GUEST POST: Joseph – the book review
The book “Joseph – Malta li rrid nghix fiha” says a lot about Joseph Muscat, but not what he and his ghost writer Cyrus Engerer would have us believe.
Half of the book is a backward look at Muscat’s life. We are treated to several photographs of the infant Joseph, toddler Joseph, Joseph with a toy guitar, Joseph in ‘xorts’ on his first day at school, Joseph receiving prizes in secondary school (hekk, Franco, hu go fik), Joseph graduating from university, Joseph on his mother’s lap, Joseph with his father, Joseph with his grandparents, Joseph with his grandmothers, Joseph in Gozo with Michelle, Joseph marrying Michelle, Joseph with Michelle and their baby daughters, Joseph’s conference tag, Joseph’s nomination for the post of Malta Labour Party Leader, and so on.
There’s lots of information about Joseph Muscat the baby/child/boy/man on his way to his current incarnation as The Great Leader of the Joseph Muscat Movement. We’re told that Muscat gave the traditional priedka tat-tifel as a boy (hekk, erga hu go fik Franco), that as a teenager he only ever went home to sleep (not very original behaviour, Joseph), that he was thrilled to be accepted at St Aloysius College, that he pursued Michelle through romantic letters, that he joined the Malta Labour Party (surprise!), that he and Michelle got married (and they’ve got the pictures to prove it), that her pregnancies ended in miscarriage, that they stayed up all night fretting about family matters, that he used to wash down the shower in hospital before Michelle used it when she was pregnant, and other excruciating and irrelevant personal details that have no place in a book about a political leader’s vision for Malta.
In a few short paragraphs, we’re then told that Muscat had various functions within the Malta Labour Party, that he set up Maltastar.com, and that because of his studies, his professional work (the book mysteriously doesn’t say what that was), his work in the Malta Labour Party, his experience as a journalist and his karattru fidabbli u simpatiku, he attracted much attention in the party
And then PAF! Like magic, it’s suddenly 2003.
That year, the book says, wasn’t too good for the Malta Labour Party. It lost the referendum on EU membership and the third election in a row. Amazingly, the book doesn’t tell us that 2003 was a brilliant year for Malta. It can’t, because Joseph Muscat didn’t think so. He campaigned for the No vote and thought Partnership had won.
I read that bit twice to make sure I got it right. Joseph Muscat, the subject of this hagiography, was right there in the middle of things. And when the EU membership referendum result was announced, Muscat backed the Malta Labour Party’s claim that ‘Partnership’ had won because, you know, this wasn’t a referendum about whether Malta should join the EU.
It was a referendum about whether Malta should enter into a fictitious partnership, one made up by the Labour Party to derail the EU membership campaign.
There’s no mention of Muscat’s relentless campaign against EU membership, how he told people to vote No because EU membership would destroy us. Nor is there any analysis of why he was wrong. Instead, it moves swiftly on to Joseph Muscat-the-MEP, featuring lots of the sort of photos someone like Muscat considers important, including one of the name tag he wore to an MLP conference.
Muscat now claims that he was young then, as though it’s any explanation or excuse for his reckless, self-serving behaviour. He was married already. One assumes that if he was old enough to choose a wife for life, then he was old enough to choose a position on Europe and own up to that choice.
Joseph Muscat does not look at his wife, Michelle, and say: “Oh, but I was young when I chose her and can’t be blamed for that choice/mistake. I’ve moved on now, to new things.” If he were to do that, he would be roundly condemned for being shallow.
But that is exactly the stance he takes on Europe.
He was 29, old enough to be married and to have his own home, trying to become a father. If he didn’t know his own mind then, he never will.
And if you didn’t trust his judgement then, you have no reason to trust his judgement now. Muscat may have put on a lot of weight and lost his hair, but he remains consummately self-serving.
This biography quite simply sums it up. It’s not about politics and it never was. It is about him. Joseph Muscat is in this game to fulfil his personal dreams, his wife’s personal dreams. And the rest of us – the entire country, in fact – are just tools and the means to that end.
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They don’t give Pulitzers for book reviews, but they should.
Thank you.
I agree. Prosit.
I would change the title to “Joseph bhala Prim Ministru – Malta li Ma Rridx Nghix Fiha”.
A very good review. Engerer knew how Muscat campaigned against the EU; he was still part of the PN and he campaigned heavily in favour of Malta’s EU membership.
This is the lie that comes to the surface.
Engerer knew and yet he omits it purposely. A good biographer includes everything even if it means throwing a shadow on the life of the person one is writing about.
In this way, the work would be objective and open for a good analysis. Imma le, ma tarax. Engerer joined the PL and he too became a big, fat lie, like the lot of them. Pity.
Our prime minister in a weeks’ time!
Don’t vote because of how you’ve been treated at your work place = Joseph Muscat as prime minister.
Don’t vote because at work you’ve been passed over in a promotion exercise, particularly because an incompetent, unqualified, undeserving and renowned MLP supporter got the post (yes bosses do this because they perceive that they can buy an insurance policy for themselves, and Simon Busuttil should address this issue immediately if we are blessed by a miracle and the PN is re-elected) = Joseph Muscat as prime minister.
Don’t collect your vote to wait for the PN to call you to check what’s wrong = Joseph Muscat as prime minister.
Stay at home to let the PN know that you didn’t vote = Joseph Muscat as prime minister
Vote AD to pass to pay back the PN = Joseph Muscat as prime minister.
Together with the same cabinet that Mintoff had in 1981.
There’s a Japanese word that describes the above = HARAKIRI
Or you could put your vote in a frame, as wannabe Prime Minister Muscat did:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/128104868/Joseph-Muscat-tells-voters-to-oppose-Malta-s-EU-membership
Thank you to whoever wrote this review. I was hoping someone would take the trouble to do it for those of us who have decided not to grace our bookshelves with this gem of a book.
You could always hang around at one of Joseph Muscat’s spontaneous meetings when they’re handing out copies for the photo opportunity.
“Muscat now claims that he was young then, as though it’s any explanation or excuse for his reckless, self-serving behaviour.”
He still claims that he’s young, that’s what he said at the Corradino Sports complex last Thursday.
So now, on the eve of an election, he accepts that the EU referendum was lost for them?
He probably has never read a biography. If he had, he would have realised that his boring, nerdy life is not worthy of a book.
He hasn’t done anything extraordinary. He hasn’t done anything unusual. He doesn’t have any interesting thoughts, a vision or a new kind of philosophy. The important moments of his life put him in such a bad light that he had to leave them out of the book.
How did they even manage to find enough material for a book?
I think it’s safe to say that Keith Richards’s riveting autobiography didn’t suffer a drop in sales due to Joseph Muscat’s book.
Excellent review.
A biography is often written at a certain point in a public person’s career to hedge off worse and more investigative versions and to anaesthetise or amputate those gaps that public person has become ashamed of.
His mentor admitted to doing the exact same.
Honestly I don’t know why they wasted paper to print the book, as it was obvious it’s just for his Mama to say he had a book written about him.
Yet again I reiterate he is just a spoiled boy and everything is about him being put on a pedestal.
I hope that pedestal collapses next week.
“… his professional work (the book mysteriously doesn’t say what that was)”
Crystal Finance with Tarcisio Mifsud’s brother advising people how to salt away their hard earned cash.
Oh, I knew that. I think it’s significant that he chose not to mention it.
A+’s comment is very valuable, especially in this last week.
Harry should publish on of those THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE STORY books. He knows a great deal more about Joseph Muscat than does Cyrus.
Is the photo of Joseph Muscat with the Safi Labour Club president in the book?
Strange that no old Aloysian from that era (1984-1992) has commented on Joseph’s and Franco’s results. A quick flick through the college annuals of those years shows the following.
1) Joseph Muscat got just a couple of prizes in Form 5 and 6th form, and this for some kind of soft subject like Social Studies or some such crap.
2) Franco Debono appears in the annuals from Form 1 and does not appear in the sixth form annuals.
3) Franco Debono swept the board with all the major prizes from Form 1 to Form 4. This includes special prizes for Arabic.
4) Interestingly, his Form 2C result isn’t even his best one. He’s got better ones. In fact, Franco Debono’s results were so good and he got so many prizes that the real superstars of St. Aloysius of that era (the professors, consultants, engineers and movers and shakers, not only in Malta but all over the world) got the scraps (2nd and 3rd prizes) Franco passed over.
5) Franco seems to have run out of steam in Form 5 when he picked up no major prize worth talking about.
6) After Form 5, Franco disappears from the records of St. Aloysius College.
7) Classmates of Franco in the law course agree that Franco’s performance in law was nothing to write home about (to put it euphemistically).
All one has to do to verify this information is to look up the aforementioned college annuals (prize-giving pages).
Seems like Franco Debono peaked too soon. And Joseph Muscat never peaked at all.
Excellent review. Thank you.