US embassy employee road rage incident makes The Washington Post
I find that most people, blinded by the swearing and aggression have missed the single most offensive phrase (in diplomatic terms) which this man’s employers at the US embassy will, I believe, have picked up on immediately: “trash your Maltese f**king ass”.
That single use of the word ‘Maltese’ gives away this man’s entire attitude and the source of his anger. It speaks volumes about where he sees the Maltese in terms of whatever hierarchy is in his mind.
But that’s what I thought immediately I saw this video: that American is sick to death of Malta and the Maltese, can’t stand living here and the way things ‘work’, and that unfortunate chump stuck in the car in front of him has become the focus for all his massive irritation.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/us-embassy-employee-in-malta-sent-home-after-getting-into-dispute-that-ended-up-on-youtube/2013/08/28/963073e0-0fd7-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html
Yep, he used ‘Maltese’ several times during the confrontation – as a term of abuse. Very telling.
And that, dear Joey, is how bad behaviour should be dealt with. But why should we expect that from you, when you yourself are the biggest culprit.
I hope that no one will take the above report as a justification, or an excuse, for such behaviour, or that such exasperation reflects badly on Malta and not the perpetrator.
Congratulations to the US authorities for acting quickly and decisively to limit any damage to the country’s image in Malta.
Sweet moment (parting shot) – Redneck threw away his shirt and made a run at the Maltese driver (Rambo moment)
Basically, the fat Maltese man didn’t want to do the sensible thing and reverse, because god forbid he had to do something sensible and disrupt his routine.
And the American was sick to death with how no one in Malta likes to be sensible.
[Daphne – Yes, that was my reaction exactly. And when I told people that despite not approving at all of his behaviour I sympathised with the American and knew just how he felt, I got raised eyebrows. I’ve been in that position so many times before – once even having to reverse down the length of almost an entire winding country lane because the other driver – a man, if you please – wouldn’t reverse six feet.]
It’s the typical attitude of “only if it benefits me and to hell with the rest”, I think.
That bolshie laziness that makes certain people just sit there thinking “If I do nothing for long enough they will have to work around me”. Taking advantage of the sensible people in life.
There was no need even to reverse, he could have just put his left wheels on the kerb.
The problem with the American is that he actually thought the Maltese would catch onto the plan.
Ma tarax, jekk ma gietx f’mohhu l-ewwel hu jilghabha ta’ l-iblah.
Il-pajjiz mimli bih dan-nejk.
The Maltese guy’s behaviour was exemplary. Indeed in that part of Mrabat street it was the American who had to reverse a few feet, while the Maltese chap was virtually past the narrow bit, with a number of cars and a bus tailing him.
It was the American who was being completely irrational. Even hitting the Maltese guy’s mirror with NO reaction from the Maltese.
If that was the typical Maltese hamallu, the American would have been dead meat.
That was my reaction too. The common practice in that street is to use the pavement for extra width and each party would normally have the courtesy to do whatever needs to get done for both sides to ease past each other, but clearly the Maltese driver was not interested in obliging with a decent common sense solution.
I do feel sorry for the American, and for the consequence, but it was the most correct way for the Embassy to deal with the matter.
I had a similar experience and the other man was to blame as he kept on driving in on purpose. He was to blame and he kept on swearing at me.
With kids in tow I switched off the engine and called the police. Told him I had no problem with waiting all day for him to reverse. In the end he was forced to reverse his car.
The American driver had just metres to reverse whilst we all saw how much traffic had built up right behind the Maltese driver.
This road should be a one-way road especially with buses using it too.
Imagine the reaction in diplomatic circles to the spate of abuse hurled towards Ms Malmstrom from Malta, even if this wasn’t uttered by a diplomat.
This incident told me two things.
The Americans are light-years ahead of us in terms of professionalism in the manner in which they dealt with this incident.
The American man had really had enough of dealing with that typically chaotic southern European mentality which can infuriate even the sanest of men. His sudden change of post was possibly the best thing that happened to him in 2013.
Oh come on . Stop trashing us Maltese / southern Europeans This incident appears to be one of several involving this particular person , as two others recounted having similar incidents with him
The American guy had no right to ask the Maltese guy for a fight and he was totally wrong in hitting the mirror of the Malteser’s car. If the Maltese came out from his car, definitely the consequences would have been much bigger as the American was furious and instead of being expelled to his country, he would have easily ended up in jail.
Yes, the whole thing could have escalated and led to a diplomatic stand-off, and possibly a US invasion and regime change. And it would serve us right.
A UN resolution would have been needed for that kind of intervention. Probably, China would have vetoed such an intervention to protect its puppet regime.
One point that is being missed in all this is that the American should have stopped at the Give Way to Oncoming Traffic sign a few metres back so, the Maltese driver had the right of way and so was correct in proceeding down the narrow stretch of the street. That makes the behaviour of the American man doubly unjustified.
The Give Way to Oncoming Traffic sign is on the ‘Sliema’ part of that road. From the video I gathered that the American was coming from the ‘San Gwann’ side.
I use that road very often.
In fact I thought that it was the cause of the American’s misbehaviour.
Someone please send this article to Joseph Muscat. He has so much to learn about what is acceptable and what is not.
Mintoff would have given him a medal of some sort for standing his ground and stamping his feet against the qilla tal-barrani.
I recently spent almost a month in the States and the differences between how people behave there and here are quite shocking.
The sheer number of Maltese people who lack basic decency and basic manners is disgusting. The amount of swearing and blasphemy used in everyday chit-chat that one hears on any given day in Malta is sick.
And the sad thing is that it seems to be getting worse, not better.
The educational system has failed miserably in teaching basic manners and decency, not to mention that a growing number of parents are failing their children on a daily basis on this count.
In the weeks I spent in the US I did not hear a single swear word uttered by people in the street or anywhere else. And people don’t shout to talk to each other; they talk. That really said a lot about the attitudes and behaviour of too many Maltese.
I really don’t blame non-Maltese who take exception to such behaviour which has sadly become a way of life. I’m sick of it too.
And then we get all excited when some survey puts us at the top of the list for being a happy nation or being one of the best places to live. Who are we trying to kid?
At least the Americans have ‘standards of behavior’. In Malta, a drunk government official who beats up people half his age outside a bar at 5am gets praise rather than condemnation by the same people who want this American out.
You’ve said it!
Hear, hear!
A very unfortunate situation normal in the streets of this southern part of Europe. No one can applaud the American for his reactive behaviour and there is a lot to be desired for calmness and education on the roads.
However, without justifying anything, it is also humanly possible to experience that particular moment where temper becomes uncontrollable and one crosses over to the other path of that hairline distance between sanity and insanity.
Thank God this accident did not escalate further. I also condemn the Maltese man who responded with similar vulgar language to the American once the former moved on with his car to which the American once again fell to the provocation.
Gone are those days of patience, tolerance and showing sign of respect of one towards the other while we are behind that wheel. It’s actually dead simple, we need to control temper and attitude.
Ah yes Malta – the place where they invent rules for the sheer pleasure of ignoring them.
Shame we Maltese can’t be posted elsewhere.
Apart from the fact that the Maltese man happened to have the right of way at that particular section of the street, behavior like that from the American is disgraceful. If he had behaved like that in his home country he would have been arrested had the police been called.
No. The American was coming from the direction of San Gwann and, at least the last time I passed from there, there was a sign giving him right of way.
It’s very unfortunate that the US embassy intervened. I can understand it from a diplomatic point of view, but it sent the wrong message that the stubborn Maltese was right.
The Maltese that you call stubborn was actually obeying the traffic sign that gave him the right of way on oncoming traffic and he was not at all aggressive as the USA “diplomat” undoubtedly was. YOU are sending out a wrong message, not a USA embassy that acted in the best interest of Malta-USA friendly relations.
No, I don’t agree with you. The message sent was not that the Maltese was right. It was that there is an appropriate way of behaving, especially when you are representing your country. A message that our government very badly needs to learn from.
The American was wrong to act in such a fashion, no two ways about it.
That the Maltese lack basic common-sense manners is also an indisputable fact. I always find it bewildering how our neighbours, the Sicilians and North Africans, address total strangers in a courteous manner and we, on the contrary, find it impossible to acknowledge one another and strain to utter a mere please or thank you.
A while ago I was in the Scottish Highlands. Some of the roads are two-way and too narrow to permit cars to drive alongside each other. Every so often a lay-by on each side of the road is inserted to allow drivers to give way.
Not only did most drivers readily give way but all acknowledged each other with a cheerful wave, to the amusement of my young daughter. Directly opposite to what happens here.
Italians wave as they drive past you, stuck on a zebra crossing, at a zillion miles an hour.
Scusaaaaa. Yeah right.
My favourite trick is to let someone out of a sidestreet and watch the incredulity. We play bets in the car who’ll wave and who won’t.
Drawn up an exhaustive chart of the odds on age, gender and crucially, car type. Tops, men covered in franka driving their hilux home, worst, short men in their Panzers.
Just came back from my holiday in Malta and drove in narrow roads where some times I gave way and sometimes others gave way to me. A simple hand lift from the stirring wheel showed appreciation.
@Daphne: “… that American is sick to the death of Malta and the Maltese, can’t stand living here and the way things ‘work’, and that unfortunate chump stuck in the car in front of him has become the focus for all his massive irritation.”
I happen to be an immensely unfortunate, indeed cursed individual, condemned to live in Malta since birth, I am sick to death of Malta and the Maltese, and I can’t stand living here and the way things ‘work’. Should I, by your very same argument, be going around shouting abuse at people and looking for fights, just like this American?
I suppose you will say I shouldn’t because I, unlike the American and unfortunately for me, am a native Maltese.
Your argument stinks.
[Daphne – No, it doesn’t. You’re Maltese, and you have lived here from day one of your existence. That American’s frustration comes from being propelled here from somewhere else, and not liking it, hence the explosion. And that is why he was sent away – not so much because he had an argument, as because he made it patently obviously that he can’t stand Malta.]
Intelligent Maltese should stop saying that the Maltese driver was in the wrong because he was obeying an official notice assigning to him priority over any on-coming traffic and it was not he who was being brutishly aggressive.
When will we rid ourselves of our colonial subservient mentality? We only ridicule ourselves in the eyes of the USA embassy that felt the need to post the culprit away out of harm’s way apparently without dismissing him.
With regards to elevated egos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oei2lB9MBo0
Bloody hilarious, beats our Southern European temperament any time.
[Daphne – It’s a spoof, though. I trust you know that.]
@ Daphne
Yes, I am aware of that- however it’s not so far from the truth…
What more can I say but:
http://www.michellesullivan.org/blog/1513
*listens to ‘Another one bites the dust’ by Queen*
If the American guy was fed up to here in Malta, he could have asked to be transferred to Saudi Arabia, Syria or Egypt.
From what I read he’s the type of person who would love a fight, and this was not his first incident with the Maltese.
It’s most likely he’s some security officer (read military person) who worked at the embassy.
The lesson here is how a government should deal with improper behaviour by one of its representatives. The US individual here was effectively expelled, and rightly so. As a contrast, the unseemly behaviour of highly placed individuals associated with the Malta government at a bar in the early hours of a morning is played down by the Prime Minister as a ‘battibekk.’ Sad, very sad.