An open letter to Kenneth Zammit Tabona
Dear Kenneth,
This letter is written in the spirit of good will. But it has to be public, because your column in The Times today is public, and so is the Super One television footage of you at a Labour LGBT event, saying how brave the Labour Party was to decriminalise homosexuality in the repressive social atmosphere of the early 1970s.
It was brave, you wrote, the act was significant and momentous, but…you didn’t notice it at the time and have only just found out.
For a start, the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s was anything but repressive. It might have become repressive later, but it certainly wasn’t so then. With Malta a base for the US Sixth Fleet, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and thousands of British troops, it couldn’t have been.
And it wasn’t. Grand Harbour was thickly lined all the way around with rent boys of all descriptions. You might not remember them but even I, as a child and a decade your junior, noticed. Valletta’s rent boys certainly didn’t stick to Strait Street. They came out during the day to do the shopping, and I, aged around six and shopping with my grandmother, wanted to know why that man over there was wearing butterfly-decorated hot-pants just like mine. Except, of course, that I wore mine with tights.
Malta repressive in the 1960s and early 1970s? Malta was wild. All you have to do is check out the scene today on the rare occasions when an aircraft carrier comes in and hundreds of heterosexual women and homosexual men flock to the bars to pick up a sailor. Back then, it was like that every day, several times over.
How can you have forgotten the drunken brawls, the fights, the stabbings, the murdered prostitutes, the parades of rent boys and child whores and tarts old and new? Or did you never see them or notice what they were?
Malta, repressive? Those were the years when the Maltese controlled the sex trade in London’s Soho, and they only did so because it was a natural extension of what they did here already in Malta.
It required no bravery or courage to decriminalise sodomy in the early 1970s. By then, the law was what is known as a dead letter. It hadn’t been used for generations. The thought of using it was absurd. The rent-boys who lined Grand Harbour and Marsamxetto Creek might have got done for loitering with intent, but they certainly didn’t get done for sodomy.
And no, “pretty policemen” were not used as honey-traps for lurking homosexual men. Who on earth told you that? One of your new LGBT Labour friends with half a brain? At least stop and think about how it couldn’t have been possible, how it couldn’t have worked.
Are you suggesting here that the “pretty policemen” in question first allowed a stranger to sodomise them, and then read out the bill of rights before snapping on the handcuffs? Making a pass at another man was never against the law.
And that’s another thing. You know, because you are markedly better educated than the people around you at LGBT Labour events, that homosexuality was NEVER illegal in Malta. So why are you being deliberately disingenuous in repeating the Labour lie that it was?
It was the physical act of sodomy, not the state of homosexuality, which was illegal in Malta just as it was practically the world over at the time. And sodomy, as you should know, involves men and women as well as men and men, but it doesn’t involve women and women.
How do lesbians factor into a law against sodomy? They obviously do not, because there are no men involved. For sodomy, there has to be at least one man. So what are you and the Labour Party saying here – that male homosexuality was illegal but it was quite all right to be a lesbian?
So even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps you are using ‘homosexuality’ as a cipher for ‘homosexual sex acts’, you are wrong. Unless, of course, you assume that all homosexuals are men and this being Malta we can pretend that women don’t count especially if they are gay.
It was always legal to be homosexual, Kenneth, in Malta as everywhere else. How could it be illegal? Please distinguish between sexual acts and states of being. It is perfectly possible for a man who is not homosexual to have sex with another man who is. Rent boys do it all the time.
A certain kind of sex act was illegal between two men – sodomy – but it was equally illegal between a man and a woman. When you hold up the case of Oscar Wilde, as you did in your column today, you should also remember that the reason Lord Byron had to leave England was that his wife accused him of doing exactly the same thing to her. It was as illegal to sodomise a woman as it was to sodomise a man, even if that woman was your wife.
Ah, and that reminds me of something else: illegal is as illegal does. The reality is that this was one of those laws under which the police could not prosecute ex officio. This means that they couldn’t break down a bedroom door, find two men in bed engaged in that particular act of sex, and arrest them both.
They could only prosecute on the basis of a complaint from an involved party: a ‘kwerela’. And that’s why nobody, as far as anyone can remember, was prosecuted for sodomy in Malta in the 20th century, and perhaps even the latter half of the 19th: nobody went to the police complaining that somebody had sodomised them.
Isn’t this obvious? If you were a willing participant in the act, then you were not going to the police to report the person you did it with. And if you were NOT a willing participant, then it was rape, a criminal act in itself, and the sodomy was incidental.
Perhaps you do not know that it was perfectly legal for men to rape their wives in Malta until just a few years ago. If Maltese women were raped by their husbands through the normal channel, they couldn’t report it because it wasn’t a crime. But if they were raped via the other route, then it was a crime and they could report it.
Mintoff might now be your hero for repealing the ancient and dead sodomy law in the early 1970s. What you don’t know is that he didn’t do anything to make the rape of women by their husbands a criminal act, which he should have done. Hardly the behaviour of a champion of liberal values.
Perhaps you notice the problem here. With Mintoff’s decriminalisation of sodomy, it became legal overnight for men to rape their wives not just by the normal route but by the back passage too. And if you think that didn’t happen, you really have no idea of the squalid and miserable lives countless thousands of Maltese women lived in an age and a state of ignorance where sodomy was considered the most efficacious form of contraception. We are still seeing the fall-out of that brutalisation today.
You say in your column, Kenneth, that you were misinformed back then. I am afraid that you are as misinformed now. Homosexuality is not sodomy. Sodomy is not homosexuality. Not all homosexuals have the apparatus to sodomise others, because roughly 50 per cent are women. Men are as inclined to sodomise women as they are to sodomise men. The law did not deal with sexuality but only with a single physical act.
I hope you will take this in good part. You should have known better. Perhaps you now do.
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You may be right but you have to give it to them, Labour have played the LGBT (sorry) card really well. Add to that the Muslim card by the way. They did this by positioning two key people, Cyrus Engerer and Mario Farrugia-Borg, as brokers.
[Daphne – I’m afraid I don’t agree. With the notable exception of Kenneth Zammit Tabona and a few others, Labour’s playing of the LGBT card hasn’t actually shifted the vote among homosexuals. I don’t know any who have decided to vote Labour on that basis, and I actually know some who are determined to vote PN this time in a way they were not in 2008, purely because they dislike Muscat even more than they did Sant. Many of those gay men (they’re louder than the women) shouting about their support for Labour were always Labour – they come from working-class families or families of ‘Sliema Mintoffjani’ and that’s how they were raised. It’s just that saying you were going to vote for Sant or for KMB was embarrassing, but apparently it’s not embarrassing to say you are going to vote for Muscat even though he is just such a disaster. The problem here is that working-class gay Labour men are louder than your standard middle-class gay PN man (or gay PN woman), so you think there are more of them. But when I tot up all the homosexual men and women of my acquaintance, they’re all still anti-Labour. That’s because I don’t move in the Labour gay fashpack crowd, so they’re different sorts of people.]
I agree with most of what you said about Sliema Mintoffjani and so on. I’m also happy to take your word for it that the homosexuals of your acquaintance are still anti-Labour.
But there are three problems.
First, that still leaves the Muslim vote (how I hate this communalism); please take it from me that Labour has made very substantial inroads there.
[Daphne – I don’t know anything about the Muslim vote. What sort of people are we talking about here – people who obtained the vote along with citizenship? Converts from Catholicism (Maltese)? Maltese converts married to Muslim immigrants? I think you might be looking at people who would have been Labour anyway.]
Second, ‘Kenneth Zammit Tabona and a few others’ are not insignificant – it only takes ‘a few others’ here and there to win an election.
[Daphne – Yes, I agree with you. But it’s always like that, and if it’s not one group it’s another. In 2008, you had a huge chunk of people who didn’t vote. Now, Malta Today is getting excited because most of them are ‘going to Labour’. Going to Labour? Isn’t it obvious that much of the 2008 people who didn’t vote were long-time Labour supporters who didn’t want to vote for Sant again, and who couldn’t bring themselves to vote PN? New leader, and they’re back. The Nationalist Party has ALWAYS been the minority party. I never forget that. It always requires an enormous feat to win an election, and this no matter its quality and performance.]
Third, my work sort of gives me a glimpse into the Eurovision-loving gay crowd. They’re by no means all from staunchly-Labour families and yet LGBT Labour has struck a chord with them.
[Daphne – Don’t be too sure about that ‘not being from a staunchly Labour background’. You really would be surprised. It’s very easy to be a chameleon in today’s Malta.]
The PN has done the decent thing and insisted on relating to people as citizens rather than gays, Muslims, or whatever. But, in the climate of the times, that may well be not quite good enough.
True, the chameleons are thriving – and getting on my nerves in the process.
I also quite agree that the Nationalist Party has always been the minority party. And yes, much – but not all – of the Muslim vote would have gone to Labour regardless.
What that means is that Labour are taking back what’s properly theirs (in this case the homosexual and Muslim votes specifically, by fairly crafty if cynical means). But wasn’t that the point?
Whether or not the people who will vote Labour on March 9 have red pedigrees, the point is many of them voted elsewhere in 1998, 2003, and 2008.
[Daphne – But we always knew that, Mark. They voted elsewhere in 1992, too, because the party was led by KMB. They voted elsewhere in 1998 because Sant turned out to be so lousy after they voted for him in 1996. They didn’t vote at all in 2008 because Sant was still there. They voted PN in 2003 only because they wanted an EU passport. All it took was a leader who wasn’t KMB or Sant the failure. It even took Sant himself in 1996, and he was a freaky personality and one who wore a wig, what’s more. Look how they rushed to vote Labour in 1996 – it was amazing. New leader in a suit who looked sort of normal (even though he was anything but) and zoom, off they go. And this after just nine years of normal life under the PN. Malta has a natural Labour majority, or rather, a natural anti-PN majority. At every election the Nationalist Party has to fight hard to win, despite being by far the better option, to the point where there is no comparison. I’m not going into the reasons why this might be, but I rather suspect they’re historic.]
My work gives me a glimpse into the culture-and-arts crowd. Like Mark here, I can say that Labour has struck a chord with them. Especially through Owen Bonnici.
In its quest for the average citizen’s vote, PN has forgotten the key opinion leaders.
Re your last comment, Daphne, I firmly believe that this time around, having a ‘new’ leader alone is enough to propel Labour into power.
[Daphne – That’s just what I said.]
This aside from pie-in-the-sky power stations or any of the other nonsense that Joseph is vomiting (or reading from the prompter) from his height-enhancing podium at every opportunity or convenient street corner.
For Pete’s sake, they almost got back in with the ‘tried, tested and failed’ serial loser, Alfred Sant at the helm just 5 years ago, said gentleman having been giving a campaign-long drubbing by the super-slick GonziPN machine.
For me, Labour really cannot fail to be elected in on 09/03. What happens after that relies greatly on ‘what lies within’, I think.
I can see huge internal turmoil on their new, pale blue horizon. There’s way too much baggage hanging over Joey’s shoulders, and he will have a very hard time getting his own way in the Jurassic Park at Mile End.
The Muslim vote? You mean the Imam who united with the Church against same sex marriage is going to vote for the “Liberal” Labour?
Probably the “gay” thing isn’t directly related to “gay” per se – but the major faux pas when the PN came out against divorce, with the result that it is being viewed as a religiously conservative party, very likely to be anti any “progressive” policies which the gay community strive for.
“Hu il fama u mur orqod…?” not sure if I got this right but you get the drift.
So Kenneth Zammit Tabona is Labour then? I think I can spot the next chair of the Valletta 2018 Foundation.
Heaven forfend. It’d be Zadok the Priest all the way.
Well, that’s for your Classic FM culture afficionados.
Daphne, you are so right. It’s the same where I work. Only the ones supporting Labour are so loud about it and all over Facebook. And yes, they are males.
Well Daphne I am ex-nationalist, I’m gay and I’m voting labour because of this issue.
[Daphne – Get your IQ checked. You’ve got your priorities in a real twist and your analytical skills are rubbish. I hope you’re not in any job that involves numbers. Is this the voting version of man flu? You know – the way men lie in bed for a week on the point of death when they have a cold, while women carry on with a fever of 102. I’d like to have seen you guys contending with the unbelievable discrimination married women endured right up until 1993, the way you’re making such a fuss about…what, exactly? I don’t even know. From where I’m standing, gay men were always more privileged than women because they’re men, and now everybody’s equal. Except that you want to be able to enter into a civil union with somebody of the same gender: well, both political parties are promising you that. So you might as well vote for the one that isn’t going to f**k the economy over. But don’t expect any common sense from me: I’m just a woman who, until 20 years ago, had far fewer rights than you did.]
Daphne there’s no need that my IQ need to be checked. And I don’t work with numbers but with brains, thought etc. This is not a fuss all what we want is to be inclusive in our society like all other citizens not second class ones.
[Daphne – How is a gay man a second-class citizen? An openly gay man very conspicuously heads the Manoel Theatre after being handpicked to do so (see above). Until he decided to leave of his own accord to go and live with his boyfriend in Germany, an openly gay man was handpicked to head one of Malta’s most important state organisations, Malta Enterprise, and hosted events accompanied by his boyfriend. Openly gay men have been repeatedly and routinely picked to represent Malta as ambassadors in some of the most important postings. I could go on, but I won’t bother. It is unbelievable that you see discrimination where actually, privilege exists.]
Like every citizen we pay taxes, bills, we have our duties etc. How does it feel when my partner and I bought our house and because of the loan we had to pass from a whole scrutiny, health check ups and more?
[Daphne – You CANNOT be serious. Don’t you know that everyone has to go through this? No bank will give anyone a loan without papers certifying that person’s state of health, because you can’t get a loan without life insurance to cover it, and you can’t get life insurance without a health check. If you were a STRAIGHT man in late middle-age, the health checks would be even more acute because of the risk of cardiac arrest or stroke. If you really do ‘work with brains’ then at this stage I’d be seriously worried. ]
Or if my partner and I after spending our whole life together, taking care of one another so come and so forth, if I’m laying on my death bed, my partner won’t let him in or giving him any information? what we want is to be treated like straight people.
[Daphne – This is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE. What utter bollocks. Try finding things out for yourself before you repeat the lies you hear from other embarrassingly silly people. You see – this is what happens when you mix only with others like you, read nothing, and never bother to inform yourself. You end up basing a serious decision on the equivalent of fishmonger gossip. NOBODY can stop anyone sitting near their lover’s deathbed in hospital. And nobody will. How can you honestly believe that? There are STRAIGHT PEOPLE who have lived together for years without any intention of getting married (because they can’t be bothered) who would never even consider getting married for such a stupidly spurious and false reason – quite simply because, not being subject to the lies of a lobby with ulterior motives, they know it’s not true. Imagine the scenario: “We’d better get married, darling, because you know, if I get run over by a bus and end up in intensive care, you won’t be allowed in to see me.” How sad is that. I’ve been to see friends in intensive care.]
I’m not relying on gossiping and not repeating any lies I experienced this that I couldn’t sit near my lover’s deathbed
[Daphne – Oh your lover died, did he? That really has the ring of truth about it. If you weren’t allowed in, then that would have been because he left instructions for you not to be allowed in. Only the patient can do that, not the hospital authorities. There is no situation in which a patient would say ‘I would like my lover to come in and see me’ and the staff nurse says ‘No, because you’re not married.’ Grow up, please do. Oh, and incidentally, marriage is no licence for anything in these situations. If your husband is lying on his deathbed and doesn’t wish to see you, he can leave instructions for you to be kept out and you will be kept out, wedding ring or not.]
My partner wished to see me but because we were singles I had no right to do so as I was asked if I was a relative or not.
[Daphne – Bollocks. You’re a liar, sorry. That’s not how things are done and I know this for a fact. Even common sense, if you had any, would tell you that patients (especially patients on their deathbed, as you claim) are never refused a request to see somebody they want to see. Maybe that’s what he told you. He told the nurse ‘Keep that pest out’ and then told you ‘oh, they didn’t allow me to bring you in because we’re not married’. But then, of course, you’re lying. Deathbed, my eye. And use your head, for heaven’s sake. Do you honestly imagine that real people in the real world actually get married so as to have a licence to visit their spouse’s deathbed in hospital? Unbelievable.]
What privileges do gay couples obtain? None. Homosexuality is legal in Malta, but same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples.
[Daphne – Your reasoning is addled. Those rights do not derive from sexuality or coupledom. They derive from marital status. A married couple who haven’t had any kind of sentimental, sexual or even spoken relationship with each for years still have those rights, even though they are in effect not a couple. Also, neither political party is promising you marriage. Both political parties are promising the same thing – civil unions. The status of a civil union is not the same as that of marriage. See the current debate in Britain. Inform yourself before you speak. This is not a value judgement. I am merely laying out the facts before you.]
No worries if you called me a lair but these are the facts. And I was more than a lover, his soul mate etc rather than a pest.
[Daphne – Well yes, lots of women think that even after their husband walks out and spends 10 years living with another woman. But there you go. And I called you a liar, not a lair. Try this, why don’t you: actually go to Mater Dei Hospital right now and ask whether you will be allowed in to see your lover should be be taken ill. They will look at you as though you are crazy. A couple of years ago, I visited a FRIEND who was on his deathbed at Sir Paul Boffa hospital. Nobody even asked me who I was or what I was doing there.]
If you want to get sodomised, vote Labour.
“If you want to get sodomized, vote Labour.” a nonsense quote, a childish thought. As for the same argument if you want to f**k every woman you want to, vote PN. This doesn’t mean that the gay community will be more liberal.
[Daphne – Don’t be idiotic. ‘I’ll be buggered’ has a very specific meaning. It has nothing to do with actually wanting to be buggered, or anything to do with homosexuality, but the reverse. Surely you know that.]
*Shakes head*
Isn’t Ray Calleja the owner or one of those running the Mona Lisa restaurant where the event was held?
No Ray Calleja is an employee of Il ONU. He is the manager at Monaliza.
So basically if MLP win the elections, the gay community will be able to go to their representative in parliament or FB to discuss and discuss and discuss their needs. What is the advantage?
If people vote PN they will also get their gay representation, as PN have a number of gay people, and openly gay people, in their ranks already.
And no, I do not believe that people will vote labour just because they are gay. I know a significant number of gay people and their voting preference has nothing to do with their orientation, but everything to do with their intelligence. And they’re voting PN
Listening to Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi you realize that Labour is offering LESS to the LGBT lobby than the Nationalists are.
Both parties’ civil union/partnership are essentially the same.
But the Nationalists are pledging to entrench in the Constitution a ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
They’ve adopted the model they so successfully used in banning discrimination on the basis of sex in the early 1990s.
Once you have that entrenched in the Constitution, you have to change all laws and procedures discriminating (even unintentionally) on that basis.
Even more, the Nationalists are pledging to entrench in the Constitution the rights listed in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
That will mean that, if a law is declared inconsistent with the wider bill of rights in the ECHR, that law will be declared null and void forthwith rather than waiting for Parliament to repeal or amend the that law.
As with the tablets, energy and child care proposals, the Nationalists’ proposals for LGBT persons are much better thought out than Labour’s.
My, my, my. Kenneth embracing Labour! God, how he’s slid – fraternising with the plebs.
Come siamo caduti in basso.
See today’s article on BBC News re another law which also hadn’t been used for generations. ‘ Paris women finally allowed to wear trousers’ which correctly pointed out that ‘The law hasn’t stopped women wearing trousers in Paris for many decades’.
“The French government has overturned a 200-year-old ban on women wearing trousers.
The Minister of Women’s Rights, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, said that the ban was incompatible with modern French values and laws.
She said the law, imposed on November 17, 1800, had in effect already been rescinded because of incompatibility.
The move to formally repeal the law followed a parliamentary question asked last year.
According to the law, women needed to have the permission of local police if they wanted to “dress like a man” and wear trousers.
Though it has been ignored for decades, formally it remained on the statute books.
Ms Vallaud-Belkacem said the original law had been intended to prevent women doing certain jobs.
“This order was aimed first of all at limiting the access of women to certain offices or occupations by preventing them from dressing in the manner of men,” she said.
It was modified in 1892 and 1909 to allow women to wear trousers if they were “holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse”.
During the French Revolution, Parisian women had requested the right to wear trousers and working-class revolutionaries became known as “sans-culottes” for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches preferred by the bourgeoisie.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21329269
How can these people fail to see the REAL reasons behind Mintoff’s “decriminalisation of sodomy”? The fact that he did not treat marital rape with the same importance further proves the following point.
Here are my premises that lead to one simple conclusion:
Premise 1: Any action taken by Mintoff was done in the spirit of “what’s in it for me”? If I will gain something by doing it, then I will do it.
Premise 2: He always formulated his thoughts in the Maltese language, and as a person who completely lacked any hint of wit, all his thoughts would be literal (not lateral).
Premise 3: He thought of Malta as being his possession….just like (his interpretation of) a wife.
Therefore: in view of the fact that Mintoff knew that he was going to screw and rape (sodomise in literal Maltese langauge) Malta (his wife), he wanted to cover his ass in case someone had the balls to charge him of sodomy or marital rape.
Elementary, innit?
What a pair of poster boys for the gay community.
… and embarrassed by all of this. I always voted PN and will continue to vote that way.
Albert Cunningham Gauci, Cyrus Engerer, Kenneth Zammit Tabona, Ray Calleja – none of you will ever change my opinion on this matter and definitely not their puppet master, Joseph Muscat! What a bloody farce by a bloody pathetic lot.
Be ashamed! Be very ashamed!
I have not yet been to this Mona Liza Lounge and I will definitely avoid it.
Ara vera roundabout circus! Ja qatta’ glove puppets; litteralment!
But you’re not in the gay community like Cyrus is.
With Kenneth Zammit Tabona it’s not actually about gay rights, I think.
Following his column on The Times, I get the impression that having a roofed theatre and a museum of modern art is more important than employment, health services, education, etc.
Joseph Muscat has not promised to roof over the theatre or give Kenneth his museum but it doesn’t matter because Kenneth is angry at naughty Gonzi and will pay him back, so there!
Artistic people like Kenneth Zammit Tabona like to romanticise the past and sugar-coat facts with nostalgia.
I remember as a young boy listening to Radju Malta on 998 Khz, the long debate about this.
I think Mintoff did that to spite his arch-enemy Archbishop Michael Gonzi, and to alienate the public from the real issues of the day.
Ironically, Kenneth recalls Black Monday when the same people standing near him in this video, applauding him, were already working in the Labour Party in 1979, when those awful things were done.
Homosexuals are being ghettoised by Joseph’s Labour like the Veterani, Zghazagh, Nisa, Brigata and Muslims. Is that what they want – to be in a political ghetto?
How can the Muslim section in the Labour Party accept the LGBT section?
If you are a lesbian, in which Labour pigeon-hole are you slotted – LGBT or Nisa?
And are gay young men slotted into Forum Zghazagh Laburisti or LGBT Labour?
Kenneth, what else do you want the PN to do on the cohabitation/civil union law – name it specifically for gay people?
The Nationalist Party does not pigeon-hole people according to their sexuality or religion. Everyone is equal.
Mario de Marco asked you to be Manoel Theatre’s artistic director because he thinks you fit the position, not because you’re a gay man and he needs to show how progressive he is.
If this government were homophobic you wouldn’t even have been considered.
Do you think, for example that if you vote for Joseph you will get a roof for Piano’s theatre project?
Wouldn’t it be sacrilegious to ‘touch’ the work of a world-renowned architect?
The Nationalist Party is interested in your ideas and your abundant creativity, not in who you prefer to sleep with. That’s nobody’s business and to put it frankly no one should care.
Lastly, spare a thought for people like me who earn their living in the private sector. Do you think that Labour will create more job opportunities with 40th Anniversary celebrations and pie in the sky LNG power stations that cost €600,000,000?
With that kind of bill we can never afford Baroque festivals.
Hunting with the hounds and running with the hare?
Could swear I saw him at the PN HQ during the fund raising marathon in December.
So the Labour Party is specifically targetting homosexual men and Muslims. That’s interesting. Aren’t these two groups in direct conflict?
Kenneth needs to recognise what lies behind the (weak and thin) facade before it is too late and he makes an even bigger fool of himself.
And, lo and behold, the first openly gay MP is on the Nationalist Party ticket.
I distinctly remember the 1987 general election and being completely shocked that PN won by just a few thousand votes when Labour had made an utter mess of the three most important government functions, education, health and employment.
Daphne you are so right in saying that PN always works its socks off to win elections against all odds.
from a comment I found on fb
“I am not for Gay rights
I am not for women’s rights
I am not for handicapped rights
I am not for elderly rights
I am for Human rights
Simply by identifying people as gay, straight, male, female,black, white, asian, jewish, handicapped or elderly, we are only further dividing ourselves”
Josephmuscat.com creates the LGBT team within PL and the cheer and thank him for it. Don’t they realise that they are allowing JosephMuscat.com to further distance them from the rest of society?
I have to say I’m not at all surprised about Kenneth Zammit Tabona supporting Labour. He’s always struck me as a very wishy-washy guy.
When he writes about art, he’s very good. But when he tries to tackle politics, despite all his grandiose statements, artistic symbolism and artistic analogies, he gets his issues confused, tries to make connections where there aren’t any, gives the impression that the end is nigh and is generally illogical.
Not to mention the fact that he likes to complain about his electricity bills while at the same time saying that he is a full-time artist.
Many famous artists either toiled away at day jobs for years before becoming famous or they did so their whole lives, becoming rich and famous only after their death. Damien Hirst worked in construction, Clint Eastwood worked at a petrol station and J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter while sitting in a cafe because she couldn’t afford heating at home.
On the other hand, Kenneth Zammit Tabona acts like the fact that he isn’t a famous, rich artist is all the government’s fault.
Indeed, many Maltese artists, especially those who are not interested in pursuing their careers overseas, never bother trying to take up their art full time because they know how limited the market is. It’s either a hobby or a part-time job.
I’m more surprised about Ray Calleja because he strikes me as a reasonable man but then again, all I know about him is the little I have seen of him on TV.
Dan Zammit Tabona veru jissorprendini, mhux tant bil-faqar li qal li jghix fih bhala artist full time, daqs kemm bil-faqar ta’ nntellet li jippossedi! Il-faqar ta’ argumenti li jaghmel huma ekwivalenti ghal faqar tal-arti li jipproduci, li ma tmurx lil hinn aktar min ‘fumetti’ ta’ verzjoni strettament ‘naive’ u delettanteska.
Jien li ghext dejjem fl-ambjenti tal-arti u fost l-artisti, qatt ma stajt nifhem certa logika ta’ kif timxi l-attivita’ artistika f’pajjizna ghal diversi ragunijiet. Wahda minnhom tinvolvi psewdo-artisti tal-livell ta’ Kenneth, li talli jipproducu xoghol ta’ livell tant baxx u pwerili, jithallsu l-belli liri. Ghalkemm dan id-diskors, barra min malta kien ikun differenti, f’malta ma jaghmilx sens.
Ghandi hbieb tieghi li huma artisti validissimi u ghandhom anke xoghol ikkummisjonat (mhux mixtri min xi turist jew moghti bhala rigal), barra minn Malta, li ma joholmux li jaghmlu esibizzjoni personali u jbieghu kollox bhal Kenneth, meta l-prezzijiet taghhom huma ferm aktar ragjonevoli.
Jien kont darba f’irkant fejn kien hemm xoghol ta’ arti fina ta’ pregju li ma gabx flus daqs bicca xoghol li giet irkantata ftit wara maghmula minn Zammit Tabona – affarijiet li ma jitwemmnux meta tikkunsidra li dan l-artist barra min malta ma jaf bih hadd, apparti mill-livell baxx tax-xoghol.
Hu biss grazzi ghal livell baxx generali t’apprezzament tal-arti li hawn f’pajjizna…flimkien mal-fortuna li tigi min certi kuntatti ma crieki partikolari, li nies bhal Kenneth Zammit Tabona jirnexxielhom jaghmlu parodija mill-arti li ttihom profil gholi u qliegh tajjeb.
Yes, Ray Calleja manages the place, but he definitely does not how to manage his feelings or political sympathies. I will definitely not spend one penny in that place again.
Love it. Malta’s election now has degenerated into whether you get fucked back or front. Sigh.
Well fuck me sideways, you’re right there old chap.
So true. They’ve taken the pleasure out of both.
Sh*t, I heard it again on this video: “reat kriminali”. When is someone going to inform all TV stations, radio stations and even, horror of horrors, some lawyers and MPs, that “reat” is by definition ‘kriminali’.
Reat kriminali = a criminal crime.
Ridiculous.
Is it me, or has Ray Calleja become more camp over the last five years?
Oh come on, Baxxter! When was Ray Calleja ever less camp?
I still think something has changed in the last five years, and it’s not just him either. Gays used to be out and normal. Now they’re out and proud. And they’ve been cynically exploited by Labour.
My feelings exactly. I knew Ray about 10 years ago. He was openly gay but completely normal.
Now he seems to be trying to alienate straight people with his weird facial get-up and tattooes. It’s as if he’s going out of his way to equate being gay with being unconventional and, therefore, progressive.
Someone tell these people that gay people want to lead normal lives rather than be the most flamboyant and conspicuous people in any given crowd.
Life’s not a damn daily gay parade.
How very true! Gay this gay that, gay that! A true insult to many homosexuals who are leading a quiet life without waking up every morning trumpeting on Facebook about the shag they had with their soon-to-be ex.
Oh Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth, gone are the glory days of the inner sanctum within the Centru PN in Mid Med and the daily 9.00 am rendevous at Caffe Cordina.
It’s supremely ironic that you probably feel left out by the present administration when you and your colleagues at the sanctum did exactly the same to well deserving Nationalists.
Left out? Because the Manoel Theatre and Baroque Valletta aren’t “in” enough? What exactly is Kenneth Zammit Tabona’s problem?
This is the problem with the PN – they keep appeasing ungrateful people – who want more, while ignoring the loyal people who never whine.
And that, my friend, is how they lose elections. If you had to draw up a list of government appointees, there are more Laburisti than Nazzjonalisti or neutrals.
Sort of gives a new meaning to “Nazzjonalisti mwegga'”. Of course imwegga’. It’s the tale of the prodigal son all over again.
@ H P Baxxter sadly I am one of those you mentioned, but I am too old to vote pl as in I know too much what lejber is made of. So I must vote the party that has walked over my experience to favour 20 years juniour to me “zatat” who thinks he can push his wieght about, and so you do know what it feels like because you mentioned it. The PN should thank its lucky stars that its voter is made of good value citizens who mean well. We are all frustrated and need a new change, but I can never vote pl. I prefer to stay hurt as I am, than voting for suicide.
ON FB, Kenneth Zammit Tabona is now ridiculing the PN proposals one by one (from the website http://www.mychoice.pn) , wondering who is the idiot that wrote them. His speculation is that these were written by HP Baxxter.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona is currently in a state of delirium on Facebook.
First he trashes the PN proposals on culture insinuating that they were written by a moron, then he states he loves the MLP programme because they mention his beloved art museum which he will be heading.
He goes on and accuses The Times for allowing online comments that question him and criticize him.
How on earth does tThe Times of Malta allow any criticsm of its keynote columnist? My goodness, shame on them.
I think that all the massaging of Kenneth’s ego that Joseph Muscat has (falsely) done has gone to Kenneth’s head. His self-aggrandisement is beyond belief.
He is angry at the PN for not listening to him on the Renzo Piano project (how dare they not bow to his wishes?).
He claims that the money that he earns from the Manoel Theatre and the Baroque festival is less than a single painting he sells. As though a position like that is taken for money.
I am convinced that these big-headed a**holes actually belong to Labour.
People like Marco Cremona, Astrid Vella and Kenneth Zammit Tabona have the exact same personality as Joseph Muscat. The world owes them a living, and gGod help anyone who dares to question them – a perfect reflection of Lilliput mentality.
I am curious to watch them implode after the election, once they become the experts on anything that moves in this silly island. We will watch them morph into multiple Franco Debonos.