Remembrance Day: Joseph wears a poppy again and posts it on Facebook. Mela we didn’t die ghall-barrani f’gwerra ta’ haddiehor?
I have just received this message.
Dear Daphne,
I’ve been following your blog for years now and today I couldn’t resist writing to you.
Don’t you find it ironic at best and outright hypocritical at worst, that Joseph Muscat and all the wannabe ‘moviment’ politicians surrounding him have spent all weekend wearing poppies on their jackets when all of them have spent years attending to hideous representations of a Maltese so-called ‘rock opera’ and singing “mitna ghalxejn, mitna ghall-barrani”?
May I suggest you write something about this? It is unbearable on Remembrance Day to think about so many of our grandfathers who lost their lives in WW II and whose deaths have been mocked by the Labour Party for all these years as ‘useless deaths’. Now the same people are going around wearing poppies for the cameras. So hypocritical and such a valueless bunch.
For the record WW II was a global fight against an evil racist and immoral political ideology. It was OUR war as decent human beings, championed and led by the Allies because someone has to lead, but OUR war nonetheless.
The Maltese who lost their lives especially in the inner harbour area did so in OUR fight against such evil ideologies. Those deaths were not the damage inflicted by “other peoples’ wars” at all. Nor above all were they “useless” dear MLP.
Apologies for the rant but I feel strongly about this.
(name supplied)
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It’s enough to read The Times’ blaring headline that “Malta celebrates Remembrance Day” (Has since been partly corrected to “War dead remembered”).
Watching that smug, self-satisfied face abusing the memories and the sacrifices of the individuals his own party continuously mocks is just too much.
Poppies mean nothing to these tossers, beyond a PC must-have item.
They’d just as soon wear gay rainbow flags (which they have), Palestinian keffiyahs (ditto), Jewish kippas (same) or rosary beads (sigh).
True. But the rosary beads they will only wear around their hands in their coffin.
or for photo opportunities with the Pope, with twins in tow of course.
These uncouth, ‘politically incorrect’ louts will stoop to any length in order to gain power and ruin the country.
So cynical, so sad.
Thank you, Daphne, for posting it.
Labour has a habit of trying to please God and the devil.
Joseph + poppy = poppycock
I am in the UK as I write this post attending a commercial fair. At 11 this morning all stood still for 5 minutes.
Over the PA an announcement invited all to stop and remember ALL those that gave their lives so that we could enjoy our freedom. An incredible experience.
Remembrance Day is a memorial day connected with WW1, not WW2…..
In fact, it is observed on the day the WW1 ended.
Remembering members of the Commonwealth countries’ soldiers who were killed in action is not the prerogative of persons who are in favour of a strong military. Nor is it impossible to remember the soldiers even if you believe that war is awful and that the deaths were “useless” (to use the same words as above).
The above letter makes very little sense.
[Daphne – Remembrance Day is just what it is: Remembrance Day, for those who died in all the wars in which we were involved. That is why it is no longer widely known as Armistice Day, though that is the day it commemorates originally. Why do you imagine there is no separate Remembrance Day for the dead of World War II? It’s because the dead of World War II are remembered on 11 November. That’s why the Maltese ceremonies are held at the foot of monuments to the dead of World War II, as in Valletta this morning, and also in Mosta, where traffic was jammed as scouts and civil leaders held their annual pilgrimage to the monument of those Mosta residents who were victims of WWII. And the money collected from the sale of paper poppies no longer goes to the wounded and bereaved of WWI (obviously) but to the casualties of other wars. So this letter makes perfect sense in pointing out the absolute hypocrisy of a political leader who wears a poppy and talks bollocks about Remembrance Day while promoting the Gensna culture.]
It is not a day for remembering everyone who died in all wars.
It is a day to remember soldiers killed in the line of duty. At least it used to be….
[Daphne – When I say ‘everyone’ I mean just that. I tend to take it for granted.]
My point, however, had less to do with which war we are talking about and more to do with who should be allowed to mark the day. I don’t get why it is hypocritical (or at least not more hypocritical than usual from politicians of all ilks) for a PL politician to mark Remembrance Day.
Would it be less hypocritical for a PN politician to mark Remembrance Day?
[Daphne – No, because the Nationalist Party has not turned a cheesy song about fighting other people’s wars into its unofficial anthem. Do you understand Maltese? If so, listen to the song uploaded here.]
Mentioning Gensna, which I saw for the first time on One when Mintoff died, it makes no reference at all to Independence. It is the Labour Party’s habit to try and re-write history.
Probably in the future they’ll say that were it not for the PL we would not be in the EU.
Odd that they agreed with the enemy( Germany) to end the Great War on the eleventh day of the eleventh month when Germany was going through a winning streak and its borders intact. Very occultic that number eleven.
It goes also to the Vimy memorial built in France to commemorate Canadian war dead of the Great War, this is also in the shape of the number eleven.
It must have all been one great blood sacrifice to their gods.
I cannot agree more with “Remembrance Day”. I hate those lyrics: mitna ta’ xejn, mitna ghal barrani.
As if it was not our war as well. It was the war of any self-respecting citizen of the world, because, after all, we are, first and foremost, citizens of the world, members of mankind. It was, therefore, OUR war as well.
As for the poppy on JM’s lapel, well, words fail me. Needless to say, if wearing plastic turds would earn him a handful of votes, he’d make sure to be photographed wearing one. He wouldn’t give a sh**. After all, what matters when he’s about to become prattikament the “youngest” PM Malta has ever had?
Possibly his poppy is in remembrance of the fireworks deaths, to which he owes his lifestyle and swimming pool.
Such lavish lifestyle, he has a swimming pool.
Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Right, it’s official, affording a swimming pool isn’t having it good, just a basic necessity.
Very good point there. Thanks to your reader and to you for highlighting it. Real hypocrites, as all opportunists are, the whole lot of them.
Those who, in their youth, (like me) fell for Mintoff’s (and the MLP’s) lies and twisted view of history – including our own – will find it hard to come to terms with Labour’s contradictions, particularly with the shallowness of this ex-Super One journalist and his host of amateur wannabes (not to mention the hypocrisy of the ‘dinosaurs’ around him).
Whenever Labour has been in power they spelled trouble for our country and the people’s condition in general regressed to lower depths than it started from. Now they want us trust them again – simply for the sake of ‘a change’.
Excellent post.
Now add to this the remarkable fact that the EU was this year awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“The Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee singled out the “EU’s contribution for over six decades to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” ”
http://ec.europa.eu/news/eu_explained/121012_en.htm
Even about the EU, Joseph Muscat and his Malta Labour Party were wrong, and have always opposed that Malta becomes part of that union. To this day, the Labour Party remains at best eurosceptic.
Observing Remembrance Day by the Labour Party is as hypocritical as them sending off that old church-basher par eccellance Dom Mintoff to the next world with a high mass at St John’s and with rosary beads (cheap plastic ones) in hand.
Since this something of a pet subject (but a painful one), how about this:
Earlier this year, a memorial to servicemen and civilians involved in Operation Pedestal was unveiled in Valletta. Everyone was there for the ceremony, in full livery: the PM, members of the Opposition, Tonio Borg, the British High Commissioner, the Sea Cadet Corps, the works, including the Archibishop in his first public appearance since his recovery.
Of course, it was to be expected: the inscription was in Maltese only.
Most of those who died so we poor shackled colonials wouldn’t starve were British, or under British command, or at least English speakers. What that memorial says is a big ‘fuck off, we did it alone’, which is so typical of our postwar historiography.
Now all this happened under a PN-led government. True, the MLP are the pits, but the PN aren’t much better at using the symbols of statehood. They seem to be far more interested in wettaqna skema, bnejna sptar and qassamna stipendju politicking. I mean they’re still going on about how we led the fight to overthrow Gaddafi, for heaven’s sake.
Go easy, my friend. Take it from an old war horse, people the world over thump their chests when their on the winning side.
No matter their contribution.
Check that, ‘when they’re on the winning side’
Having a bad day, Baxy?
“wettaqna, qassamna, bnejna” are miles ahead of ‘elect me first and I’ll tell you my plans later’.
No, we did not lead the overthrow of Gaddafi, the Libyans did it themselves, but we did help get some 14,000 souls out of harm’s way, while the PL sat on the fence waiting to see who emerged eventual winners.
Not a bad day, just another day in bad life.
And yes, that memorial did raise eyebrows among some hated barranin at the ceremony.
Oh and on the 11th November we remember those who died fighting. Fullstop. Let’s not be French about this and dress it up as a statement against totalitarianism.
It is perfectly reasonable to criticize Labour over this. However, it is pertinent to point out that no cabinet minister seems to share the sentiment of so many commonwealth citizens who wear the poppy as a genuine tribute to those, of all nationalities, who died fighting totalitarianism.
I get the distinct impression that some senior PN people wouldn’t be seen dead wearing one. Is this anything to do with the fact that the founding fathers of their party would certainly, given the choice, have joined the wrong side in 1939?
It might also be pertinent to point out that not so long ago a senior PN official (the president, as I recall), demanded an apology of the Queen, when she was here on official business, because someone once exported a bunch of (mostly) Fascist sympathizers to bongo bongo land.
Bit tasteless don’t you think?
Love the ‘mostly’, gives me the conviction where the transcendental nature of this place lies.
Quick, a putto, get some whitewash.
Mbaghad tiskantaw bil-Mintoffjanizmu.
There’s a link between Gensna’s inherent anti-semitism and Mintoffian iconography.
Gaddafi’s cheques didn’t come free of charge, one being subversion of the language. Everything else followed.
Better not wearing a poppy than being such a double faced idiot. As if wearing a poppy wipes away the golden years when Labour tried to convince us that our forefathers died ‘for the foreigner’.
But they did not.
It is good that the PL have started to commemorate Remembrance Day.
Perhaps one day they will realise that we have to thank God for the British.
Had we been captured by the Italians and the Germans we would have been on the wrong side of the war.
We would have had Maltese dying for tyranny and not for freedom.
Perhaps one day PL will realize that 31st March was the termination of an extended agreement with the British, and nothing more. Under the PN, they would have left in 1974. Under Mintoff they left in 1979, because he extended the agreement.
And that agreement could only be extended or terminated because Malta was independent. With Independence you can decide to extend agreement with British (as Mintoff did) or you can decide to terminate agreement with Britain, as Borg Olivier did. When Malta obtained Independence in 1964, an agreement was signed with Britain for Malta to remain a base until 21st September 1974.
Yes, we must commemorate Armistice Day, as we are members of the Commonwealth – and thank God for that.
Worse than that, Mr Vassallo.
Had Malta been captured by the Axis forces the Allies would have bombarded this island to smithereens to get it back before the Invasion of Sicily. Pantelleria had been reduced to rubble during Operation Corkscrew:
“The surrender of the Italian-held islands furnished a spectacular illustration of the intense and violent force that the Allies could bring to bear upon the enemy. The reduction of the islands furnished the first proof of the power of such bombardments to induce surrender.” (Official USAAF History)
In 1979 Mintoff declared Malta Hiielsa, in 1980 he signed the defence protocol with the Italian government.
Oh well.
PL always on the wrong side of history.
What utter rubbish of a comment, Daphne ! You keep breaking previous records of shallowness of your comments, this time using Rememberance Day to attack Dr. Muscat and the PL ! After all many Maltese servicemen and common people had died !
You don’t say.
So why wasn’t your current hero at the 90th anniversary commemoration of Armistice Day, when he turned up in Valletta in the afternoon that, sporting a poppy, to lead a march ta’ kurragg against the deadly horror of utility bills?
Nothing about the fact that, during WWII, the PN was on the side of Mussolini and the Nazis?
[Daphne – No, because I don’t give a monkey’s cuss. If I had been a man in WWII, I wouldn’t have supported the PN. Nobody in my family did.]
The President was accompanied by Mrs Abela.
The Prime Minister was accompanied by Mrs Gonzi.
The Leader of the Opposition was accompanied by Joe Debono Grech.
The Opposition’s wreath was blown aside as soon as it was placed at the foot of the monument. Nature abhors a vacuum.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2012/nov/11/remembrance-day-around-world-pictures?CMP=twt_gu#/?picture=399192554&index=15
Four of the 16 photos are by Darrin Zammit Lupi for Reuters.
The PN supported the enemy and that lap-dog of Hitler and his evil ideology – Mussolini – during WWII.