Helga Ellul, on being called a chicken-thief by somebody who came here to buy a passport
Published:
January 24, 2014 at 2:37am
Helga Ellul, quoted in The Malta Independent after the ‘chicken thieves’ scene at the airport:
“So now we have it. We Maltese have been called ‘chicken thieves’ by no less than the Italian aide to the Chinese billionaire who allegedly came to Malta to buy our citizenship off the shelf, someone who can afford to buy anything which has a price without bothering about its real value,” PN MEP candidate Helga Ellul said in a statement.
This comment is, of course, utterly unacceptable, though it should not come as a surprise,” she added, saying that unfortunately, by setting a price to our nationality, “we are sending a message that we’ll do anything for money.”
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-01-22/news/a-comment-we-should-not-accept-helga-ellul-3755114496/
Helga Ellul is right. And she is the right person in the right position to be able to remind us Maltese, herself included, that it’s not on.
Anyone else would be hurled further insults at.
But not Helga Ellul. Even Joseph Muscat will be needing to keep his manners in check there. He wouldn’t dare.
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There’s something that doesn’t add up about the way this aide lashed out.
Seasoned aides to billionaires wouldn’t be so third rate and jumpy, in consequence of which they would be familiar with responding in synch and in proportion to the particularities of the situation.
The demeanour of aides or even minders would be different.There was no threat here, and the reaction was simply off.
The demeanour was one of a not-so-successful middle-man defending his ego before his client. One already subject to the stress and perhaps the threat of loss of potential income by what transpired before the EU parliament last week. Either that, or he was under stress that whatever project he was working on with the Malta Government for his client (land reclamation and related hotels and high rises/ new Chinese Embassy/ etc.) was under internal longevity threat due to Joseph Muscat’s negative international press received.
Whatever the reason for this person’s visit, since the Government has taken it upon itself to defend this particular person, and since the group was afforded the special treatment by Government grace, the Government can also ensure that an apology from the Head Win passenger /reported billionaire to the Maltese for his aide’s behaviour is forthcoming.
Persons of high calibre indeed. Certainly not the Italian.
Something very mismatched and low-grade to it all.
I suspect they were both middle-men. There’s something just a tad too affable but nonetheless under-orders about the Asian.
You’re absolutely right. What’s more, you don’t need to be a “billionaire” to afford 650,000 Euros.
If I were the “billionaire’s” security agent, I’d have managed it infinitely better.
I’d have flown to some nondescript airfield in Sicily, where the media are not following the news story, then I’d have had a (super)yacht waiting off the coast, I’d have driven my boss there quietly, boarded, sailed to Malta, entered Grand Harbour just like any other superyacht, docked, driven the few kilometres to the passport office, and no one would have noticed.
There, total discretion, total legality.
The government called David Casa and Roberta Metsola traitors, then in the same breath take the side of an Italian who insulted all the Maltese people and called them thieves.
The government has a two-pronged objective with this “traditur” name-calling of the NP:
i. They get to include the NP EPs in the EU vote isolation that belongs only to the Maltese Labour Party; Theirs is false reasoning since the NP EPs duty is to vote for our European interests and not those of the EPs of the Labour Party. What cheek.
The fact that the Labour Party is in Government is only valid because it is due to the actions of this party that the voting at the EU parliament was called for in the first place.
To have expected Casa and Metsola to vote for the Government is tantamount to expecting the Opposition to rubberstamp the Labour Party’s fraudulent omission from its “manifest.”
ii. The term “traitor/ traditur”, is currently still attached to Mintoff. Now, as Mintoff’s psychological successor, the only title that interests Muscat is “Salvatur.” Their twin biographies were published in quick succession of each other to:
a) attempt to glorify the both – with the one getting a free ride on the other (piggy-backing is the method), and
b) further create this linking and transference.
The only hitch, despite the publication and exhibition attempt to overcome it, it is that the “traditur” part lingered on.
Therefore the need to project this and transfer the label on to the NP.
The result however, is that instead of transferring it anywhere, not only has it remained in place with his own presence reminding the wider electorate of its original use, but he has now succeeded in earning and retaining this title for himself in the wider European context.
The Italian guy knew that he was being filmed, and threw a ‘prudent’ insult which originally would have been “Andate a scopare una gallina”.
In less than a year Malta has gone back forty years.
Now they are calling us ladri di galline.
Then, at the Catania markets, they called us poveri morti di fame. Voi siete stati bene sotto gli Inglesi. Adesso la vostra festa e’ finita.
The country has been demeaned by its own government.
Malta and the Maltese people unfortunately can make little progress, unless they all emigrate to modern and progressive western nations.
It is always one step forward and two step backwards.
That mentality seems to be written in stone.
I have serious doubts that we are Europeans.
The memes of Orientalism are too strong on the population on both Maltese islands.
‘Memes of Orientalism’? I believe it is more Sicilian blood. Even the DNA testing of the Maltese has shown that.
@Catsrbest
Interesting.
I was under the impression that tests on the Maltese sample resulted in a high percentage of Phoenician DNA.
[Daphne – Yes, via Tunisia by way of Sicily, though. The ‘Arabs’ who colonised Sicily and then Malta were actually Tunisians of Carthaginian descent, who had converted to Islam. The fabled Phoenician blood of the Maltese is a rather more prosaic Tunisian.]
“we are sending a message that we’ll do anything for money.”
Well said, Mrs Ellul.
Allow me to translate and amplify so that more people will get the message: Gvern li lest iqahhab lil pajjizna ghal erba’ soldi.
Nehhi l-erba’ soldi.
In truth, he is the thief, come here to steal Malta’s proverbial golden egg.
Let’s face it – for a billionaire, European Union citizenship at that price, at any price, is a steal.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Against-Sale-of-Maltese-Citizenship/743546829003845
If he is the thief , then the PL are the fixers
X’ ċuċ hi Miriam Dalli ħdejn Helga Ellul.
This is how a person with leadership qualities delivers anger and disgust to his audience; while still focusing on the subject at hand, sharing its value, and leave the audience with an after-taste of positivity and hope.
“We are sending a message that we’ll do anything for money.”
Spot on.
Joseph Muscat has claimed that he will not go on his knees before any foreigner. His administration’s accommodation of this foreigner who insulted us at the airport indicates otherwise.
Helga Ellul has been managing for a long number of years one of the largest companies in Malta, Playmobil, and for this reason her name is well known in Malta, not only by the business community but also by most households.
Mrs Ellul came to Malta some 40 years ago, working for the German industrialist, Mr Holldobbler, to set up the Playmobil factory. She never left.
She was entitled to Maltese citizenship in her own right, and not only because she has been married to a Maltese man for many years and has a Maltese family.