Joseph’s mettocracy
In Joseph's mettocracy, anyone can get ahead without working at it, no matter who their parents are, including pensioners who left Malta 50 years ago, like Yana Mintoff.
This was my column in The Malta Independent, yesterday.
The leader of the Opposition was out on the hustings on Labour Day, rallying support for what he repeatedly called his ‘mettokrazija’.
He explained it to the crowd of people who stood at his feet.
A mettocracy, he said, is a country in which anyone can get ahead regardless of who their parents are, what their surname is, and how much money they have.
You know, like Yana Mintoff, who left Malta at 11 years old, was pensioned off in Austin, Texas 50 years later, and returned to Malta to go straight to the top of the Labour Party.
Other people get mocked for the way they speak, but Mrs Bland isn’t, because Labour is a mettocracy and it doesn’t matter what your surname is.
A mettocracy is a society, Joseph told a crowd banned from waving the traditional arma tal-partit or chanting Viva l-Labour as they usually do, in which work is not just for the privileged few but available to all.
In a mettocracy, he said, anyone can get an education no matter where they’re coming from or who they are, and use that education to better themselves.
I found that speech pretty scary, actually – scary because it served to remind me just how easy it is to manipulate the emotions of a mass of people while feeding them absolute tripe.
Muscat’s speech was written for another time and place, a time and place in which the doors of universities and colleges are closed to all but the select few, where there is mass unemployment, where young people are desperate for work and can’t find any, where graduates are waiting tables in fast-food restaurants and stacking shelves in supermarkets. A place in which homes are repossessed and people march through the streets in fear at a new regime of austerity measures.
His speech was not written for Malta in 2012 and I find it difficult to understand how it could have struck a chord with anyone but the utterly brainwashed or the totally idiotic.
I am certain that even keen Labour supporters, who can’t wait until Muscat is prime minister, would have listened to him and said to themselves: “Jobs and work? Education? Why pick on those things to complain about when they’re the Nationalist Party’s greatest successes?”
We now live in a country where the only people who aren’t working and getting ahead are those who don’t want to even if they say they do. It’s either too much hassle for them or they don’t know how to get started and can’t be fagged to find out.
When I went to get my hair cut the other day I was told that one of the popular girls, a junior hairdresser, had left. “She’s studying for A-levels with a view to starting university in October,” the boss told me. “She wants to become a teacher.”
If I were the leader of the Opposition and wanted to get my claws into this government for its shortcomings, I wouldn’t pick jobs, work and education for my weapons.
When people are polled on what they think this government’s greatest strengths are, education and work invariably come out on top. Yes, there are lots of people who are cut off from the real world and who think that Malta is in dire straits. But in their vast majority they vote Labour already.
The same qualities that have them show no interest in anything beyond their noses also inform their opinion as to which party is best suited to run the country. So Muscat really missed the mark with this one, no matter how his party media and fellow-travellers like Malta Today try to play it up.
People are not blind. They can see and feel the dissonance between what Joseph Muscat says about work, education and opportunities and what is really going on around them, if not their own direct experience – or that of their children – in these fields.
When Joseph speaks of a lack of opportunities for young people, he insults us all. One of the significant reasons I hold him in such utter and permanent contempt is because of his selfish, mad and ignorant efforts to deny my sons’ generation all that was denied to us, by barring them from EU citizenship. I have said that I will never forgive him for that, and I mean it.
I look at all those young people now, doing so many things that their parents could only dream of, and I want to grind Joseph Muscat beneath my heel. What would they have been doing now, had he got his way?
What sort of work, education and opportunities would they have had? The man is shameless.
There’s more, too. I know that Muscat is going straight for those people who will be voting for the first time – that’s how the Nationalist Party won the last general election – and that he is counting on the fact that they don’t remember him as the man who tried to keep them out of Europe. But he shouldn’t ignore the rest of us.
A large chunk of his new support comes from my contemporaries. You know, those people who are going through a major mid-life crisis of one sort or another and who project it outwards so that they don’t have to admit to themselves that they’ve created their own problems. I meet so many of them nowadays that I’ve decided it’s more fun to sit in my garden and read than to go out and bump into them.
And Labour is linked firmly in my generation’s mind with no work, no jobs and no education. We think back on Labour’s track record in those very sectors and we shudder.
The last people we would trust to create jobs and improve schools, colleges and the university are those in the Labour Party. No, not even the new ones, because they are far too influenced by the old ones, the ones we remember.
I’ve been reading a lot of what Mrs Bland has written and said, and when I heard Joseph Muscat speak on Labour Day, it occurred to me that she must have inspired those views. That speech had just the kind of detachment from reality that Yana Mintoff has: when she talks, it is as though she is talking about a different Malta, one full of deprived people who have no access to work or education, the Malta she left behind in 1962. And that is exactly what Muscat sounded like too.
There was worse to come. In my mettocracy, Muscat said, everybody will be able to find good jobs and build a better life for themselves, even people who leave school at 16.
Oh good grief, I thought to myself: there he goes, undermining the unstinting efforts of all but the worst sort of parents. We work to convince our children that they have to take A-levels and they have to go into training or to university after that, or face a lifetime of struggle with work that is unsatisfying and badly paid, then along comes Joseph and tells them that it’s OK to leave school at 16 because he will find them a job.
There are cleaning-women who hound their daughters to do their homework, go to sixth form college, get into university, so that they don’t have to do the sort of work their mothers do. And then the leader of the Opposition undoes their arguments by telling them that if they elect Labour, Labour will miraculously create a society in which those who enter the job market at 16 will find work that pays them as much as those who stay in education until they are 21 or 24. And even though they left school at 16, by the time they are in their late 20s they will have a house, a nice car, holidays every year and possibly also a dependent wife and baby, because his will be a mettocracy.
How irresponsible can Joseph Muscat get? He knows that when teenagers turn 16, they’re dying for freedom and money and the last thing they want to do is spend another five or six years studying. He knows that when 18-year-olds have just slogged through their A-levels, they want to take a gap year that becomes, possibly, a gap life, and they can’t stand the idea of going to university or college or into further training. But a responsible party leader would back up parents in telling them ‘work, train, do your best and don’t let yourself down’.
The bottom line is this: would Joseph and Michelle wish their own children to drop out of school at 16? Not from what I can gather about them. So they shouldn’t think it’s all right for other people’s children.
Muscat spoke a great deal about social mobility and how his Malta will be one which makes this possible. I almost laughed when I heard that. The past 20 years have seen nothing if not a huge explosion in social mobility.
The people with the greatest sense of entitlement and superiority complexes today would have been hauling sacks about and living 10 to a room had they been born in their parents’ generation. The flashiest, pushiest Maltese citizens today have illiterate parents who grew up sleeping five to a bed and who had grandparents who slept on straw on the earth floor of a stable.
And it wasn’t thanks to Labour, either, that they now have jobs in software or financial services and drive important cars and live in important homes. All this change happened in the last two decades. Let’s face it, Joseph and Michelle themselves are the perfect illustration of that.
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Getting ahead without working for it isn’t meritocracy. It’s inverse elitism.
Agreed, yet don’t you think that with this kind of opposition party we then should not have to worry about them being voted into power?
I agree that a large % of the population is die-hard Nationalist or Labour and will not bother to vote otherwise yet I’m sure that we should have at least 30% that can vote sensibly.
In this scenario, what are the Nationalist not doing right? Would you write 10 things you would implement if you were PM?
Well, well. Debono fits well in Muscat’s mettocra(ck)acy. At last, he found a place that suits him.
I hope Yana Mintoff wasn’t hiding any dung under that flag.
On Labour Day, celebrating the feast of St Joseph the Shirker, that other member of the Partnerxipp tal-haddiema, Tony Zarb, was also out on the hustings.
As mLataStar put it, Tony’s message was that he is the defender of precariousness.
Few would dispute that nobody is in more precarious employment at present than the prime minister.
No doubt gonZIPn rests easier at night now – safe in the knowledge that the Chubby One is looking after his best interests.
Great article. You’d do well to put this in the printed media.
[Daphne – It was my column in The Malta Independent yesterday.]
Hekk ser jghidilhom lil uliedu Muscat, biex ta’ 16 il-sena jidhlu fid-dinja tax-xoghol?
Ghadu ma ntebahx Muscat li z-zmien inbidel u m’ghadniex bhal qabel fejn hafna genituri kellhom it-tfal fuq zaqqhom u kellhom sebgha mitt sena sakemm jibdew jahdmu u jizzewgu.
Even if a student is not an A-Level standard, there is MCAST were they could develop other skills.
Assuming that the Speaker obliges next week, what could the PN then do to secure a victory at the next elections in spite of its stooges’ daggers, record in employment, peace of mind etc and save the country again?
How about we read suggestions from your readers, such as: reduce income tax rates, declare finding oil.
He wants us to be the best in Europe and yet he undermines the education system. 36% of students leaving form 5 are barely literate and yet instead of working to drastically reduce this percentage he is promising measures to increase it.
It’s scary. He is so driven by his egocentric personality that he has to be Malta’s youngest PM that he never stopped to think of all the damage he would be in a position to cause, and to make things worse there are people who are actually willing to vote for him.
Checkmate.
You write: “I look at all those young people now, doing so many things that their parents could only dream of, and I want to grind Joseph Muscat beneath my heel. What would they have been doing now, had he got his way?”
This is it! And when the bastard puts an annoying smile to cover his amorality in relation to the subject it makes me boil all over.
Then I look around and see his acolytes unruffled by how Joseph “tnejjek bihom u ghadu jitnejjek bihom” all the way about the EU, and it makes me feel even worse.
Bravo Daphne. Well said!
The Labour Party has been the nemesis of education ever since Mintoff took over. It’s been a war of we, the honest (if unlettered) workers against the educated classes who would use their education to cheat and oppress us.
If Labour wins the next election and revives its old tactics we are going to see a case of brain drain that will make the Australian emigration of the 50s and the doctor’s strike of the 70s pale in comparison.
I’ve just seen the Labour billboards guaranteeing us work and education.
Who wants Joseph’s guarantee to get work for Malta when we are practically at full employment already? What else will Joseph do for education when already we are spoilt for choice with courses, post secondary, life long learning, part time courses, MCAST, university…?
Its easy to guarantee something which is already there. Perhaps next Sunday Joseph will guarantee that under a Labour government the sun will shine during the day and the moon will be up at night.
Typical Labour reasoning….on equality….taken from di-ve.com comment board…xi dwejjaq ta nies
Comments (1)
J Farr / 4/5/2012
U ddahkux iktar nies bikom … gibtu lil Maltin fl-istat li qed nghajruhom razzisti! Razzistu huma dawk il-qabda imbarazz li qed idahhlu l-flus ta” xejn minn fuq dar dawn l-immigranti illegali. Razzist huma dawk il-ftit gakbini maltin li kuntenti jghajru lil huthom Maltin b”dan it-titlu infami. F”Malta mhawnx razzisti imma nies patrijotti li jhobbku lill-pajjizhom lil Malta u lil uliedhom u jridu jaraw li jkollhom futur sabih ghalihom u ghall-familji taghhom. Il-flus tal-ewropa ghandhom jinghataw lil Maltin u mhux lill-barranin li flok qeghdin il-habs qed jiggerrew fit-toroq taghna bla xkiel ta” xejn. Dawn la nafu humiex kriminali, la nafu humiex tiranni, la nafu kellhomx passat mahmug f”pajjizhom, u bellghuna biss il-mard li konnha qridna ghal kollox minn pajjizna. Dak li jmisshom jaraw il-gakbini maltin u l-ewropej ipokriti li ghandna. Ftakru li l-Minoranzi jridu joqghodu ghal dak li tiddeciedi l-maggoranza tal-poplu Malti. U l-poplu Malti jrid dak li hu tieghu bi dritt. u mhux jara lil Maltin jinqabzu mill-barranin anke fl-isptar li swielna l-miljuni.
Yesterday the BBC interviewed a Dutch child psychologist who lost her job because of the austerity measures in the Netherlands. She now cooks and sells soup, and yet she still agrees with those measures and just gets on with it.
Then this tosser comes along and bleats about about the state of our economy.
Tal-biki.
Good one, Daphne. There is no chance of me ever voting Labour when I remember that during my teenage years there was no Faculty of Arts at the university and that I started my degree in my 20s, guess when, in 1987.
And now, precisely at the time when my son is 16 and is in his first year at Junior College, I don’t want Labour to promise him work at 16. What kind of a job does Joseph think my son will have with only O levels to his credit.
Unless he wants him to be a kahhal and bajjad, because these are the ones that earn as much as they want. Don’t get me wrong, we need these type of people as well, but if one wants to continue in his studies he cannot get a good job at 16.
His speeches are usually delivered to the already converted, those who watch nothing else but One TV and seem apparently unable to think for themselves. We have never had it so good
“Oh good grief, I thought to myself: there he goes, undermining the unstinting efforts of all but the worst sort of parents. We work to convince our children that they have to take A-levels and they have to go into training or to university after that, or face a lifetime of struggle with work that is unsatisfying and badly paid, then along comes Joseph and tells them that it’s OK to leave school at 16 because he will find them a job.”
My thoughts exactly.
Will Labour start to eulogise ignorance again?
Why should people who leave school at 16 be mollycoddled? And how will they be given something to do, anyway?
Will he create the “Izra u rabbi again”?
I fumed when I heard he had said this because this is scary. Downright scary. Apart from all the obvious implications (creating jobs for people when they do not deserve them) does it mean that people will be given jobs?
Shouldn’t jobs be “created” because there is an actual economic need for them? I mean, he should know this.
And who will be paying for these jobs anyway? Will employers be picked upon? Will they be threatened into submission? Will they be forced to accept semi-illiterate employees?
Because, let’s face it. Nowadays, even the most school-phobic kid can go to post-secondary institutions such as MCAST where their natural inclinations can be even academically qualified and certainly not thanks to Labour.
So, why should we encourage our youngsters to drop out of school at 16?
Well, indeed, he didn’t say as much but when I was a kid, leaving school at 16 was not even remotely considered, so much so that for some time, I used to think that university naturally succeeded sixth form which naturally succeeded school in the same as, say, Form 4, succeeded Form 3, because that is the way University was considered at home.
Indeed, I was lucky to be 10 in 1987 so I could, eventually, go to univeristy. If Muscat goes on about how he will be finding jobs for people leaving school at 16, he might just as well tell them to stop studying.
You’re absolutely right when you speak about the “cleaning-women” and all the men and women who are struggling to make ends meet but who want to ensure that their children get the best possible education. It’s unfair, downright insulting, for the Leader of the Opposition to speak in that manner.
Anyway, I can go on and on. Fact remains that JM will say anything to grab a couple more votes.
Thankfully those whose heads are not simple implements to which their ears are attached will realise that, again, Muscat is desperately trying to grab all the votes he can and read through the lines that JM might, once again, embark on corps-style recruitment.
We’ll see.
“We now live in a country where the only people who aren’t working and getting ahead are those who don’t want to even if they say they do. ”
Perfect example of such a person:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120429/local/-Someone-needs-to-take-notice-of-people-like-us-.417456
I suppose he is mispronouncing mediocracy.
Daphne, you very clearly (or clearly as it is either clear or it isn’t), haven’t understood what Dr. Muscat is proposing.
When a 16 year old finishes school and wants a job, yes of course it will be provided. There will be the menial work which, let’s face it, not many 16 year olds want to do; even if I believe that the simple discipline of performing work for the actual utilitarian value of work is of value in life.
Now, we know that people respond to incentives and the actual, real incentive in his offering is that you wouldn’t want to be a cleaner (I am also a cleaner myself) and this will motivate you to study harder to eventually get a better education and contribute to the well being of your country.
Shades of Korp Tal-Pijunieri, Dirghajn il-Maltin , Bahhar u Sewwi, Id-Dejma, Tnejjek u Nejjek , Izra u Rabbi, etc…….
Le, issa:
IT corp (Window clijners)
Smart City Corp (mejntenince u woccmen)
Piano City Corp etc,etc..
Scroll through l-Orizzont of a few years ago and list Dr Muscat’s anti EU quotes. Why not set up a few billboards around the island with the more juicy ones?
[Daphne – Oh, people will only say that it’s a lady’s right to change her mind.]
Has anyone found the definition of mettocracy in any English Dictionary? I haven’t
Brilliant article once again, Daphne. Well done! I can’t see how anyone with anything between their ears can vote for Labour.
The Nationalists need to fish out video clips of Muscat’s (and his cronies) anti-EU rhetoric before we joined the EU as a reminder of how the PL were against opportunities, choice, etc.
Just read this article in last Thursday’s The Malta Independent. Excellent piece as usual but my only comment is that you did not take Joseph to task about his new “invention” of the word “mettocracy” or “mettokrazija”.
I suppose in his mind it is the opposite of “meritocracy”. The English word is nowhere to be found in 2152 pages of The New Oxford Dictionary of English and his Maltese translation is not found in Erin Seracino Inglott’s “Il-Miklem Maltl”. What do you think?