Why Fr Joe Borg is wrong about this
How many Maltese men - though clearly not all - see the mother/son relationship
Fr Joe Borg writes, on timesofmalta.com today:
Other despicable actions
Dr Franco Debono is a public figure. His antics are in the public interest. His right to privacy is very limited indeed.
However, his mother and his girlfriend are private citizens. They have the right for their privacy as all other private citizens have. Their relationship to Dr Debono does not subtract one iota from their right to privacy.
It is despicable that there are people abusing the Internet to attack them or to ridicule them. They are not part of the story. They should be left alone and in peace.
Other despicable actions, indeed.
Fr Borg’s knowledge of English idiom might be too weak to allow him to understand that, by placing this view immediately after his opinion of Franco Debono’s behaviour, he equates what I have written – for he is referring to me – with what Franco Debono is doing.
I have noticed that Joe Borg’s academic and professional background in communications is often in conflict with his priesthood. In matters such as this, that tension is at its tightest.
He and I agree on many things but we part company on many others, one of which is what constitutes a ‘personal attack’ or even more so, a ‘despicable personal attack’.
I don’t remember him ever writing anything similar when members of my own family, who really are private citizens because I am a journalist just as Joe Borg is and not a politician paid by the state, were subjected by the Labour Party and its agents to truly despicable personal attacks, the sort derived from lies and slander.
To say that Franco Debono’s mother has been a major negative influence in his life is not a personal attack, but a statement of fact made clear by the manner in which he is psychologically fixed at Form II and still thinks of himself as a ‘tifel biezel’ (see video in previous post).
To say that it is not normal for a man of almost 40 to date the same woman for several years and drop her off at her own home every night, while returning to sleep with his parents in his childhood home, isn’t a personal attack either.
It is an opinion based on fact, about a very public figure – a politician who is paid by the state, was elected by the people, and is holding the country hostage right now – and directly relevant in discussions about his character.
Discussions about Franco Debono’s character and personality are of direct relevance to this debate because his behaviour, it has at last become clear even to the most ‘I will not see’ among us, is the result of a major personality disorder and is pathological.
Nobody, me included, has discussed Franco Debono’s girlfriend or even his mother in a personal capacity or in their own right. We do not even know what his girlfriend is called or what she looks like, nobody has seen so much as a picture of her in the media, and we couldn’t care less because, as Joe Borg says, it is not relevant to the discussion.
Mrs Debono, on the other hand, has made herself public by appearing with her son on Xarabank, at the height of the political tension in Christmas week, with his self-imposed ‘deadline’ hanging over his head, to discuss the many fascinating qualities of her son.
She rendered both him and herself ridiculous by telling the entire country how, instead of giving him a good smack on his bottom when he made a scene because he wanted to deliver the traditional child’s sermon and the priest said No, she badgered the priest to allow him to do it and arranged to have a box placed beneath the lectern so that he could reach it.
We have not discussed these two women. We have only discussed the significance of their relationship with the man who is holding Malta hostage.
Recognise the distinction, Joe – after all, you do teach communications.
I think your opinion here may have been formed by your own relationship with your mother, which you have written about a couple of times in a way that I found almost disturbing.
This is not a normal mother-adult son relationship, but one which could survive that way for decades only because, given that you are a priest, there was no other woman involved to interrupt it and to force emotional growth.
In the normal course of events, given the advent of a life partner and perhaps children, the intensity of that relationship with your mother would have dissolved over time and normalised.
In other words, Joe, what you see as the ‘sacred mother’, other people see differently.
Mothers are not sacred beings. They are women who have children either biologically or through adoption and then bring them up, hopefully to be well-rounded people.
The best mothers cut the umbilical cord themselves early on and ensure that their sons (there does not seem to be a similar problem with daughters) do not grow up to think they are sacred, because they know, often from experience, that this will hamper their ability to form a proper relationship with a life partner.
One of the saddest spectacles in Mediterranean life is the sight of men edging into old age who still think and talk in terms of a sacred relationship with the woman who gave birth to them.
This is spectacularly unhealthy and the results for married life in Malta have been, quite honestly, catastrophic. As we are seeing now, they can also be catastrophic for politics.
56 Comments Comment
Reply to rowena smith Click here to cancel reply
Fr Joe is not a woman.
Don’t expect him to note what is very obvious to most women with hands-on experience in bringing up children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdp1LS6wmac&feature=youtu.be
Franco Debono on Xarabank with the woman who made him what he is.
He thought that becoming PN leader was as simple as standing on a box to deliver a priedka reserved for the bigger and older boys.
Pruzuntuz u zatat.
The closest he got to replacing Lawrence Gonzi is on that Labour billboard.
Our Lady of Mt.Carmel – is there a subliminal message hidden there?
[Daphne – No, not really. It was just the most attractive picture I found in the 10 second available.]
Interesting coincidence, then.
[Daphne – I’m feeling a bit slow today. Please explain.]
Our Lady of Mt.Carmel is usually associated with a particular hospital with the same name.
[Daphne – Oh dear. I hadn’t even thought of that.]
I hope you’re getting enough sleep (I haven’t been getting much myself to be honest).
There’s an unusual number of typos in this article.
Your reasoning is still flawless though. Keep them coming.
[Daphne – I wrote it with one eye on the clock while 10 minutes late for a meeting. I’ll go through it again and correct it.]
I doubt whether you, as a woman, can ever understand the way men see their mother.
[Daphne – I think you forget that I have three adult sons, Silvio. And it’s not ‘men’ who see their mother in this twisted way, but the sons of Maltese/Italian/possibly other Mediterranean women who turn the men to whom they gave birth into the husband they wished for but never got, while raising them in a ‘Madonna’ culture. I have yet to meet a British, North American, French, German or Swedish man who thinks this way.]
I hereby dissociate myself from Silvio’s statement. I invite ciccio and other broad-minded fellows to join me in condemning this insinuation, which is completely false, heinous, slanderous and ultimately limp-making in a sexual sense.
I would say that Silvio’s comment was a bit silly. His logic seems to assume that men and women are different species altogether.
His statement, if true (which it is clearly not), would throw all the work in psychology out of the window.
But I wouldn’t go as far as calling it slanderous. Ignorant, yes, I would agree.
I don’t expect everybody to Associate with my way of thinking about mothers and their offsprings.
Actually it also happens in the animal world.
You find some animals who just let their offsprings fend up for themselves once born.most of whom do not survive for long.
It also happens with us human beings,and one can usually tell who these are because it leaves a mark on their character, not a good one,I’m afraid
[Daphne – Silvio, you belong to a different generation. Today’s mothers do not raise their sons to think of them as yours did, believe me. There is the world of difference between neglecting your children and turning them into psychological and emotional extensions of yourself. And not all mothers in the past were like yours, in any case. And if they didn’t recognise the need to turn their sons into men, then society did it for them. Boys emigrated alone at 16 or joined the army, or were packed off to boarding school long before that. I don’t agree with such extreme measures, but the other extreme is probably more damaging.]
@ Silvio:
“You find some animals who just let their offsprings fend up for themselves once born.most of whom do not survive for long”.
You’ll find that the opposite is actually true.
Members of species who let their offspring fend for themselves soon after they are born are precisely the kind of species whose young can survive pretty well without active supervision and care early on.
If this weren’t the case, the species would soon go extinct and there wouldn’t be any species whose members let their offspring fend for themselves soon after they are born.
Yes, I have to agree with Daphne here but don’t agree at all with your reading of this Franco debacle.
The situation in Malta is even worse than in Italy or any other Mediterranean country.
Most of the Italian mammoni, wheather they like it or not, leave their parents’ house because of their jobs or studies. Especially those coming from the South of Italy where unemployment is at its worst and they cannot do otherwise.
It is very likely that in Malta the umbilical chord is never cut, and I notice that when the children get married they tend to depend even more on the parents.
In the past it used to be said “zewweg u bewweg”, but nowadays the situation is different.
It’s the same in Spain. When I lived there, my Spanish boyfriend insisted on us renting a flat in the same block as his parents, and even though he was living with his girlfriend (me), his mother still squeezed fresh orange juice for him every day.
And whilst my best friend there (a Spanish woman) was independent enough to embark on an iaeste traineeship – which is where I met her – her older brother was living at home, working in the family business, and getting pocket money over and above his salary.
To get to know how obsessive a ‘sacred mother’ relationship can be, read Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’. I warn you, it is a seven novel saga with over a million words.
[Daphne – Miskin. Case in point. The sort of relationship where the son has to literally fight to get away and sometimes never does.]
Fr, Joe Borg should know that those with a narcissistic personality disorder do not fall from heaven.
Almost always, the root of the problem is in their upbringing and there is invariably one or both parents who were narcissist.
Fr. Borg would have been right if we were to discuss the personal life of the two women.
But Daphne aptly explained that they were mentioned in relation to their impact on Franco Debono.
ONE radio this morning saw fit to quote as HEADLINE news, what a certain second-year law student from Siggiewi had to say about the present political high jinks.
In the meantime, the usual informed sources say that the Hon.Top Sudent Debono is planning to highlight his manifold sufferings ,on all ONE tv programs, including those of Gorg tad-Doughnuts and Dacoutros’s cookery programme.
I beg to differ. As a matter of fact I think that mothers see in their offsprings the image of their husbands, the man they loved and married when young and in love.
If mothers from countries you mentioned,don’t see it this way,I pity them because they are missing a lot,and no wonder that there is quite a difference between the family unity in their countries and ours.
It is universally acknowledged that mothers are the ones who keep a family together,and this can only be done with the love that exists between mothers and children,mostly males.
I am glad,for you,that your three boys are sons of a Maltese mother,because you can count on their eternal love and respect,that you deserve.
Explain how a mother keeps her son’s marriage together without cutting the umbilical cord and then the apron strings.
@ silvio:
“As a matter of fact I think that mothers see in their offsprings the image of their husbands, the man they loved and married when young and in love”.
Clearly false in the majority of cases, and hopefully false in yours.
That would put undue pressure on the offspring and would destroy their personality which is built over time through learning and experience, since the expectations of the mother where it concerns her sons would be measured according to the attributes of their father, thus hindering (if not completely stopping) the development of their own personality.
That can’t be healthy.
“If mothers from countries you mentioned, don’t see it this way, I pity them because they are missing a lot”.
If most children from all countries have such mothers, it is them who are missing a lot. They are missing the chance to grow up as individual adults with their own personalities.
“It is universally acknowledged that mothers are the ones who keep a family together…”
It is not, and in any case, that’s a non-sequitur.
Mothers don’t have to mould children into the image of their fathers, in order to keep the family together.
To me, Mother is sacred and although I’m not a great fan of Fr Joe, in the above I agree with him.
Franco had some good ideas which would have benefitted many. Unfortunately his pride or whatever took over his intelligence and blew it and I too criticized him BUT, enough is enough – no need to attempt to destroy the person. I’m sure he had enough and hope he’ll zip his mouth very soon.
Let’s be more civil and humane and stop destroying him.
1. Define sacred.
2. Nobody is destroying Franco but Franco himself.
Fr Joe Borg would have done better to do his duty as a priest, and attempt to speak to Franco Debono. Being presumably a very religious person, perhaps Franco would listen to him.
Fr. Joe Borg has the right to his opinion, of course. But the public has the right to know about the personality of public persons.
This does not happen only in Malta.
But clearly, there has never been any intrusion in the life of Franco’s girlfriend, and she has never been identified. Nor has there been any intrusion in the life of his other close relatives, except on what has been made public, mainly on Xarabank.
As I watch this tragi-comedy unfold I cannot help to comment that ultimately everyone gets what they deserve.
You unwisely had decided a long time ago to put all your efforts behind a government that seemed incompetent at best, lost its very soul at worst. Choosing instead to deride the little elves and Joseph’s receding hairline rather then use your sharp wit to inject some sense into this arrogant lot.
You kept on reminding us of the impending doom had Joseph be elected, yet with all your anthropological mumbo jumbo you failed to see what most sensible people were seeing. A leader that was struggling with accountability and in the meantime losing credibility with well meaning voters and more importantly losing his backbench’s respect.
You, on the other hand, kept on reminding us that this ‘worse’ was far ‘better’ then what we’ll get with Joseph Muscat. The Nationalists have relied on this reasoning for far too long, aided by people like yourself and Lou Bondi.
You are responsible for giving the Nationalists a false sense of security that gave them a licence to ignore accountability, fairness, sound judgment and enter into a sense of paranoia that annihilated all sorts of criticism.
I will not enter into the merits of Franco Debono’s theatrics. You seemed to have figured it all out and correlated his actions with his upbringing, relationships, student days and childish jealousies.
I think Franco merely quickened what was to be expected from this current Nationalist administration. An implosion of cataclysmic proportions, the same witnessed when Eddie took over from Gorg Borg Olivier, a move that wiped out the old and brought in the new.
Incidentally I honestly think that the Nationalists will come out stronger eventually, unlike Labour, who did not go through this process of implosion but merely patched things up for the short-term.
You also seemed to have entered into a frenzied state (persuading yourself?) that what this government is going through is only due to a mentally instable backbencher. Again you’re wrong, and once again you’re sending the wrong message to a Nationalist Party that desperately needs to do some serious soul searching to regain the respect it has lost from its backbench and well meaning voters.
I rest my case by concluding that my criticism on this administration has been consistent throughout these 4 years. I have been called on this blog a Labour elf, even a person who writes the way I do because of some ungranted favour.
I honestly hope that once Dr Gonzi and his clique has irresponsibly, through their actions (and inactions), shoved upon us an early election and Joseph Muscat as prime minister for the next 5 years, they will have the decency to bow out completely together with the myriad of pseudo consultants and advisors and let the once great Nationalist Party heal and regroup with new blood.
[Daphne – Jean, you’ve been popping in here to whine in this vein for months. What is your particular problem, exactly? I moved from Sliema to get away from this kind of thing. Is the clue in your final sentence?]
Only one word came to mind when I read this post – rubbish.
Same thoughts.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=297038237015855&set=a.244765018909844.73277.244753448911001&type=1&theater
‘Ne’ puttane ne’ Madonne, ma solamente donne’
When religion is used as the weapon of choice to affirm convention and consign roles to both genders, it causes the confusion we’re seeing.
Franco’s language on TV is just a mild version of the tantrums he throws at his mother’s, who obviously won’t find fault with her son.
Perhaps the PM unwittingly ended up the Laius in all this.
I lost my mother when I was the eldest of four children and I was 13 years old.
This did not stop anyone of us from achieving a modicum of success in later life and I can honestly say that this loss of our mother was a cloud with a silver lining.
My son attended a college in Italy and the form master once told my wife and me that our son was the only non-mammone in the whole college; that made our day.
He came first in “la maturita” examination for that year in his school.
He is a dentist in Milan and has 3 degrees, one of them from “Il Bocconi”. His high achievements would not have been possible if we had kept him under our wings.
Even if Debono was offered the post of Minister for Justice, it would not have satisfied his ambition to outshine Joseph Muscat and make it into the history books. On the other hand, imagine a class of Form II students some 50 years down the road:
Teacher: “Who brought down his government in 2012?” … “Yes Franco”
Franco: “My grandfather, sir”.
That’s unlikely. He’d have to have sex first.
Somewhere there is talk about having a coalition government – PN/PL until the elections in 2013. What do you and others think about this? Interesting to know.
[Daphne – A coalition government between the only two parties in parliament? Not Constitutionally possible for the obvious reason that there would be no Opposition.]
It is clear you have studied anthropology – which seems to me a “science” based on Scottish Illuminism. Your comments are all directed against amoral familialism.
[Daphne – I read anthropology for a mere two years many years ago, and remember little of it at this stage. These are just my observations.]
Franco Debono is what the Italians call a mammone.
Maybe that is why he wants to go to Italy.
The mammones are those men in their 30s and even 40s who continue to live with their ageing parents to save on utilities and have their laundry and meals seen to.
http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Police-security-outside-Franco-Debono-s-residence-20120110
[Daphne – Now let’s wait for the Malta Today crowd to bang on about the waste of public money, as they did when I had police security at my gate for months.]
X’faqar ta’ dibattitu! Let me help you out.
Here’s introducing some sense to a forsaken Lilliputian blog-on-a-rock as foretold in April 2002: http://youtu.be/zGDisyWkIBM
And here’s why common sense is reaching Europe via America: http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/303840/paul-makes-sense
It is not a Ron Paul presidency that will cause the laggards to wake up, but his message of freedom, peace and prosperity.
Even Smiley Chris knows this – http://youtu.be/IEd7F5wBrqI
Some day it will be your turn to wake up.
One small point, I dont agree that ‘there does not seem to be a similar problem with daughters”.
I think that the relationship between mother and daughter is different but could still be as problematic as that between mother and son, only in the latter case it is more pronounced and looks bad too.
My latest brainwave:
A way out of this impasse and a sure way of winning the next election.
ASK EDDIE TO REPLACE GONZI UNTIL IT”S TIME TO GO FOR THE NEXT ELECTION IN 2013.
[Daphne – Don’t call us, we’ll call you.]
Er, how about Franco Debono gets kicked out of parliament, Simon Busuttil is co-opted instead of him, Gonzi resigns as party leader (but not PM), Simon Busuttil becomes party leader and we go to the polls, with Gonzi pledging to step down after three months. If PN wins, Simon Busuttil becomes PM.
Then comes the hard job of forming a cabinet out of this mass of vulgar talentless wannabes.
[Daphne – The catch: you can’t kick people out of parliament.]
Why I think my idea can work.
Dr. Gonzi has stated on t.vg. that he would be willing to step down, if this is good for the country.
Dr. Franco said he will not support the government as long it is still run by Dr.Gonzi.
Dr. Gonzi has already suggested a place for himself in parliament. He has asked Dr.A. Gatt to give up his ministry.
There will no longer be the need for a vote of confidence.
.
Gonzi has already challenged Dr. Debono to stick to his word of not supporting the government only as long as Gonzi is P.M.
Dr. Fenech Adami is capable of bringing back into the party, the large amount of dissgruntled supporters.P.N.
Dr. Gonzi can keep on doing what he is doing now.
So you see it is not just a matter of “Don’t call us we’ll call you”.
[Daphne – It’s a terrible idea and a non-starter, but going into the reasons why would wipe me out at this point.]
I know. I wanted to reply to an absurd suggestion (Fenech Adami replaces Gonzi) with a slightly less absurd but still impossible suggestion (kick an MP out of parliament).
A picture of Jesus and His mother doesn’t really illustrate the point because He did not worship His mother.
Jesus left home.
[Daphne – I don’t mean that bit, Pat, but the bit where they think their mothers are sacred virgins. Anyway, the real Jesus almost certainly didn’t think of his mother that way.]
He gave His mission priority even though its fulfillment caused his mother pain comparable to a dagger driven into her heart.
He never tried to halt the progress of his torture by begging people to consider His mother’s feelings.
It is unhealthy when men will do anything to avoid causing their mothers this sort of pain.
The problem is that some mothers react with wailing and gnashing of teeth and threats of their imminent death at any suggestion that their son emigrates, or works abroad, or buys a motorcycle, or dates the wrong woman and on and on.
Not all men are resistant to emotional blackmail.
As for the fact that Franco Debono drops his girlfriend off at her home and goes back to sleep at his: practising Catholics are expected to remain virgin until marriage, or at least appear to be so.
On top of that a man holding a public position can’t afford to co-habit before marriage, especially coming from the sort of conservative village background he does.
Cyrus Engerer, for instance, could afford to indulge in gay shenanigans because he is from Sliema. If he had been from a village in the south he’d have had to tiptoe out of the closet in a most circumspect manner.
“Cyrus Engerer, for instance, could afford to indulge in gay shenanigans because he is from Sliema. If he had been from a village in the south he’d have had to tiptoe out of the closet in a most circumspect manner.”
How wrong you are, Pat Zahra.
You have made a blatant generalization: there are gay couples everywhere in Malta, including Zejtun. The difference is that we do not have any Cyruses.
@A.Charles
Read it again. I said he’d have come out of the closet (ergo that there are gays who have come out in conservative villages) but that he’d have been circumspect (in other words he would not have dared to spread naked pictures of his ex).
@ Daphne. You’re right. I looked up my notes on the tradition of courtly love and there it is.
Il-priedka tat-tifel, il-lejla, esklussivament fuq Bondi+.
Do not confuse emotional growth with respect.
I respect what my mother and father did to instil good values and, as a grown man, can also understand the choices that they took for me early on in life; some were right, others not.
Franco Debono is, as I am sure you know, on Bondi+. H
e is behaving like a 7-year old.
Ara fiex waqajna!
It is incredible that it is this childish lunatic is threatening the PM. Issa qal irid ikun stmat ta’ li hu hej, il-boy.
So let’s treat him as the traitor he is, shall we?
I am a man and I see it exactly the way Daphne sees it.
I love my mother with all my heart, but now I am a married man, and so my wife is now the main woman in my life.
I thank my mother for the way she formed me and my siblings during our childhood. She did not spoil us and thanks to her I am not a mummy’s boy Franco Debono style.
Yes, I agree – parents, especially mothers, have a huge say in the way children grow up to be men and women in life.
Nice one although Fr Joe would have been more appropriate if you ask me.
[Daphne – Why? When I write about Franco Debono, I don’t repeatedly write Dr Franco Debono, or for that matter, Dr Franco. In any case, if I considered it appropriate to use the honorific, then it would be Fr Borg and not Fr Joe.]
Amazing.
I never thought I would see the day when Daphne said that mens’ problems are caused by women, who, let me point out, are the only people entrusted with motherhood!
Oh dear.
[Daphne – Some men, Christopher, and some women. Also, I’ve noticed that the new generation of adult men, those in their 20s, are nothing like that and do not think of their mother as the Virgin Mary or their relationship with her as sacred. So I’d assume that my generation of mothers have been a lot different in our approach to upbringing, or maybe it’s just that we led very different lives and never felt the need to turn our sons into substitute husbands or play the martyr.]
Talking about mothers, kids, upbringing and character.
Do you know whether Franco has any brothers or sisters?
[Daphne – Yes, he has a brother. He is not an only son, despite the impression created to the contrary.]
A brother? So he cannot be Jesus. God must resign.
Jesus did have brothers.
Take a look at what bigot Joe Borg is writing:
“The contrast between the attitudes of Catholics and non-Catholics on this topic is enormous. The starting point for Catholics is the due respect for the dignity of these persons who come to our shores in the direst of situations. The first question that comes to mind is: How can we help them?…”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120116/blogs/respect-their-dignity.402549