“I have, for the first time in my life, experienced what it’s like to actually be afraid of my government”
A comment posted by Stephen Borg Fiteni after the prime minister’s furious outburst in parliament tonight:
Things are going from bad to worse at an exponential rate and in this situation, I think it’s worth looking at the psychology of Joseph Muscat.
We know that he is amoral, as evidenced by his use of a mentally ill man as part of his vicious slander campaign on mostly honest individuals, and we know that he is a hypocrite, as evidenced by the whole Malta Taghna Lkoll thing as well as the fact that he calls for high standards in MPs but has people from the ‘Golden Ages’ in his cabinet.
It is also a fact that he is a liar – he blatantly lied about having never met Shiv Nair when there are eyewitness accounts of him sitting in a box at the Manoel Theatre with him and also at dinner with him in a restaurant, as far back as around three years ago.
The above are just a few examples from many of which I’ve lost count, but I’m sure that as a reader of this blog you know what I’m talking about.
Call me crazy, but I would take it a step further and suggest that Muscat has an element of sadism in him. Something tells me that power to him is not just a means of satisfying his ego and greed but a source of psychological pleasure.
It seems to me that he wants people to fear him and I have, for the first time in my life, experienced what it’s like to actually be afraid of my government.
As an accounts student, I cannot offer any detailed analysis of Joseph Muscat, but it would be interesting to hear what students of psychology have to say. The big question is, what motivates him and what will he do next? I think it’s safe to say that even those who didn’t vote Labour deeply underestimated him.
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I agree. He has always struck me as a psychopath, given the way he flirts with everyone, male or female, and with how he enjoys likening himself to Mintoff, which gives him plenty of narcissistic supply.
Ghalhekk ha gost ibus it-tebut ta’ Mintoff. Mur gib Mintoff ibiegh il-passaporti.
It is hard to detect much sign of empathy, or human feeling other than malice or sadistic pleasure, in our prime minister.
This is an isolated child grown into a very nasty adult, who is safe from being bullied at last because he is in the ultimate position to bully others mercilessly with no possibility of come-back from them.
This is a dangerous situation, not just for Malta and for the people Muscat considers his enemies, but also for the Labour Party itself.
He gives the game away when he is furious and angry.
He is (falsely) docile and approachable when he is working out, or has worked out already, how he is going to use you or, failing that, stab you in the back.
When he mentions dialogue or talks it is just a way of pretending that he is willing to cooperate while wasting your time. What he will have in mind instead is a well-planned Plan B to blackmail you.
The Nationalist Party doesn’t understand this behaviour and hasn’t got the measure of it yet. They keep going along with his calls for cooperation, negotiation and meetings, while he double-deals them.
It happened with the talks on citizenship. They got nowhere because he didn’t want those talks to get anywhere. Then, when Simon Busuttil announced that the talks had collapsed, Muscat announced that he had had the social partners on board all along. It turned out not to be true, but he at least had David Curmi of the Chamber of Commerce at his side.
It was the same with the European Commission and the European Parliament. If he had some idea of postponing the programme or else amending some of the terms, why was the application launched officially?
Actually, if I were David Curmi I would be ashamed to be seen anywhere at this stage.
He is holding these sham discussions in an attempt to get enough time to issue those important promised passports…even before the secrecy-removal amendment has been made.Unfortunately it seems that he is succeeding.
Labour should take the bully by the horns before he destroys their party again.
When:
A) PL win only 2 seats at the elections and narcissists such as Engerer ‘jibqghu l-art’;
B) The citizenship scam is shelved due to infringement proceedings, on which everything else and all those pies in the sky depend for the financing of the National Socialist-style clientilism perfected by Mintoff;
the government will be rife with revolution. You wait and see.
Amen.
What a difference a year can make. Everyone remembers a number of issues which should have massively embarrassed Muscat and the PL at that time (the blokka silg incident, to mention just one).
But at that time the people were totally blind, and nothing, just nothing could harm Muscat. He was untouchable. He remained calm and serene throughout.
Now it’s totally different. Now he cannot convince anyone, not least the people who voted for him, not to mention his own Socialist group in the EU.
The chickens have come home to roost. So he is beginning to lose it. And how.
I really do think that Muscat has a huge chip on his shoulder, full of hate, envy and jealousy and rage.
Can someone please upload a vid if at all possible?
Is there any chance if a clip of Muscat losing his temper?
For those of us who remember previous labour governments this is not the first time we are experiencing what it is like to fear your own government. We have had plenty of training back in the 80’s. But now its too late to cry over spilt milk. Till a few months ago whenever the PN or anyone else mentioned the Labour government pre-87 we were told to get over it and to move on. As they say, some things never change – Labour is one of them. What is truly impressive is that people were willing to give labour a chance even though it was clear that not only was the leader not distancing himself from the past but was actually glorifying it.
As they say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lets see how he will be in 15 years time. Humility always draws admiration.
There are many older people, unlike Mr. Borg Fiteni, who have already experienced being afraid of their government, during Labour’s shameful ‘golden-years’ of Mintoff’s regime.
That experience faded into the background with almost 25 years of peaceful, civilised government.
These people are now experiencing a deja vu situation.The fact that younger people like Mr. Borg Fiteni are also now experiencing it is a sad reality but, hopefuly, will eventually reassign Labour to the opposition where it naturally belongs.
I have not forgotten what it is like to be afraid of my government, Stephen.
I grew up with the Malta Labour Party wreaking havoc, not only of what was left of democracy but with the rest of the island. Like many others, even Joseph Muscat himself, I was forced to go to school at a friend’s house, whilst my father was locked up in a school with other parents, waiting for the police to break in the door and smash the building.
I remember being warned never to speak politics on the phone as there was a good chance that his involvement with the various private schools could have meant that our phone line was being tapped.
I remember my father coming back from the bloody mass meeting in Rabat, thankfully one of the meetings where I did not join him.
I remember losing sleep over the pictures of Raymond Caruana’s body lying in a pool of blood after the Gudja shooting as well as the ongoing reports of bombs being placed and going off, one of them less than 50 metres away from my bedroom.
I remember buying the paper defiantly called “In-Nazzjon Taghna”, even though those words were unspeakable, or at least, unprintable. Of course one would not wave it about in public, as one never knew who was looking and what they were thinking. Freedom of speech was nonexistent and civil liberties strongly curtailed. I remember pictures in the paper of Fenech Adami’s house, the Kurja, Progress Press. The image of the shattered Virgin Mary’s face remains with me to this day.
Oh Stephen, I was young then, but I do remember what it was like to be afraid of my government, and even though this feeling subsided over the years following 1987, I can easily close my eyes and remember it all.
You are indeed right to be afraid of your government for the first time if you do not remember life before 1987. The really scary thing is that you have not seen anything yet, and it can get so much worse so fast. For now we are still able to make a stand, and must continue to do so at all costs.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Front-Against-Sale-of-Maltese-Citizenship/743546829003845
The argument for a ‘touch of sadism’ is a compelling one, should one merely take Godfrey Farrugia, Health Minister as a case in point.
> He and his partner having the post tossed between them to be decided over the kitchen table.
> The debacle of his partner then being engaged as a non-paid consultant, and then have to resign just as quickly
> J DalliBA
> Massive problems at Mater Dei – corridors-as-wards being the major one.
> The Mater Dei Tent
The latest one is the Minister’s pledge that the medicine ‘home delivery’ scheme will be implemented 4yrs from now. The man is constantly sent out into the fray to be mercilessly attacked.
For those who missed it..
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=c4-feed-u&v=jR-xCoO0WiI
Thank you, Joseph Muscat.
Born in the eighties, I have always had difficulty substantiating my arguments when talking of the Labour years of Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
While it would be naive to say that my upbringing in a family which traditionally voted Nationalist had no effect on my political leanings as an adult, I was always left to form my own opinion based on what I read and listened to, interspersed with anecdotes from those around me.
Yet, I have always had some sort of masochistic yearning, a twisted wish that I had lived those golden years for myself, as an individual with developed social perception skills. This to be able to form my arguments around first-hand experience. I never quite got what my parents and grandparents were on about, and would always qualify my political arguments with admittance that what I was saying was limited to the familial atmosphere and informative media I had been exposed to.
As a young man, following the 1996 election result, I remember walking in on my parents sitting silently – crestfallen, I thought. Fearful, I would soon learn. I remember asking what would happen that could possibly be so bad. They explained. Yet, I still could not fathom it even then.
Today, I am perversely indebted to the prime minister and his cohorts. They have given me something which no book, documentary or news feature could ever give me. A direct immersion into a life akin to what it must have been like all those years ago under Mintoff and his epigonous successor.
I could never have possibly imagined things would be so bad. I could never have thought there would come a time where I would live in a state of constant shame because of my government’s actions. Futile revelations really, but welcome nonetheless.
I remain with one enigma however, quite possibly the most maddening of the lot. On an island this size, it still beggars belief that we can cohabit with two realities so far apart from each other that sometimes you can do nothing else but heave a sigh of despair and walk away.
Just like a cat, so easygoing and nice when cuddled and pampered but turns into a ferocious, frightening animal, when it is cornered with its back against the wall.
I did not vote Labour, but believe me I did not underestimate him for one minute. In fact I was looked at as quite a fanatic when I tried to make people understand that he is exactly what he is proving to be.
I do not consider myself a super intelligent person, but the signs were so clear, that I am still surprised that so many people did not read them.
I must say, I do find some pleasure in telling those same people who thought I was exaggerating “I told you so”.
Is there a link were one can here Dr.Muscat’s speech in parliament? I think that it should be published; the more people hear it the better since it shows the real character of Dr. Muscat.
I just hope there are more Labour MPs with some back bone like Marlene Farrugia who are willing to save our country from this bully. At least they will not go down in history shamefully with the likes of Lorry Sant, KMB, Mintoff and now JM.
If she had back bone she wouldn’t have voted in favour of selling Maltese citizenship.
Words are to be backed by actions in the same direction. It is useless acting out the opposite when the result remains the same.
So far, until she proves otherwise, she is still just another player in this sham – with a specific role to garner sympathy from those sliding outwards towards the Nationalist Party’s values.
For those of us who lived through the terrible 70s and early 80s, we know exactly what it means to live in fear of your country’s own government.
We had sworn never again, but were eventually let down by our own who got much too comfortable and complacent. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself.
There are however notable differences between Mintoff and Muscat. The latter is turning out to be a worse nightmare.
However, he has encountered a major stumbling block in the EU, and we only have that formidable Eddie Fenech Adami and the Nationalist Party to really thank for that hedging policy against a Labour return to power.
I think the ones that voted for him, underestimated him more than those that didn’t.
I’ve had hands on experience with his glib talk when he was a MEP. All promises and no delivery.
Lucky you, Mr Borg Fiteni.
For those who experienced government my Mintoff and KMB this is only a deja vu experience.