Brainwashing under Labour – when ignorance was far from bliss
Somebody posted this comment beneath my piece about children forced into the Brigata Laburista and treated like the Kim Il Sung generation in the 1970s and 1980s.
I was a Mintoffjana in the Cospicua Brigata but I will be voting PN, so will my children.
Some of the children were there because they were afraid. It was the time when I thought everyone was Labour until 1987, and I was totally surprised when even my best friends told me that they were Nationalist.
I’m glad this comment was sent in, because when I try to explain this to people who had no experience of that environment, they literally cannot understand it.
It’s important to remember that the vast majority of the Maltese were literally cut off from all external influences – no reading, television and radio controlled by the Labour regime, constant brainwashing in schools and public events. Mintoff was god and obviously everyone was Labour. The same methods were used as in North Korea, the difference being that because we were not actually a communist dictatorship, though we had most of the trappings of one, there was a small segment of society which couldn’t be controlled and who had access to information on how things should be and how they were in the world outside.
That, really, is what saved Malta.
So when you see what you see today – adults, middle-aged people, who speak and behave as though they live in a completely different Malta to the rest of us, with a complete distortion of reality and an absolute inability to see that Labour is really not fit for purpose and that the Nationalist Party has done an excellent job of making Malta normal, don’t be surprised.
This is how they grew up. That is what they were subjected to. And they have raised the next generation in their own image, not with the Brigata Laburista but with the a shaping of attitudes that means their children, now grown and voting for the first time, will always find it difficult to see things clearly, unless they are of above average intelligence and can break away, and sometimes not even then.
The damage that was done is really unquantifiable.
Small children forcibly enrolled in the Brigata Laburista, in their red and white uniforms, on a visit to Labour president Agatha Barbara, where they were given (check their hands) photographs of Labour prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
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As an outsider, I can take an educated guess at quantifying it.
Just under half the population.
Which is why I believe Gonzi will win again.
Most die-hard Labour supporters I know cannot express an opinion on anything unless it is the line taken by the beloved party (L-Orizzont, it-Torca, and One TV). The legacy of the Mintoff years lives on.
I think many of our young generations are still on the same line of thought. The “welcome” Muscat was given at Junior College really made me think about this.
Is it possible that they do not see the fake and plastic smiles?
Did they actually read any concrete proposal from the PL? Or they gathered around Muscat because he is cool as much as they are? The brigata is long gone, but the way some of our young are acting and thinking is a reminiscence of that mentality.
[Daphne – Couldn’t you tell they were all really working-class, or that the entire ‘spontaneous hero’s welcome’ (to quote Kurt Sansone in The Times) was stage-managed from start to finish by the Labour student organisation, Pulse? There are a couple of thousand (more?) students at Junior College, from all sorts of social backgrounds, but all he got were 50 whose parents vote Labour anyway so they’re voting Labour too. You can tell a person’s social background by the way they look, dress and carry themselves at that age, because they haven’t yet learned how to pretend. I really wasn’t impressed at all. If that’s the peer group he’s got, then he should be worried.]
You really have this ‘culture’ issue too much at heart. Those students were barely 18. Most teenagers have an awful dress-sense anyway, whatever their political background may be.
[Daphne – It goes way beyond that. How can I tell for a fact that they’re working-class? But I can, just by looking at them: their faces, their hair, their bodies, their posture, their way of carrying themselves, not just the clothes. The ‘culture issue’, as you put it, is important. The fact that they’re working class means that they almost certainly grew up in Labour homes. That’s a whole lot different from 18-year-olds voting for Joseph because they think he’s hip, which is how the pro-Labour reports read. He’s not hip. He simply has hips, and the really cool kids can see that.]
Our children are our greatest treasure and we should invest in them as they are our future. The PN government has always believed this and always invested greatly in education.
The PL on the other hand have always worked AGAINST education. My suspicion is that if they are elected to government, we will be back to the “golden years”.
This morning Pierre Portelli asked Evarist Bartolo on TVAM whether a PL government would build any schools. He did not answer but mumbled something about maintenance in schools.
Later on in the discussion he was asked again whether they would build the five schools that the PN government are planning to build in the next 5 years. He replied that no they wouldn’t because they were too big. They said that they would build smaller schools.
My suspicion is that these schools will be so small that they will be nonexistent.
ALL government schools in Malta were built by a Nationalist government. The Malta Labour Party NEVER built any schools AT ALL.
‘Spicca z-zmien tal-partiti, wasal z-zmien fejn nsiru haga wahda’.
This is why quite a lot of people do not agree with what Eddie Fenech Adami said about youth are not interested in the past – if they are NOT we should make it a duty to make them interested in Malta’s history.
Malta’s history without the shameful years of Labour rule would be a gig saw puzzle with quite a few important pieces missing.
This is the legacy Mintoff left behind.
Now he’s gone, but he left a lot of damaged brains, which could never be healed.
The Mintoff brigade reminds me of the dreaded Hitler Youth, and as today, with Hitler gone, many are still sick Nazi followers clinging to his ideologies.
Doing the damage is the easy part, but fixing it is difficult.
And, nearer home, the Brigata Laburista would remind us of the Italian Fascist Balilla youth organisation.
Daphne, please publish these two links together:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/budget2012/Joseph-Muscat-reveals-strategy-to-reduce-utility-rates
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130131/local/Will-PN-give-families-alarm-clocks-.455570
Parents pushed their children into the Brigata Laburista so they could get favours when they wanted to.
Parents were forced to enroll their kids in the brigata, because that was the only way a breadwinner could get a job.
Joseph Muscat turned up at the blood bank to ask why homosexuals are not allowed to donate blood. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t seem to understand how not all homosexuals are men, I guess he doesn’t know that they are the single biggest HIV-risk group after Third World prostitutes. So there has to be some level of screening.
I am 41 years old and like Joseph Muscat, I also had a nanna Mintoffjana.
I was not part of Brigata Laburista, but as a child I attended a lot of MLP kids’ activities, like Christmas parties held in the state primary school (the PN Christmas parties used to be held in the garage of a volunteer), the Carnival parade in Pjazza Helsien on a Saturday morning organized for MLP kids (even though it was supposed to be a public event).
My parents rarely discussed politics at home, but my grandparents used to drag me to these events.
I remember the hysterical women making fun of me during the Christmas parties, because I was not chanting and singing “mal-Perit Mintoff” like the other kids.
I started to become aware of politics in June 1982 (Mnajra). I attended school on that day and one of the MLP kids wanted to split the class in two sections. He asked the Nationalist kids to sit in one corner and the MLP kids to sit in front of the class. I honestly did not know where to sit since I did not know to which group I belonged.
Unlike Joseph Muscat, with a nanna Mintoffjana and all that, I was not brainwashed. I believe that one is brainwashed when one chooses to be brainwashed, i.e. you have to be intellectually lazy not to analyze events, filter information, and engage in personal rationalizing.
As Jesuit priest Balthasar Grecian famously said:
“Give me the child, and I will mould you the man.”
“Give me the child for seven years,
and I will give you the man.”
“Give me the child until he is
seven and I care not who has him thereafter.”
“Give me the child till the age of seven
and I will show you the man.”
And the Jesuits know a thing or two about brainwashing.
This proves that the restoration by the Nationalist Party of an education system that had been wrecked beyond recognition by Mintoff and KMB, was at least partially successful in salvaging what was worth salvaging from a generation of impressionable young people dragooned and indoctrinated in the Brigata Laburista.
Off topic…
I have a feeling some surveys are being manipulated. This paricular survey which closes tonight is now showing PN 2673 votes – 34% and PL 2893 votes – 37%.
I have been following this survey for many days now. Till yesterday PN always had the advantage of votes and percentage. I do not remember the exact numbers, but till yesterday PN had about 250 more votes than PL.
How come suddenly, in less than 24 hours the situation has changed completely? PL has now 220 votes more than PN. Since yesterday almost 500 votes have been added to PL and almost none have been added to PN.
There is something very strange here.
On the same website there is a survey about who would be the better prime minister. Till yesterday Dr. Gonzi had a large advantage over Muscat. The situation here has also suddenly changed in favour of Muscat.
I suggest that we ignore surveys and predictions. I have real doubts about their realibility and about how genuine they are.
The PN must keep working hard and not give up hope. I believe that the disadvantage, if it exists, is not so large as being said. http://www.malta-surveys.com/election-poll-01-13.html
http://www.malta-surveys.com/prime-minister.html
[Daphne – Internet surveys are worth jack. Their value is purely entertainment.]
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
Those Maltese voters who do not want to see evil triumph again have only one option on the 9 March …….. VOTE PN and discard Labour.
The same applies for Superone radio and tv stations. Constant brainwashing.
So that expains why the Nationalists did not garner a bigger majority in 1987.
Stop Press: Joseph Muscat’s Latest Revolutionary Policy Announced
A Labour Party spokesman today announced a policy based on a new revolutionary technology. This technology is genuinely revolutionary, in the sense that it revolves.
“We will call it the hwele”, he said, adding “you can put stuff on a batch of the things, sometimes even four or more, they’ll roll forward, and you can save a lot of time and energy”.
When a TVM reporter suggested that this was not, in fact, a new invention, and remarkably similar to the technology in common use for millennia, known as “the wheel”, he was scolded for asking arrogant and aggressive questions whilst working on the taxpayers’ dime.
He was also told that bringing up the past was the old way of doing politics, and that modern politics dictated that we should all behave as if we just turned up on the scene after a lifetime living on Mars. (Editors Note – where there is no documented track record)
When further pressed for his personal opinion, the spokesman said that the reporter had no right to ask him for an opinion and should wait for an official party statement.
Subsequently, the Labour Party issued the following statement:
“Our opponents have sunk to new levels. Notwithstanding the obvious benefits to the nation, they have taken it upon themselves to belittle our latest policy announcement with a vicious propaganda attack. As usual, it is a mixture of half truths and lies. Whilst it is true that a similar technology called the wheel is already in use, this technology demonstrates various shortcomings, not least the fact that the wheel is round. Our hwele, although similar in concept, is square, and introduces numerous new benefits which will be available to all at little or no cost, supplied by a magnanimous businessman who we have yet to speak to or meet. Really we haven’t spoken to anyone. Or made any deals. Or met anyone. Really. But we are very confident that he exists and that this project is doable. Even though we haven’t met him yet. With a track record of successful delivery over the last 25 years, there should be no doubt that we mean what we say”
A new slogan was then launched:
“Rota kwadra, l-ahjar ghazla”