Mad KMB government of 1986 update
Published:
July 26, 2012 at 8:25pm
Do you remember the story I reported on this website, about the American schoolboy who, in 1986, received a warning letter from the Maltese prime minister’s office because he was photographed for his local newspaper dressed up as a Maltese, but wearing Gaddafi-type garb? He then came to Malta, 25 years later, to find the Mario Cacciattolo from the Office of the Prime Minister (Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici at the time) who had written to him. He didn’t find him, but here in the link below, you’ll find the rather amusing update.
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http://www.gadling.com/2012/07/21/a-traveler-in-the-foreign-service-making-peace-with-malta-mari/
Another Maltese superpatriot. It’s just a goddamn rock with a flag and the power to issue passports, for flip’s sake. “We’re proud of our country.” Speak for yourself.
I am proud of my country and would be even if it was a goddamn pebble.
Had Sacha Baron Cohen been 15 years older and Kazakhstan still part of the Soviet Union, Borat would have been Maltese and would have been called Grezzju.
Like the Kazak government did a few years ago, the Maltese government would have threatened him with legal action.
This story reminds me of this other story where the Maltese exhibited a serious lack of humour: http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/140552/mcdonalds-says-sorry-to-malta-for-advert
Don’t know if you recall this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUktyBQ30mw
Thanks, Daphne. Since I published this update after Mario contacted me, I’m getting emails from people who say that the source I quoted in my original story was correct in noting that demonstrators were killed by police in Malta in the 80s.
Mario says that’s “hogwash.” I’d really like to know the truth. Did the police fire at and kill demonstrators there in the 80s?
[Daphne – Yes, the police did fire at demostrators, but though some were hit, none were killed.]
Police trained in North Korea.
A nice ending to a truly amusing and well-written story. Hope the guy returns and they meet.
We were blood brothers of Gaddafi’s regime then.
I just cannot understand why the KMB government got itself into a dither because a ‘Maltese’ boy was attired in Libyan garb.
They must have really been as mad as a box of frogs.
‘but maintained that he had “no shame or regrets for what I had written back in 1986!”
Goes to show what we’re in for should dear Joseph gets his claws on Malta’s premier’s office.
Of course, no shame or regrets for the barbaric, horrific and violent ways during his chief’s tenure at Castille.
It seems that Malta in the 80s wasn’t that bad after all, seeing that “No demonstrators were EVER killed in the streets by Maltese policemen”.
As long the killing done by the police is not on the streets and the killing on the streets is not done by the police then all is fine. Surely the government of the time should get an award of some sort for such an impeccable record.
Where was Nardu Debono killed? Where was Lino Cauchi killed? where was Wilfred Cardona killed? Where was Lino Manfre killed? Where was Mario Pavia shot?
There might have been other efforts to get rid of persons such as Pietru Pawl Busuttil who was framend and then there were rumours that someone was trying to throw him out of a window at SDt.Luke’s hospital.
There might be others of course, but these will be remembered as episodes during the Golden Years, of which the Labour Party is so proud that it does not want to talk about.
The most relevant question to be asked is who gave this boy the impression that the typical Maltese national costume was similar to the traditional Arab one.
This reminds me of the occasion when TIME magazine featured an article on Malta which spoke of “the minarets” dominating the Maltese countryside. This was before the mosque near Corradino was built.
Such misrepresentation has a more significant meaning than a hilarious one.
It is for us, and our political leaders, to give the correct image of Malta to the outside word. Even a letter from a prime minister’s office to an American teenager could be couched in terms that enhance our image.
Wrong impressions aren’t corrected by the sort of letter that Mario Cacciottolo wrote. An inability to take a joke, to see the funny side of things and to laugh at ourselves is an affliction we share with the countries from which we try to dissociate ourselves.
Sorry, I did not realise that the boy was joking and that he was not made to believe that the Maltese are Arabs.
You seem to confirm the boy’s opinion by saying that the reaction from the prime minister’s office (with which I clearly indicated that I disagree) puts us in the Arab camp.