Joseph is uncomfortable round the young because they remind him that he’s no longer young himself
People have been commenting on the way in which the prime minister literally lights up in the presence of young people, the way they immediately warm to him and talk to him comfortably, the very real interest he takes in their news and views, their successes and achievements.
“He’s got a way with young people,” somebody told me the other day. “No,” I said. “He hasn’t got a way with young people. It’s just that he quite obviously likes them and finds them interesting, and it shows. People respond well to being liked and found interesting.”
At the campus debate in 2008, the cameras captured a very telling expression on Lawrence Gonzi’s face as he surveyed the audience. It was, unmistakably, satisfaction. He actually looked proud of them, pleased for them: “Look at all these hundreds of young people, with their future ahead of them.”
Now people are also commenting on the way Joseph Muscat is so awkward among people in their teens and 20s. He doesn’t know how to speak to them, there seems to be a block of ice surrounding him, and the body language of all involved is that of a missionary surrounded by suspicious natives.
It’s obvious that Muscat doesn’t like young people, finds them uninteresting, and doesn’t know where to begin when trying to have a conversation.
But I’ll go beyond that. I think that one of the main reasons Muscat is visibly uncomfortable around the young is that they remind him that he isn’t young himself despite trying to make this his USP (“leader zaghzugh”).
At 39, he is a whole generation older than students, and biologically old enough to be their father. At his age, I already had a son at university.
He’s uncomfortable because he can’t relate to them as their contemporary, because he isn’t one, and he doesn’t want to relate to them as somebody their parents’ age, because he likes to pretend to himself that he isn’t.
If Joseph Muscat is bad with young people, then Manwel Mallia is catastrophic. Just look at this staged photograph from his publicity material.
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You surely cannot expect him to carry his teleprompter everywhere.
Joseph was in the same year when I was reading a degree at university and even at that time he was awkward and could not speak to his peers.
[Daphne – Actually, it occurred to me that he would have been. I went to university in my late 20s, which means that I was nine years older than the main cohort, and I am nine years older than he is. But though I remember you, I don’t remember him at all – even though I knew him through the media as one of Alfred Sant’s activists. He can’t have been very visible on campus, or particularly sociable.]
Years later we met on a flight to Brussels – I happened to be flying to Amsterdam and we shared the same row. He was already so pompous and happy of his new MEP business card. Once a loser, always a loser.
[Daphne – My thoughts exactly. The TV cameras at his mass meeting yesterday captured his expression as he surveyed the crowd at his feet: it was pure ‘revenge of the nerd’.]
Precisely. He was a big nerd in class, which perhaps explains why he is pompous with men, awkward with women and young people, and keen to avoid stopping to talk to people in groups.
I hear he was already preaching Mintoffianism when still at sixth from.
The whole lot of them are revenge of the nerds. Why else did Konrad Mizzi look so excited when his maiden speech at the Konferenza generali drew a round of applause?
If he considers Mintoff as his “nannu”, one would presume that the dinosaurs that he kept within his “moviment gdid u progressiv” are his uncles. No wonder then that he is uncomfortable among the young.
As for Manwel Mallia, let us hope that coming down those steps at university he told his young entourage that it was the PN and not the PL that opened to them the doors of the Alma Mater.
He might have been asking them where, on campus, he could find a public tap for his nanny to fill jerrry-cans from.
The one at the top of the stairs seems to be looking for one to oblige.
Nothing to do with this post, but this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21067532
shows just how strongly asthma is linked with smoking and how the smoking ban in the UK reduced asthma cases significantly – “…across wealthy and deprived neighbourhoods, in cities and in rural areas.”
ergo, power station = cancer/asthma factory, my eye.
Lawrence Gonzi oozes confidence/enthusiasm not only with the young.
[Daphne – He is particularly good with the young and you get the impression that he sees meetings with them not as part of the daily diary grind but relief from it. I don’t blame him. I, too, think young people are generally more interesting than their parents.]
Good one Daphne :)
Che sfigati che siete. What a sorry brown nosed lot.
Do you mean he is insecure and has an inferiority complex? Because one really cannot sense it that much.
[Daphne – The average man tends to be oblivious to the signals given off by others. Women often find themselves wondering whether they have to put up a neon sign sometimes: ‘The fact that I have slammed the bathroom door means that I am upset.The reason I am upset is because you haven’t noticed that I’ve dyed my hair red/shaved it off.’ And so on. It’s obvious to most women that he’s awkward around women, and it’s not cute shyness, either, which we like.]
I’m cute and shy, Daphne. So’s Baxxter.
Yes, that’s why we hang out with each other.
It’s the behaviour of a muntun.
He’ll only acknowledge anything done for him (a plate of warm food or a pair of slippers), and maybe mutter some thanks.
But he’ll greet his male friends enthusiastically.
What a tit.
Sakemm mhux qieghed iberren f’mohhu kif se jaqtalhom l-istipendju.
I think the river runs shallower here, Daphne. He just doesn’t care about people, full stop.
As far as he is concerned, they are there to help him achieve his aims, like building blocks to his personal Stairway to Heaven.
Look how he treats people around him, how callously he discarded his deputy, how standoffish he is with his wife.
It is said that you can judge a person by the way he treats not his betters (if he would acknowledge any such being) but his inferiors and those who live with him 24/7.
The king (Mintoff) is dead, long live the king (Muscat).
You’re right, Gonzi was moved by the welcome the students gave him.
The hilarious thing about Manwel Mallia is that when HE was at University (more than thirty years ago) he never dressed as casually as he did for the ‘shoot.
Joseph Muscat spent his youth in the Super One newsroom, Malta’s hdura/lanzit factory of political hate and envy.
He did not enjoy life like any other young man. He was probably obsessed about how to rise quickly to the top in his party.
This must explain further why he finds himself like a fish out of water when he is surrounded by young people.
I cannot for the life of me read women, even with a neon sign, but I can read a man’s character.
Muscat is definitely not officer class. You can tell he’s never once been challenged.
Every single fibre of him says he’s always had it good.
How, then, can he relate to us voters? How could he ever understand career frustration, job searches, loans, making do, financial worries, or even – dare I say it – sexual frustration? Life has groomed him for this.
It is said that Genghis Khan chose the smallest and weakest of his soldiers to be officers, because they would experience greater hardships than their men, and so be excellent leaders.
He went on to carve an empire that stretched from Poland to the Pacific.
We think we know better and instead choose effete, pampered prima donnas to lead our men. We couldn’t even carve a ruddy joint.
Maybe it’s because his proposals and attitude appeal more to the older generation of people who either benefited from the Golden Years or were indoctrinated to think so.
Likewise, any real youth with two brain cells wouldn’t believe in Muscat, and those who give him the light of day are just brainwashed by the older generation before them.
Of course Gonzi can look on proudly, he opened up our future. Muscat, on the other hand, can (hopefully, but I doubt it) only look guiltily upon those younger than him as he plans to make Malta their own private piece of Hell.
In his University days, Joe Muscat was indeed the nerdish type – not that he excelled in exams though.
It was also very difficult to see him with a woman (for obvious reasons). Ma tantx kien jghabbi miskin.
He also had a crush on Simone Cini during his Super One years, but she rejected him (also for obvious reasons). That also explains his reaction each time he sees her (you should also check his wife’s reaction, each time he sees Cini).
You are actually confirming what I thought but didn’t say.
It was obvious he was trying hard not to make Michelle jealous. His body language was so obvious.
Body language speaks louder than words.
He lacks self-confidence, especially amongst students.
He’s mostly at ease when addressing a bunch of overweight women long brainwashed by the Labour propaganda machine, or their equally paunchy husbands dressed in their under-vests and under-sized trousers.
But he can never be sure that his rhetoric and half-truths will not be questioned by students, so he’s out of his comfort zone around them.
Despite his pompous exterior, he probably knows that a lot of them are far more intelligent than he is, and a lot less gullible than what he’s usually surrounded with.
Dr Muscat was off-bounce with the young even in his own youth.
While the young generation was excitedly rallying for EU membership, he was fiercely campaigning against it.
We received Manuel Mallia’s flyer at home. It told us that he’s great with the elderly (which I thought suited him) and that he pays frequent visits to old people’s homes.
He also told us that it is a disgrace how Gonzipn’s government’s pharmacy was always out of stock of tablets and assured us that this will stop if he gets elected.
He also promised us that the buses will run on time if we give him our vote.
I thought it quite strange that he’ll be able to tackle such three diverse topics if he’s elected. But Manuel, dream on, my vote’s going to Simon.
One other key reason that Muscat feels uncomfortable with students is that he never interacted with us when we were at University.
For example, I never saw him (or Simone Cini) inside the students’ house, cafeteria or canteen.
Probably he thought that we were not useful to him at the time or that chatting with fellow students was a waste of time.
I only remember both of them (Joseph Muscat and Simone CIni) hanging around Evarist Bartolo and driving Evarist around.
Pilgrims gathered round the statue of Buddha.
Where is Terry Taliban when you need him?
Ha nghiduha kif inhi.
Ma taghtihx tort li jibza jew jiddejjaq jitkellem man-nies specjalment maz-zaghzagh meta jkunu fi gruppi.
Ghandu dahqa falza li tinduna biha minn 700 mitt mil il-boghod.
Joseph Muscat jahseb li id-dahqa li ghandu, jew li jipprova jaghmel fuq wiccu, hija pjacevoli, imma in-nies ma jistghux ghaliha dik id-dahqa li qisu hu biss jaf kollox u jrid jitmejjel b’kullhadd.
Imbaghad xi nghidu ghall-mod ta’ kif jitkellem, specjalment id-dijalett ta’ rahli ghax ha nkunu cari, il-kliem ma jghidux car.
M’ghandix dubju li din ta’ l-ahhar ma’ certu livell ta’ nies, specjalment ma’ studenti ta’ certu livell, ihossu hu stess li mhux qieghed f’loku.