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.)

“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.

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.

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’.

Meanwhile, in real life, we’re assisting to Il-Praspar ta’ Joseph Muscat.

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.

Hear, hear. There are quite a few such children at the school in question.

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.