In the last sentence of the first paragraph I meant “lesser-known villages”.

@ Who wrote this?

OK – What’s in a name? THIS is what’s in MINE:

I come from a working-class family and background. This has some Labour-leaning implications but not necessarily Mintoffian. (We had no picture of him anywhere in the house – we didn’t have many pictures anyway – a waste of wall space!) I was born and bred in one of the lesser villages in the ‘south’ of the island.

Up to WWII my father was a manual worker in the private sector after which he was engaged first as a labourer then as a fitter with one of the Government’s utility services dept. My mother came from a family of farmers. As was common in those days, both my parents came from large families.

My father lost his father when he was 21 – he died on the spot from a work accident – and as he was the eldest he assumed responsibility for maintaining ‘the family’. He married in his mid-40s after the war, my mother being some 10 yrs his junior. They had 3 (live) children. Considering their times and conditions they were just literate (i.e. could read and write simple Maltese) – enough to appreciate the value of education.

It is thanks to them (and the educational structures existing in the 60s) that I made it quite well through secondary school, and later, thanks to some of my wider circle of friends who encouraged me to continue my studies until I graduated from university (BA – Arts). Nothing spectacular these days, I know, but it was enough to give me a wider perspective of life, people and events.

In my original comment I described myself as middle class. This is in no contradiction to my working-class upbringing. I perceive my middle-class-ness in terms of culture/education and financial position vis-à-vis my parents and childhood colleagues and friends. Exposed at an early age to the events of the politico-religious question I took an early interest (albeit a superficial one) in politics. I clearly remember my father’s advice not to get carried away, “ghax hadd ma jgibulek shun” (because nobody will make your life that easy).

Still, I would be enthralled listening to his views and experiences (he was among the crowd that the young “Il-Gross” and his fellow students picked up from the port area where he worked then during the 1919 revolt/skirmishes) about the War, Hitler and Churchill, Stalin and Gandhi, Nasser and Boffa and Mintoff.

When I was at University (yes, working-class students could already make it to post-secondary and tertiary education free-of-charge during Borg Olivier’s time!) it was natural to look for fellow students with the same background and to explore new ideas (liberal and leftist) in the aftermath of the 1968 Student Unrest in Western Europe ( Cohn-Bendit, who boldly took a stand in support of Dr Borg’s nomination as EU Commissioner, was one of the ringleaders as rightly pointed out by Daphne), the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Viet-Nam War, Pinochet’s Dictatorship in Chile, the New Left movement, etc.

Although imbued with such currents and ideas, I always had an open-mind and, with a few exceptions, it rarely occurred to me that the University was the ‘nest of serpents’ and ‘enemies of the working class’ that it was bandied about to be by Mintoff and his media.

After University I was soon engaged by a government-controlled enterprise where it was rumoured that Mintoff had a direct say in our employment as he was scared of having unemployed graduates for fear of fomenting a Maltese version of the ‘Brigate Rosse’!

As I said in the original post I still supported Labour up to the 1976 elections. No, I didn’t get a government plot or flat for that – thank heavens for that and what was to come later!
In fact, after the arsonist and violent Mintoffian reaction to that election result on PN clubs, I seriously started to question my support of Labour.

This reached a climax after the 1981 perverse result. Prior to that event I had already started to publicly denounce, on an individual level, many of Mintoff’s policies: the economic performance, the handling of nationalizations, the decimation of the University, the MLP-GWU ‘marriage’, the complete obfuscation of the distinction between Party and State machinery, the utter disregard to people’s suffering due to the continuous shortages of water and electricity supplies – I had direct experience of this with 3 young children (practically babies) and no water in the tanks to wash their nappies (pre-packed nappies were a luxury if they existed at all on the baby-shop’s shelves) and clothes for days on end.

After 1981 I took my political activity to higher level by joining others in public to demonstrate and protest at the glaring injustices perpetrated during those terrible years. I made it a point not to miss one single mass meeting held anywhere in Malta.

It was at this time that I solemnly promised myself (and now I’m doing the same before you all) that I will never again vote Labour, unless the PN commits the same horrendous mistakes perpetrated during those terrible 16 years of Mintoffian (mal)administration.

Since 1987 and EFA’s premiership, when things finally started assume a semblance of normality and eventually the development into modern-day state within the European community of nations, I have resumed the low profile I normally tend to keep.

It was only with the hypocrisy and hullabaloo surrounding Dom’s funeral – he had already been ‘dead’ long before that – that all the memories and angst of the past came back to prod me to comment on this blog (or any other – I’m not a great fan of the computer).

So there you have it Joseph Carmel Chetcuti. That’s my identity, which I hope will dispel any suspicion that I might be a staunch nationalist posing as an ex-labour supporter hoping to win all-important votes for a frail PN.

I’m from Mosta and haven’t heard anyone saying this…or maybe it’s just your Labour friends who are saying it? I’m sure that if Simon Busuttil is elected, he will be, as always, loyal, honest and a gentleman.

Ahjar tghidilna x’inhuma jghidu fuq Anglu Farrugia, Sur Privitera.

Mr Privitera, do you want a polite reply to your query , or a rude one?

Oh give over, for crying out loud, Eddy Spiritiera.

Excuse me, Daphne.

XALAZOBNA, Sur Privitera.

Mintoff mexxa l-kaxxa ta’ Malta kif mexxa l-kaxxa tieghu personali. Miljuni l-bank u ghix/ghixna fil-mizerja, l-injoranza ppjanata u l-QAMEL.

Li kont minnek, immur ninheba!

Haha, what about Joseph then? He suggested that we should follow Iceland and Cyprus’ paths…and where are they now? BANKRUPT!!! Oh and by the way…Iceland is not a member of the European Union, I just thought that mentioning this to you, would save you some embarrasement