This is the kind of negative image we’ve been up against for generations. THIS is what I mean.
And that’s why we have had to work so hard to turn around the way Maltese are perceived generally. There are too few of us, and a disproportionately large number of that few are inclined to get involved in crime or sleaziness.
Now two Maltese middle-aged brothers have made the headlines after being jailed for the UK’s largest cannabis-trafficking case: 20 tonnes into Britain.
This kind of propensity towards engagement with crime is typical of all port cultures, particularly those in the Mediterranean. Over the centuries, the rough, survivalist and transient life of the ports evolved into a seedbed for a criminal, amoral outlook that just gels and then there’s no going back.
But because Malta itself was the port, rather than just being a port in a much bigger country, a societal imbalance developed. The criminals, the seedy underworld operators, came to be seen as representative of your typical Maltese. This was especially bad in the post-war years. It has taken a great deal to undo it, and you still get people of a certain generation who visibly hold back when they hear ‘Maltese’.
And if you think this is not the case, that it is an exaggeration, try a little test on yourself. What is your reaction to the word ‘Russian’? Why are the criminals in films now invariably Russian? And Russia, of course, is one of the world’s largest countries…and yet.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-10-20/news/maltese-brothers-sentenced-in-uks-largest-ever-cannabis-prosecution-2936176643/
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Daphne. On the metacognitive level, this (your third para.) – more so than language – is at the root of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ divisiveness: The values we choose.
“Survivalist” would be a key concept. No surprise then, that within the portrayed context of a negative global economy – save for Malta itself – the notion that there was a fast buck or two to be made over and above the exceptional economic achievements of the previous government, as well as a cheat’s rung or two, was the ultimate gamble taken.
With “survivalist” as the focus, the Labour campaign, and now governance, was never positive, but “negative aggressive.”
The language codings in the two cultures switch. The polarities accommodational in thug culture, thereby giving rise to deception and confusion, since the language of expression is meant to be the one, but for thug culture it’s “kif jaqbilli” with concept polarities ever switching.
In thug culture, “negative aggressive” is positive whilst positive values are derided as weak and negative. The latter point especially so, in the case of firmly expressed media and press transmitting positive values.
Thug culture:
L-ewwel jien, u mbaghad jien, u mbaghad jien u allahares xi hadd jipprova jwaqqafni.
Weas might as well be looking at a picture of Joseph and any one of his cohort. They already have an established common area of criminal activity, which the thug culture in Malta both accommodated and rewarded. Reverse polarity for arrested and penalised.
Talking about aggressive…
http://www.psmag.com/health/youre-cheat-wide-face-gave-away-68803/