From a first-form schoolbook in use this year at all schools
This passage is so laden with prejudice and bigotry that it was out of date already when it was written 30 years ago. But now all Maltese 11-year-olds are being taught off it.
Perhaps some reporter will pin darling Ev to a wall and ask him what he thinks about this level of progressive liberalism in his education portfolio?
Imma jekk wiccha kien kbir u mfaqqa’ lanqas ma kien vojt ghax kien mahkum minn bicca ta’ halq li meta jinfetah ghal xi titwiba kien ifakkrek f’Ghar Dalam. U haga minn ewl id-dinja, ma’ daq il-halq kollu kien jixraq imnieher qasir u miftuh bhal tas-Suwed. U la semmejna s-Suwed ta’ min jghid li Kuncett xejn ma kienet kampjun tan-nies Ewropej. Li kieku titlaqha go folla Gharab mhux zgur taghrafha minnhom.
– Il-Praspar Kollha ta’ Kuncett u Marinton’
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Main point apart, the shame is that children are taught off this rubbish when there is so much good Maltese literature around (the work of Claire Azzopardi comes to mind). In fairness, Trevor Zahra himself has long since moved on.
Dak jiena ktibtu mhux 30 sena ilu imma 51 sena ilu. Kelli biss 15-il sena. Allahares illum ghadni nahsibha kif kont 51 sena ilu! Imma dak iz-zmien hekk kont nigi mghallem.
So, Mr. Zahra, that is your excuse for such racist views. What is your excuse for befriending this fake profile on Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/daphne.caruanagalizia.7/friends?ref=ts ( You can’t claim not to know that it’s fake, because even if you befriended it without realising, I know for a act that the matter was brought to your attention.)
He may have long since moved on, but even forward-thinking independent schools are teaching ‘their’ children off his old and outdated books. Other books they use aren’t much better either, with the content often being about bands, band marches, drunkenness and gambling, with the odd ‘qahba’ or ‘hara’ thrown in, supposedly for amusement.
Basically, I think that it’s all due to a culture gap, which can never be bridged.
That is absolutely shocking.
Prejudiced and tasteless perhaps, but I couldn’t honestly detect a hint of bigotry. ‘Kuncett u Marinton’ is actually quite light-hearted.
The fact that that paragraph alone promotes prejudice is enough for it to not be used today. Times have changed after all.
There was a time in the 1970s where, during the girls’ knitting lesson (yes, while the boys had PE) at the nuns’ school I attended, the children were taught how to knit a golliwog. Try doing either of those things today.
Kuncett u Marinton: Trevor Zahra – Who else? Enough said!
I remember being taught off that book at St. Dorothy’s around 1980. The supposed humour in it was alien to me then, so I can imagine what it is like for (some of) today’s children.
As for the racial content in that paragraph, suffice it to say that there are sub-Saharan African, North African and Middle Eastern (Gharab…) children in Maltese schools today.
This is shocking. We go on and on about cyber bullying and we’re opening the floodgates to racism. What about the black Maltese children who will sit through this in the classroom? How are they going to feel? Who’s going to protect them in the school yard?
Hear, hear. There are quite a few such children at the school in question.
Such edifying literature. Praspar this and praspar ta’ Gahan that. Raising the next generation of cutting-edge R&I experts, what?
Look at the alternatives, HP Baxxter.
Some turgid Guze Galea novel, a bland Kilin diary or one of Guze “arawni, nikteb kliem oxxen” Stagno’s pamphlets.
The literature reflects the language, which in turn mirror the people. And all of them are dead.
“Il-Pulena tad-Deheb” wasn’t too shabby. The bits about il-Papà now swimming in dosh and moving to a villa gdida fil-kampanja are slightly cringeworthy but overall, it’s the best we’ve got.
Guzè Galea wrote some cracking stories. The only problem is that he had to insert all that Maltin imjassra tripe. Otherwise, they’re fine. And not turgid at all. I mean it’s the closest the Maltese ever got to good story-telling. Because we, as a people, cannot tell a good story to save our lives.
Kilin’s diary is bland only if given a bland reading. Which my teachers all did, of course. It should be a standard text in social studies, not Maltese. Then the class can engage in some interesting “compare and contrast with today”.
A better alternative would be not to teach Maltese literature at all. Good literature, by definition, has to soar above the trivial and speak out to the world. Small-islander tales written in an inadequate language, and turgid, self-indulgent ditties (now they’re turgid) about widien ta’ dmugh, ghanjiet tas-seba’ nicec, Maltin qalbiena or basktijiet tas-sajd can hardly be called literature.
And before you say anything, there’s plenty of bad literature written in English too. Anything who sat for an English Literature O Level with the godawful “ex-colonies” reading list knows this. It’s just that in English, you are statistically bound to find good literature. In Maltese, you’re not.
Meanwhile, in real life, we’re assisting to Il-Praspar ta’ Joseph Muscat.
Had never heard of them. Actually this book dates back to 1974
http://www.trevorzahra.com/kotba/stejjer-umoristici/il-praspar-ta-kuncett-u-marinton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_in_literature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_in_film
Tasteless for children perhaps. Racist, no.
It is still the Lingwa tal-Bigilla, and whatever or however we feed it to our children, is completely uslesss. What is significant however, is that it should not remain compulsory for upper secondary and tertiary education, unless of course it happens to be a law degree.
We have, through years of insistence from Maltese professors at university, force- fed Maltese to students who were brought up to speak English, depriving them of the possibility of continued studies in our education system simply because they failed to attain a basic Maltese pass and many, have even been forced to go study abroad for the lack of a language whose significance can hardly be weighed in any measure.
I am surprised they still teach this crap at school. Aren’t there better and more intelligent Maltese texts?
I find that these so called fables and stories are there simply to propagate the overarching chav culture.
Ah, but God forbid our culture be tainted and destroyed by all these black people crossing our shores.
Pity “natura non facit saltum.”
Joseph didn’t know anything about this and Varist claims the textbook was introduced behind his back.
Can this text be reproduced and the EP made aware of what this government’s mindset is all about?
What’s next, the liberal use of the ‘N’ word for an A+?
What grade are they teaching this stuff? Forms II, perhaps?
The Commissioner of whatever should include banning of this crass material when he writes his ‘reform’.
Are those not racist comments, do they not make that book illegal racist material?
In several countries I’m familiar with this would land you in hot water with the courts for racial stereotyping. Here ‘Alla jbierek’ we use this as teaching material in schools. And then we wonder why our population contains more than its fair share of bigots.
I remeber that book at school. I should still have a copy tucked away somewhere.
It was funny at the time and it was easy for the young student to lose himself in the stories. At the time the finely-tuned sense for political correctness that exists (or should exist) today was just not on the cards yet,.especially for the 8 or 9 year olds to whom the book was targetted.
One cannot, and should not judge literature or art in general according to sensibilities that were absent at the time of its composition. otherwise we would have to bin most classic literature at the very least.
Should it be used in schools in this day and age? I would say that the decision is debateable. At the very least however the context in which it was written should be explained by the teachers and it should be made clear that such comparisons made today are considered unacceptable.
It would however peobably just be easier and more expedient to update student textbooks and reading material to more recent works and avoid the embarrassment altogether.