Here is the latest exclusive news: Statue of Mintoff to be given prominent position in Castille Square as trees are removed
The trees growing on your left as you enter onto the roundabout outside the Auberge de Castille are to be removed to make way for a state of Dom Mintoff.
The ugliness of this twisted dwarf, immortalized for posterity, will stand facing the control room from where he wreaked havoc on Malta for 13 years. And to give it a clear view of the windows, every last tree on the roundabout is to be removed as well, leaving Manwel Dimech’s statue unencumbered and staring Mintoff’s down.
The government’s rationale is that, because the reworking of the esplanade involves a roundabout and traffic management, it should be handled by Joe Mizzi’s Transport Ministry. The result is inevitable.
This is all so predictable that you would be forgiven for thinking the government is working to a script written by Dik Il-Blokker – the very same script the switchers pooh-poohed as having been written to order by a mercenary in the Nationalist Party’s pay.
Because, of course, the truth was unpalatable: that somebody who has been observing politicians minutely for 25 years for the purpose of writing about them for the newspapers, and who is not known to be thick or slow, is likely to assess politicians and their intentions far more accurately than those who pick up their nuggets of received wisdom from other people’s Facebook Timelines.
On a more positive note, given that this is the way I habitually enter Valletta and given, too, that I am right-handed, I shall greatly enjoy the Mintoff statue’s ideal positioning for a left-handed reverse salute every time I drive past.
The red arrow is something I added in to show where the statue of Mintoff is to be placed. The ‘red’ trees are the ones slated for removal. The ‘blue’ trees will stay.
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And I know a future PN government will never remove the statue, out of respect.
I fucking give up.
Handy spot for a pissoir
I’m sure none of us are looking forward to this, but can you imagine the backlash if the PN so much as toyed around with the idea of having it removed?
Some of his followers have elevated him to Godhood. I can only begin to imagine the havoc that would ensue.
It’s all your fault, Baxx! You promised that you’d be one of the first to deface Mintoff’s monument.
They’ve not only placed it in plain sight of Castille’s crack guards, but in a position where Joseph Muscat can get off on looking at it through his office window.
If it were not for all the blue ties, they’d be sure to paint Castille’s shutters red once again and then behold, our very own Red Square.
Deface is hardly the word.
First of all, I’m a coward. I was hoping to have a quiet life and start a family and all that. My career and family prospects will be dashed if I end up in prison for vandalism of a public monument or breaking the peace. Not to mention that anyone who speaks out against Mintoff, even now, becomes Public Enemy No. 1.
Secondly, short of using explosives, bronze is indestructible. See what I’ve done there? I’ll have the police on my back for mentioning explosives. So here it is: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. DO NOT. DESIST. STOP NOW.
I remember watching cheering Iraqis trying, in vain, to pull down Saddam’s statue in Baghdad, back in 2003. In the end, they had to ask for help from US troops. So I think the best way would be to wait for a US invasion. Which will never happen.
We have lost. There is nothing to be done but to submit.
Why not do a Rio, Baxxter? Plant a fifty meter statue on top of our resurrected garbage dump, arms outstretched. with two faces, one facing south, the other, north. I understand he was somewhat two faced. Also, do not the rabble, rubble and riff raff consider him a saviour?
Or we could consider carving his face into the side of the dump, our own Mount Rushmore. I can just picture a ten foot nose.
The statue will actually be located next to the edge of the bastions. It’s quite a steep drop from there.
No one advised them that statues representing dictators are no longer in fashion?
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-protesters-smash-lenin-913/
Maybe, given enough time, someone will be inspired to do the same and chuck the damn thing off the bastions.
It will stay there for as long as it takes to rewrite history and turn the once ‘traitor’ into a national hero!
I would love to hear what all the pro-Labour tree-huggers have got to say about the trees being removed, unless of course, they are going to be planted elsewhere.
[Daphne – They are going to be planted elsewhere.]
Maybe the trees will be replanted in the courtyard of somebody’s palazzo.
Pine trees are hard to replant.
Where are the tree huggers?
It’s a good idea to place a traitor by a bastion.
A spit pot and a urinator should be part of the furniture surrounding the garden gnome.
Like the marble plaque bearing Mintoff’s name at the mouth of the Tigullio car park area in St. Julian’s. It must have accumulated many a “bila” and more, given its location. Pity the new statue of the man will be more-or-less with constant police guard, being opposite the Auberge de Castille.
To that I say where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Where is Astrid Vella and her trees campaign?
Time to get out that megaphone once again, Ms. Vella. And this merits a press release.
She wasn’t at yesterday’s meeting regarding Marsaxlokk either.
Let’s put it this way, mooring a supertanker next to another one to transfer 140,000+ cubic meters of gas in liquid state inside that bay and in such close proximity to an inhabited center will be a world first.
Just when the industry’s turning to remote storage-regasifying plants miles out.
I challenge anyone to prove me wrong. Astrid included.
Konrad himself mumbled something to the lack of time and money available to get this thing right. If that’s not an alarm ringing.
Fully agree with you, Jozef. We had analysed the issues before on this website many months ago.
As for lack of time and money, don’t forget there is a guillotine hanging on Joey’s head.
This LNG storage facility right in the middle of Marsaxlokk Bay is a potential danger to the lives of Mrs Harrison and the rest of the Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga residents .Now we will see if Malta will be abiding with the best European Safety Standards.
Don’t forget that Joseph promised us that he will make Malta the best in Europe: “L-aqwa fl-Ewropa”.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/02/even-if-theres-an-ice-cubes-chance-in-hell-of-that-happening-i-hope-it-all-blows-up-in-their-grabbing-faces/
Here’s the countdown, Jozef.
http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?p0=255&iso=20150311T00&msg=Konrad's+power+station
What they’re proposing is worse than two tanks, humunguous they may have been, capacity’s been more than doubled.
And it’s not a ‘small’ vessel as some experts insisted (they got their gas wrong, industries don’t mix neither in quality of gas let alone their quantities). Let’s really up the ante and have two supertankers bobbing up and down transferring gas prone to rapid transition phase, (accelerated boiling and vaporisation) if it had to spill onto the water surface.
Perhaps an illustration explains better.
Rapid transition when LNG spills onto water. The explosions are the liquid gas bursting into a vapour as soon as copious amounts contact with sea water at ambient temperature, no combustion yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-EY82cVKuA
As for volume increase and detonation energy when the cloud reaches any heat source, say engine manifold, the shock wave’s clearly visible, they used to tell us LNG burns with a moderate flame if ignited, well this video shows otherwise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLGM_2l0zok
And yes, that’s an LNG road tanker in China. What’s absolutely visible is how the shock wave’s reflected along the valley, amplifying itself. Marsaxlokk’s a bay, pretty enclosed and prevalent winds lead up to the village center at sea level. Do we have start a whole mish-mash of empty Konrad talk to convince ourselves this whole concept’s a non-starter?
Finally, your typical operational accident
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUaed0-uMyg
Imagine the boom connections being between two vessels instead.
I think it’s high time the minister disclose who’s in charge of design.
Grezz, I hope Konrad Mizzi has a link to that counter as the first item in his list of ‘favourites.’
I’d like to see a grudge-match duel with the Pawlu Boffa statue nearby and Dom’s ugly effigy.
Pawlu will kick Dom’s bronze arse and smother him with his bronze overcoat.
Then Dr Boffa will light up a bronze cigarette after the deed is done.
Make sure to take some bread with you whenever you go to Valletta, to keep the Castille Square pigeons fat and productive.
Are they going to call it ‘Dictator’s Square’ ?
And with that, the story plays out.
No. It will be called Place Van Dom.
@ Joe Fenech
Funny. But there you have it: Joseph Muscat’s failed focus on the transference of title of traditur to the NP was with intent.
And close on the back of that lo and behold… the reincarnation of one by another.
Zibel.
This government is composed of Mintoffians soured by 25 years of pent-up anger and greed, now revved up with chavdom from money earned, ironically, since Mintoff was ousted.
Mintoff preached mediocrity, meager living and the something-for-nothing culture. Now that his followers have tasted wealth, they want to secure it at all costs which is leading to the rampant social climbing of the uneducated and the undeserving.
I am sure that Mintoff would not want his monument to be in Valletta. Daqs kemm kien ihobbha l-Belt. He never spent a cent on its restoration.
Take him to Bormla and depict him counting money. Qammiel.
How about depicting him screwing his brother’s wife? And the rest of the blinking country while we’re at it.
We could have our own Fontana di Trevi with Mintoff as the chief Satyr, lustily grabbing a defenceless river nymph, Malta. With all the wrinkly parts tastefully concealed of course.
Might as well conceal all of him then – well at least we won’t have to stare at his ugly mug.
Nittama li ma jkollix għalfejn nitla’ fejn Kastilja iżjed hekk kif jitwaqqaf dan il-monument mostruż.
Can someone explain to me why the roundabout needs to be made smaller and trees removed? Surely the smaller flower beds to make way for the statue are the only required changes needed to accommodate Dom Mintoff’s effigy.
Expect a larger than life monument.
More fun when we pull it down
We can also push it down…the bastions.
Totally right Ginger. Just because Mintoff wasn’t brought to justice for all the crimes committed under his regime doesn’t mean that he was a person who deserves a monument.
Read the project description. Roundabout to be made smaller, place where monument to be situate to be made bigger. Clearly they are envisaging more than one person urinating on the statue at any one time…
Well, we cannot blame Labour for not upgrading the entrance to Valletta. They’ve moved the dark and slimy unofficial urinal from the Yellow Garage steps to a more accessible location up in the open air, with a great big bronze statue as an aiming aid.
No. They are envisaging Muscat’s monument eventually taking centre-stage.
As Baxxter said. Dead centre.
They’ll deflower the roundabout. How very apt.
Mintoffs’ statue will deflower the whole of Valletta and Muscats’ goverment the whole island.
I see that Mintoff has carried on the deflowering process well into the afterlife.
The space is required for sacrificial offerings on certain days and barbed wire protection on other special days.
I remember in May 1987 when I walked to Castille in the early hours of the morning, after the election results urinating on the statue of Manwel Dimech. Next time I shall change statues and give Manwel a miss .
Urinating on Manwel Dimech’s statue is not something to boast about, Edgar.
Dimech was a great man, who had to endure horrible tortures on himself and his family, his only crime being that he tried to elevate this nation from the glut of intoxicating ignorance it was submerged in.
Indeed in many ways, although Malta needed him, the Maltese didn’t deserve him.
The final insult came after his death when his memory was hijacked by the Labour Party, and more specifically Mintoff, who claimed him as one of their own.
In actual fact when Dimech died the Labour Party barely existed and even if the lifetimes of the two overlapped by a few months in 1920/ 21, Dimech was out of the country at the time.
Either way, he was for years a supporter of Fortunato Mizzi and his Partito Nazzionale, the forerunner of today’s PN.
Judging by today’s Labour Party, you can’t say that Dimech achieved much in his quest to elevate the country from its ignorance, although it is possible that Mintoff reversed any progress Dimech may have made.
I never said he was successful, ciccio. Actually he failed quite dismally in my opinion. Hence the reason Malta needed him – but its people didn’t deserve him.
No government has ever taken it on itself to try and find where the poor man is buried in the hope that he be repatriated as was his dying wish.
Can we please stick to the facts?
How is one capable of results if all he concocted was a plot to hijack one of his majesty’s ships and threaten to blow it up if the constitution wasn’t granted.
He basically managed to sabotage all their effort. Oops, sorry but my irrational passion for drama got me carried away.
His actions may carry far greater implications, beyond these shores, than we can imagine. It still has to be seen who was backing him financially. The revolutionary who wouldn’t engage with either language indeed.
Manwel Dimech was a great man, a man who made something of himself through education despite the unfortunate circumstances of being born in dire poverty and his prison incarceration as a young man for the bad choices he made in his young life.
He tried to uplift and educate the man on the street at a time where very few were educated from the lower classes.
Dimech was a freethinker and educator, a man born before his time, and his ideas ran afoul to two powerful entities on Malta, the Colonial British and the Roman Catholic church.
These status quo duos worked hand in hand when they had a common interest and keeping Manwel Dimech exiled as political prisoner in Egypt long after the Great War ended (it was not only unlawful but also very cruel act) was in their interest.
As the Governor of Malta wrote on the telegram note from Alexandria announcing the death of Manwel Dimech in 1921 at the age of 60 years old:
“Good riddance, this freethinker is finally dead.”
Why don’t they just plonk the statue in Gnien Gaddafi, or alongside the monument to that other corrupt and violent bastard, Lorry Sant? A fitting location, if there could ever be one, on more than one count.
Daphne, what do you think are the roots of this fanatical devotion to Mintoff? It must be something inherent to a particular type of people, a marked susceptibility to this cult type of stimulation and behaviour. Don’t they have anything better to do in their lives?
What made Hitler and Mussolini cult figures?
It was expected. Boffa and Borg Olivier are there, and Fenech Adami will join them.
But, only one of them will be given a two-finger salute on entering Valletta.
Shame about the trees.
Even in his afterlife, the schizoid dictator continues effing up Malta, Castille Square (make that Misrah Duminku Mintoff) being his latest victim.
Is it going to be one of those Soviet-looking, 15 metre statues?
Why not cut down a few more trees on that patch of soil and erect at Mintoff’s right hand a statue of his buddy, saviour and banker, the bloody Muammar Gaddafi, rapist of children of boxes sexes?
And on his left hand, we can have a statue of his other buddy, Kim Il Sung.
Maybe not everyone wants to look at him. I don’t. Why didn’t they put the statue in his hometown?
Why do we need another Mintoff monument, isn’t the one we already have good enough?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/monument-to-mintoff.jpg
Very good idea for the switchers. It will remind them every time of their bold decision.
The irony of it all is that during his last years when Mintoff became more weak and difficult to cope with, he was completely abandoned not only by his two daughters but also by the Labour Party.
At some stage his daughters wanted to dump him at St Vincent de Paule Residence where a special unit was arranged for him according to the likes of his daughters costing thousands of Euros but Mintoff adamantly refused admission.
He continued to live alone at home in Tarxien in the most appalling conditions, until upon instructions from the former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, a nursing aide was released from Mater Dei Hospital and dispatched to his home to assist him and ensure that he takes his medication.
In fact very frequently Mintoff used to call Nationalist Ministers to assist him, apart from Fr Gordon Refalo, who remained close to him till the very end. Indeed those who abandoned him during the time when he needed them most are now trying to exploit him after his death.
Gonzi kien ragel tassew, miss him a lot.
2013: Sketch of Mintoff’s monument:
http://www.independent.com.mt/uploads/media/NewspaperArticleImage-MediaItem/Normal/3423010817-pr2769a-National-monuments-for-Mintoff-de-Marco-and-Tabone-.jpg
2014: What it will look like in full size when installed (picture shows also some switchers):
http://imgkk.com/i/hcsn.jpg
What it will look like later when Joseph Muscat’s is added next to it:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-amYSGwOvEu4/UApivzdvuiI/AAAAAAAAAns/jypRbbS3U-M/s1600/DSC02259.jpg
I can already imagine the inscription on the plinth:
Dom Mintoff
Salvatur
Traditur
Qaddis wara mewtu.
Having the days go past behind him, all he’ll ever do is watch the shadows creep longer.
With people driving past looking the other way to spot the ones they intend to take home.
Perfect.
Delightful proposal. And erected with his bronze backside facing the rest of Malta it pretty much characterizes his love for our nation in those dark years of his regime.
Finally, Joseph Muscat is going to fulfil his dream of a lifetime.
The vulgar man who used to address the mass meetings which his grandmother used to take him to, will be there, across the street from the prime minister’s office.
Everytime the prime minister looks out of the window for a breath of fresh air, he will draw more inspiration for his policies from the man in bronze.
Isn’t he aware that the statue is going to scare any investor or foreign politician who asks to see the prime minister?
Fair enough, the trees will be planted elsewhere. If I recall, the previous government had a plan to embellish the area and the tree-huggers were all out screaming shame. The project was shelved.
I wonder if Times of Malta will start a petition against the removal of the trees by the government like they did last time around?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20060810/local/save-the-trees-of-castille-online-poll-says.44979#.UukKvRA1jDd
I gotta get me a dog!
Pawlu Boffa (50m away) from the proposed site of the new monument will surely object…
u zgur li naghmlu l-istatwa tal-perit duminku mintoff ghax li ma kienx mintoff ma kien hadd f’malta mintoff gholla lil Malta u ghall hekk imaqruh ghax ma kelhomx bhallu ghall Mintoff ghanke l-knisja baxxet rasha Viva Mintoff
U dazgur, ara fejn gholla l-livell ta’ edukazzjoni.
Will Muscat make a habit of putting up statues for human rights violators?
Jekk tmorru quddiem il-palazz taraw il-mentalita tal-MLP meta tara l-lapidi li jfakkru avvenimenti ta l-istorja ta’ Malta.
Filwaqt li kollha ghandhom l-istess format u gwarnic dik li ghamel l-MLP li tfakkar Jum il-Helsien tispikka b’disinn xejn simetriku ma l-ohrajn.
Basta jippruvaw jonfhu u jkabbru l-avveniment aktar mill-ohrajn. Hekk qed nistenna li jkun il-monument ta’ Dom Mintoff. mentalita Laburista bhal tas-soltu.
Forsi minfejn qieghed jahfrilhom ta’ kif trattawh fl-ahhar zmien ta’ hajtu w jimlew ghajnejn is-segwaci tieghu.
Why not erect the statue of a prostitute? Like him she pleases the few but wreaks havoc elsewhere.
I’ve got a better idea. Have the statue of Mintoff bending over and have his backside used as a letter box. This way he won’t remain a waste of space.
A very suitable site for such a monument for that particular person. It will be facing the Auberge de Castille but it will also be giving the people of Malta its back and that includes Cospicua.
That’s how it always was and now, that’s how it always will be.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/peter-singer-asks-why-stalin-is-seen-as-relatively-more-acceptable-than-hitler
So we basically have our own Stalin. Lovely.