Issa sejkkolli nispjegalek il-Malti wkoll? “Rega’ lura maghna” jigifieri “ergajt tfaccajt”.

U “Yana”. First name terms, eh? Is there something we should be told? In any case, jien qatt ma allegajt xejn. Sakemm ma naqghux fil-punt ridikolu li gudizzju morali nsejhulu allegazzjoni.

Joseph Carmel Chetcuti should be happy to learn this. He now has a “monumental” figure to add to his list of characters for an updated edition of Queer Mediterranean Memories.

Does this mean that somebody caught Karm and Dom in flagrante?

It may be true that Mintoff had thought that Sant would back down in Mintoff’s high stakes “negotiation” (or “equilibrium game”) with Sant (while Sant held the country hostage to his vision of keeping Malta out of the EU, except on his “ideal” terms).

Two such strong-willed persons in opposition to each other was certainly a dramatic confrontation, when more than a yacht marina was at stake.

In my book, Alfred Sant Explained: In-Novella ta’ Malta Fil-Mediterran (2000, in English), I did not make judgments on Sant’s sanity. Sant, certainly, is highly imaginative, as his literature shows, and my caution was that for everyone’s sake Sant should have stuck to literature and stayed out of politics.

In fact, I tried to demonstrate the rationale for his tactics, especially in his use of language as a weapon. Part of my conclusion regarding Sant is that he seems to have been an idealist, who believed in the power of his will to turn his ideas into everyone’s social reality.

Sant’s problem was that he couldn’t get the real world in and out of Malta (and one Dom Mintoff) to accept his ideals, given human freedom and his own limited power conditioned by various votes – in Parliament, EU negotiations, and in successive elections.

[Daphne – Oh yes, of course. Friendship. Of course.]

Are the words of Mintoff’s acolytes always suspect, Kev?

That makes one wonder whether you featured in the scheme of things. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Maybe you just weren’t to his liking.

Baxxter, il-fatt li maghkom qatt ma kont, ma jiswiex daqs il-fatt li missejtu l-qiegh u komplejtu thaffru.

Nispera li Yana ma tpaxxikomx b’xi rapport ta’ kalunja u malafama.

Mhux ghax ma jisthoqqilkom. Wara kollox, min jallega jrid jipprova, u allegazzjonijiet hawn saru hafna…

Izda l-fantaziji ta’ hmara li tghix go vaska tal-hut qajla tista’ tehodhom bis-serjeta. Ghax dak li, intrinsikament, hu taz-zuffjett, immaginattiv u banali, ma jista’ qatt ikun malafamanti.

Indeed, one cannot exclude the possibility that Mr Mintoff was bisexual (many men are so). He legalised homosexual acts at a time when homosexuals were persecuted and prosectuted by the police. He also placed a woman with probable lesbian orientation as president.

All this must have sounded scandalous in his time, but what about today? Both parties are prostrating themselves to capture the gay vote and have placed openly gay politicians to the fore, probably to the disdain of Azzjoni Kattolika.

[Daphne – Exactly who are the Labour Party’s ‘openly gay’ politicians?]

Mr Mintoff, as usual was ahead of his times and not constrained by the clausrophobic mores of Malta of the 1950 to 60s.

Daphne, the shame that you try to elicit from your interpretation of JAM’s article is consistent with the ingrained prejudice the PN holds towards homosexuals (Malta Cattolicissima – no homo!).

The PN would not express such prejudice in public, as you do, for fear of losing votes. Hypocrites.

[Daphne – Pointing out that an article, written by a Labour politician about his relationship with a recently deceased and much mourned (apparently) former prime minister, has homo-erotic overtones does not constitute prejudice against homosexuals. For Christ’s sake, grow up. And your solution would be, what, exactly? To say nothing about the elephant in the article, so as not to be thought homophobic by the next cretin?]