cars vandalized.
The kids had to attended classes in basements and the older ones were denied a university education because they were educated at a private school.
The other ones got passed over when applying for jobs because of the surname they carried.
Running a private enterprise to support the family was rendered a living hell because of the continual petty haressment from government officials. The worse was a couple of octagerian relatives who had a mob of Labour thugs banging on their door to intimdate them, blaspheming and hurling disgusting insults at them behind the door of their home in Paola Square the day Run Rabbit Run was aired on state TV to signal a Labour victory in 81.
Their only fault was being Nationalist. Another octagerian relative was beaten up black and blue at Tal-Barrani and ended up in hospital with multiple fractures, on face and chest and a chewed-up nose.
Another relative who was the only breadwinner in a large family ended up sacked for allowing his subordinates to take the day off and celebrate Imnarja. Others got beaten up at the dockyard for refusing to join the GWU. There is more, so much more to relate.
Unfortunately, those of today’s generation who were not yet born then or too young to remember, assume that these are all old wives’ tales.
Over the years we were all living in a sense of false security, and led to believe that Labour had shed, once and for all, its violent and intolerant baggage, when “spontaneous” pro- Mintoff demonstrations led by the likes of Lorry Darmenia and his marmaglia were advertised on an hourly bases on State TV, 24 hours BEFORE they actually took place and God help any staunch Nationalist families living in Labour strongholds like Zejtun, Paola or anyone else who got in their way.
The sight of those old relics like AST, Debono Grech, Joe Grima, Karmeny Vella and the Mintoff woman parading last weekend on ONE TV with the blessing of Dr Muscat brought it all back.
Dom , I really hope that you will get your just desserts when you pass over to the next world.
A bill-board with the photo of Joseph Muscat and Dom Mintoff with the Maltese flag in the background should do the trick for the PN in an electoral campaign.
It should say:
Vote Joseph Muscat, Get Dom Mintoff.
‘Election after election the PN’s voter base was made up of fewer voters coming from the ‘grass roots’ and more free-thinking voters – what we call floating voters’.
This is very true, and this is where Dr. Gonzi have to be very careful in the coming election.
I am not against reconciliation which was introduced by our great ex leader Dr. Eddie Fenech Adami as he was the man who brought the peace we live in today in this country with his extraordinary political abilities.
On the other hand the reconciliation have to be just. I know many ‘grass roots’ nationalists working in various departments within the public sector and for some reason they are being deprived of their rights.
This includes promotions, and the nationalist party should look into this matter immediately. I am totally against what Franco Debono did but many times it is true that nationalists voters voice their concern of what is happening to them and this all goes on deaf ears and party representatives tells them that they cannot do anything about it.
I am also not againts that persons with Labour sympaties are promoted to certain positions within the public sector, but we have to ensure that these people are not making the Nationaists voters suffer on their place of work.
This is the cause for the PN to get lesser votes election after election.
The biggest one was when we had the MEP elections and I know many people that did not vote to give a lesson to the party. I am also told by people older then me that the PN, when in Government, always treated his voters in this manner. It is high time that action is taken before it’s too late.
I would also like to thank the author of this letter as it states all the fact. And a big thanks to Daphne for sharing it with us.
http://markanthonysammut.blogspot.com/2012/01/big-divide.html
The above piece should be translated into Maltese and made obligatory reading for every Mintoffjan around.
Prosit! What a great gal she is. Makes me proud to have a woman such as she as a citizen of malta.
I owned a stationery shop in San Gwann back in the 80s, and people with PN sympathy who worked in government offices under the Labour regime had to buy L-Orizzont on their way to work as they had to display it in full view on their desks.
While on their way back home they collected their “Nazzjon” (or “In…Taghna” as it was called back then), together with The Times Of Malta.
I had to place the newspapers in a brown bag or inside a magazine. The owners couldn’t even place the used papers in a trash can, as some of them were thoroughly scrutinized, so they used to bundle them up and find some remote place, like L-Ahrax tal-Mellieha and set them on fire.
Maybe there are others who experienced the same thing.
Crisis or not, the recent political developments have brought out some really good spoofs on the internet. Well done to whoever has the time and patience to create these videos….Have a look at this one…guaranteed to start off your weekend on the right tone….Sahha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-YonysjumM
She Is right in all aspects about what life was like in those days. I was in my late teens in the 80s and the conversation in those days was about who was the latest person to get tortured by the Mintoff clan.
There were both physical and financial types of torture available and if you were really lucky you got both.
The latest spoof. Hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-YonysjumM
I am in my sixties so I remember the Mintoff era quite well.
Does anyone remember how around Christmas time Mintoff would appear on television and give us all a present – some piece of bad news about the state of the island and measures to improve the situation?
I still remember those times and thank God that they have passed.
[Daphne – Do I just. It was usually around the time of my grandmother’s birthday on 12th December. He either had a problem with Christmas or he had a problem with December in general. Anyway, it was a problematic month for him, that’s for sure, because his determination to take action in December felt like he needed to exorcise something. I am quite sure he couldn’t get over the fact that the rental contract for the British military base ended on 31 March.]
I wanted to thank everybody for their responses today. I was reading through the hundreds of comments from the Mintoff piece late last evening and had to log off in shock and fear.
The way many people ‘think’ and react is just plain scary.
I have yet to meet a Labour supporter who can give any constructive reason to vote Labour. All I ever hear is ‘we need a change’.
I always respond, ‘A change is only positive if the other option is better’.
I tell them you wouldn’t change banks if the other bank had performed so badly in the past and showed nothing in the present to suggest they had changed.
Labour had the perfect opportunity to fill its ranks with young fresh-faced individuals and would have probably won by default.
Instead, they have kept many of the old guard in senior positions. If you have been in opposition for so many years but you still can’t offer anything fresh or even build some level of assurance and credibility then you have problems.
I truly hope that enough people will look at the problems outside Malta and see how we have escaped most of it unharmed.
Most of my friends are in the 25-35 age group. I know of people who are already actively looking at their options to leave Malta. I think this pattern will be repeated all over the island.
They simply don’t want to invest five years of their time in a Labour government in which they have no faith. And before people dismiss these friends as blinded Nationalists it just isn’t the case.
They read the Maltese press but more importantly watch and read international media. They see how things are abroad and how we should be grateful of how things are here.
We all had a laugh regarding some of the comments about the bus system but what it really showed was the small-mindedness of many people here. Greece was falling apart, affecting everyone in Europe, and we fill message boards with comments about Arriva buses and all the talk in the street is focused on changing the government.
It would be really funny if it wasn’t so serious.
The Labour Party jumped all over the ministerial pay increase but to foreigners based here they just couldn’t understand it. How do you expect to attract the best people into government if you don’t offer attractive salaries?
The ME ME ME mentality is so ingrained in people’s minds they simply don’t see the bigger picture.
The sad reality here is you have people likes the ones above, writing well written articles and comments, and sadly, just as many people who think it’s acceptable to write in capital letters shouting abuse at a journalist.
They would love to see this site go down because Daphne doesn’t agree with them. Because they can’t handle a conversation like adults, so they react like savages.
I only speak for myself but I think most people on here would have liked a brand new Labour Party. If Labour had all new candidates and a watertight electoral programme many people would have sat up and listened. Labour would for the first time have become a credible party, a credible opposition and potentially a credible government.
Sadly this is not going to happen and again it’s the Maltese people who are cheated. Labour just radiates mediocrity.
I would love for all these die-hard Labour supporters to stop all the swearing and hatred and pin-point why we should even consider voting Labour.
This election will more than likely be determined by the so-called ‘floating’ voter so convince us with clear, well thought out reasons. Your party are not able to communicate this to us so you will have to help us yourselves.
I’ll be popping a bottle of Moet when the time comes for his soul to rot in hell!
However I’ll be throwing a large party as soon as I see this man riddled with cancer and suffering, and his entire family suffering with him.
He destroyed my family. He deserves nothing better.
And to make things even worse, heaped on the human rights abuses and general oppression, we had to deal with being deprived of the most basic goods.
beautiful, just beautiful.
Where are all the Mintoffjani now? Have they crept into their own miserable holes?
[Daphne – Clearly, there have been no instructions on Facebook, because it would require reading the thing and it’s way too complicated.]
During the Dom era, one was able to read The Times and l In-Taghna in public places only at one’s risk.
And that is no joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T61Sb_kzWlQ
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120127/local/jpo-agrees.404133
The above appeared on Times online dated 18.59 pm.
How come it was in a position at the time to affirm that “speaking on Affari Taghna LATER TONIGHT, Dr Pullicino Orlando said that one had to be an ostrich with his head stuck in the sand to insist that there is stability.”
Xi HDURA U GIDEB, X’INFERN HEMM GHAL NIES BHALKOM.
Mela temmen fl-Infern, Carmel?
Jekk temmen, ghandi nghidlek li zgur hemm post rizervat ghal l-idolu tieghek Duminku Mintoff.
S’intendi ahna wkoll nisperaw li l-hniena t’Alla b’xi mod tista tiskansalu n-nirien ta l-Infern.
Every now and then I visit this site for a good laugh but most of all to confirm the virtues of what Mintoff was capable of!
I was born in the 70s, always went to state schools and eventually got my first degree from the UoM and later my masters from a very renowned British university. As a boy coming from Mintoff’s birthplace I, for sure, never encountered the ‘evil’ circumstances mentioned by some of your contributors. As mentioned by one of your elitist contributors, my family is part of that 50% of the population that got everything for free, because of Mintoff. We got an apartment facing the Valletta bastions and a huge plot for free, my father first used to work with the government, then moved to the drydocks, thanks to Lorry Sant earning more than 25K (liri maltin in the 80s!!!) a year and lately retired with a nice golden handshake. One of the many golden handshake that the super intelligent Mr Bean (aka Austin Gatt) invented. SO? So what? If may I ask, what‘s wrong about this? Today people that coincidentally are Nationalist (and think they speak English!) get direct orders worth thousands of euro and maybe some super job with a re-branded government entity called ‘Authority’ . In the 70s and 80s people that coincidentally were ‘hamalli’ or better as my wife sometimes call me ‘hemix’ used to get cosy government jobs and plots worth thousands of liri for free. So? ??!!!Some of the elitist over here, including yourself cannot stand this! I do, sometimes, understand ta!…..cause I frequent and give orders to these assholes on most of my working days! The problem is that the working class, irrelevant from where is coming from must stay under the table collecting the breadcrumbs that the ‘ super intelligent elite, two brains, three balls people, drop!
Unlike Gorg ‘il-barri’, the more you degrade and mention Mintoff the more you make a man outof him.
Beware of this, Daphne. I find no problem to say that where there is a lack of intelligence, violence may become the order of the day.
What I would recommend to some of your super intelligent elitist contributors is to book more than one appointment with a reliable dental surgeon so they can fix their broken teeth and jaws if Labour takes the helm. Bonello ‘il-Harja’ du Pesis know something about it! Excluding yourself, cause I don’t know why, got a sympathy, I would love to recall some of my past memories at the docks and witness the event!!
Thank you for putting these words together, that are so true. I hope he rots in hell, a living hell, for all the people he hurt or sent to the grave like my grandfather at a young age
According to http://www.alexa.com, your blog is now ranking 32. http://www.maltastar.com ranks 23. That should really make Byon-Jo’s day.
Sitting in the Strangers’ Gallery last Thursday I was vividly reminded that the Mintoffian generation is still part of our present or worse of our future if Muscat gets elected.
In front of me I had the likes of Joe Debono Grech, Alfred Sant, George Vella, Anglu Farrugia, Leo Brincat etc
Behind me were Labour thugs or their younger relatives who resurface out of nowhere whenever an election looms.
Brilliant post, very similar to my experience growing up under Mintoff.
I am constantly telling my son how lucky he is to have grown up under normal, free, western governments of the P.N.
Mintoff was nothing but a dictator and I shudder to think Malta could soon be governed by Joseph Muscat, a self confessed Mintoffjan.
I hope the young generation reads these blogs as it would be tragic if they fell for the P.L.’s propoganda and found out too late how right we all are in not trusting Labour.
Can I have the email address of admin here please?
Thank you.
[Daphne – [email protected] ]
DAWK kienu zminijiet tal-biza tkun fuq il-post tax-xoghol jigu ghalik il-pulizija jehduk il-kwartier ghal xejn, izommok jumejn go cella daqs sodda mahmuga kolla nemus minghajr ma ihalluk tinforma lil tal-familja.
Can someone please answer this question for me?
So why, after experiencing all this, are there thousands more Laburisti/Mintoffiani than there are of us?
I think Mintoffian brainwashing is still powerful and will remain so, unfortunately.
Please let me have your answers.
One must not forget his successor (KMB), still present and kicking, during whose time Malta witnesses the worst atrocities. I shall ever forgive these guys for the hurt they caused me and my wife to watch my daughter, then 10, cry her eyes out every morning because she cannot go to school.
For, in their wisdom, the Mintoffjan regime, decided that private schools had to be ‘jew b’xejn jew xejn’, and for more than two months my daughter had to follow classes in private homes, in secret, as if we were living in the Jewish getto of Prague during the Hitler days.
This lady has the guts to publicly declare that there is only scorn to be heaped on such tyrants. Yes, let them rot.
And JM will be none the better than them, for he’s being portrayed as the Mintoff successor by those around him.
I fully share the same sentiments , prosit .
Min jiftakar x’gara fin-1974 meta ghola z-zejt taht r-regim ta’ Mintoff?
Il-petrol ghola, fi ftit zmien, 482% min 22cents to 1.25 i/gallun liri maltin. U minftoll kien qieghed jiftahar li gab iz-zejt irhis minnghand Qaddafi.
Mur giebu illum bil prezz ta-zejt kif inhu,x’kien jaghmilna.
Lippu