Saturday night’s top comment
Posted by H. P. Baxxter:
If you think Eddie Fenech Adami won those elections because he spread government money around, you’re mistaken. He won because his whole political plan was directed towards one outcome: to make Malta part of the Western World once again.
That is why, despite the fact that the money and quality of life was spread among everyone, half the people still voted for the other lot. After 2003, the Nationalists thought they were home and dry – that Malta was now European, so the fight was no longer about Western values. They were wrong. It will always be. Mintoff is still alive and active.
Of course I’m being “nekitif”. You can’t be anything else when the governing class is trying to turn your country into a North African sheikdom.
My friends, we only have to look south at the Arab Spring. The Arab youth wanted to live like the their Western peers. They failed. Will we?
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Baxxter, the Arab Spring has become the Arab Winter. All excitement gone. You’ve got that so correct, the youth are cold and frozen out. The regime rules once again.
Yes, frankly, here in Malta we’re f*cked. Ruled by a sickening bunch that has total control. Could be a long winter.
Yes, Harry, and the long winter of discontent that lies ahead seems unlikely to be made glorious summer anytime soon by these sun ofabitches.
Not a long winter, my friend, but a long 5 years at least.
Baxxter and Purdie, if you continue grumbling like two old bachelors, you’re going to make your lives and ours miserable.
Look on the bright side. The PN could not continue to govern. Everyone, including us, was fed up with the “normality” GonziPN gave to the country in the middle of a deep financial crisis, a civil war on our doorstep and sulking PN members of parliament who were in cahoots with the Labour Party, putting spokes in the wheels of their “own” party in government.
People in France voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen on 21st April 2002 instead of for Jospin. Weren’t the French Europeans or Westerners then? They thought like we did, that they could afford to try a new product. Later they had time to decide in favour of Chirac, but we could not have that luxury to ‘change’ our minds.
We in Malta had the same “fedapism” the French had in 2002.
The PN now knows what it stands for, and like everyone who observes nature we know that there will be no spring without a winter.
The PN NEEDED this winter in Opposition. Winter is the time to prune, fertilise the tilled land, sow, plant and weed. That’s precisely what Simon Busuttil’s team is doing: preparing in winter to harvest a good crop.
[Daphne – Not the best metaphor, Gahan. Crops grow even where there is no winter. In fact, where there is no winter, crops grow all the year round. Why, they even grow all the year round in Malta nowadays, including the summer, thanks to drip irrigation. But I see what you mean.]
From what I am observing, the Nationalist Party is showing all and sundry that it is good at governing, while the Labour Party was good at winning elections and selling us an nonexistent roadmap.
The next issue is a safe and reliable LNG supply for the unneeded power station. Voters in that part of the island are already feeling uneasy, because they’d rather have a chimney spewing smoke in a seaward direction rather than risk being barbecued alive in a few seconds.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140202/local/permanent-presence-of-gas-storage-tanker-in-delimara-a-threat-din-l-art-helwa.505117#.Uu6e7M3QQXx
Ramblers and Flimkien Ghal-Ambjent Ahjar (?) are conspicuous by their absence on this issue. I forgot that this does not concern the Sliema people.
Oh but I am rejoicing. I’m glad Gonzi’s gone.
I await with bated breath the tsunami of replies from all the “zaghzagh”.
“Zghazagh”, Baxxter!
Harry, look at the bright side of things. In this part of the world, the Spring follows after the Winter, and then we usually have long Summers.
Things might get a bit worse before they get better. But eventually the Muscatoffjani can, and will be, defeated. They tend to hit the self-destruct buttons too often.
I am actually thinking about Muscat’s next move after he launches the next version of his Citizenship-4-Sale-With-Residence-That-Is-No-Residence-But-Which-He-Says-Is-Residence scam.
I am expecting him to announce that old houses in the Cottonera area will be demolished. The resulting landfill material will be used for “economically sustainable” land reclamation projects. The cleared Cottonera land will be used to construct new Housing Estates for the poor who will be lifted out of poverty to become the New Mittell Kless. It was all in the road map. It was all costed.
It’s like a cunning Recycling plan, typical of Muscat’s Skip Politics. Passports-Cash-Landfill material-Land reclamation-Apartments-New Mittelkless-Votes-Passports…
Good points, ciccio. However, I fear that this incompetent bunch will prolong the winter of crass screwups right through the summer. A summer of rain, clouds, and wind is anticipated.
OK, Harry, I’m going to stock up on my North Face jackets.
At this point the echos of the 70s have become too loud to ignore. Action has to be taken now, but the PN is proving to be too tired to do anything about what’s going on, and too focused on recovering the votes it lost.
This means that it is the people, those who have European values at heart, that have to take up their defence. We, as a nation, have voted twice affirming and confirming our will that the future of our country should be as part of Europe, and this government has no political mandate whatsoever to distance us from that future.
We have to start and maintain a new consciousness that trumps the mercantile, North African mentality that has been drummed into us during the Ghaddafi years. We have to make this European consciousness part and parcel of everyday parlance.
This has to be the new “Taghna lkoll”.
So stick it on your Facebook status, tweet it, put it on t-shirts and bumper stickers. Try to get it broadcast far and wide. But most of all speak about it. Talk to family, friends, colleagues. Shout it out from the rooftops if necessary.
We are not China. We are not Russia. We are not North Africa. We are EUROPE.
#WeAreEurope
Baxxter, wrong again. Fenech Adami lost in 1996. The Maltese electorate negated Malta’s EU application, and did not want to become part of the western world.
They believed Alfred Sant. Same happened in 2013 with the incisive Labour campaign, combined with the perception of government fatigue. 2013 was an unwinnable election for the PN.
Is the democratic process the perfect way to choose governments? No, but it is the best way there is.
Just look at the French. They threw out Sarkozy for Hollande.
I can’t turn every comment into an op-ed.
Sant won because he duped the people, presenting a facade of Europeanness. He even fooled me at the time. In the run up to the election, he kept saying that he only wanted to negotiate better conditions for Malta. And the Nationalists did not counter with a pro-EU campaign. That campaign was fought on the absolutely stupid and irrelevant issue of utility bills and the blasted “ruh socjali”.
So it was European vs European. All things being equal, Labour will always win.
So right, Bax – moreover, this government seems to cover its blunders by furthering its mistakes.
For example I was half expecting Marlene Mizzi to say that when she said 950+ MEPs she was counting the ones in Strasbourg as well.
Genuine democracy and a Western World environment can thrive only among people who have attained a minimum level of education. Just being taught how to listen uncritically with open jaw to charlatan demagogues is far from enough.
The MLP mantra about education “Jew b’xejn, jew xejn” was so popularized in the time of Mintoff and KMB that it enabled them to wreck deliberately our sound tertiary education system so devastatingly that even Mintoff’s expert Ralph Dahrendorff would have nothing to do with it. Up to this day, in Malta, the mental ability to evaluate critically the promises of wily politicians remains very poor and that is fertile ground for demagogues with hidden agendas.
Decades ago when I had been peremptorily summoned by a certain MLP prime minister to appear before him, a wise senior police officer gave me an excellent piece of advice: “Listen to him. Don’t interrupt. Eventually he will stop his harangue. But keep on repeating to yourself ‘He is lying to me’.” It was splendid advice that I pass on free of charge to posterity.
How right you are, Mr Baxxter. In May 2004 with a sigh of relief I declared to myself that (not with my vote no no no), “now the Labour Party can be in government as much as they want”. How wrong I was.
Eddie Fenech Adami had a dream. This dream he shared with Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, the eternal optimist, who lived in the hope that his dream would come true.
That was that Malta could be transformed into a nation with a mature, well-educated and thinking electorate. In other words, into a civilized country.
Now, we all know that theirs was nothing but a dream that will never materialise.
Not in anyone’s lifetime anyway.
It will take a very long time, perhaps outside our own lifetimes, but I believe it is possible.
Isn’t it amazing that Dr Fenech Adami has lived in the same house since birth.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-02-02/news/eddie-at-80-i-have-never-planned-ahead-3845259269/
Being rooted like that lends to security and peace of mind, no doubt. I should know. By the time I was half his age I had lived in 16 different abodes in three different countries, calling each one of them ‘home’ – so that’s excluding the long sojourns.
And to think that I would still be living at 21-22, St Barbara Bastion, Valletta today had I been given a choice and taken Eddie’s way.
[Daphne – And your point is what, exactly, Kevin? I’m a little perplexed.]
That “Eddie” was his mentor.
Daphne, you are perplexed because I seem to be admiring the ways of your unlikely hero. In truth I was simply reminiscing on my front garden pond in Valletta. Eddie inspired me. Baxxter nudged me. People are perplexed.
Eddie fenech adami did spread government money around, because he converted the millions in surplus that malta had after mintoff’s time to 100million in debt.
Mintoff worked for the working class, he sold plots of land to starting families for 400 lira and gave them loans with cheap interest. and you cant say he did it only to the labourites, because in santa margherita mosta, qawra and pembroke little or no labourites live! He sorted out public schools and enforced attendance so that everyone would be educated, not just the people who afforded private education..
yes he did allow for atrocities to happen, but who’s perfect? especially after years in power, it gets to all of our heads!
if you think that the money and quality of life was spread among everyone by EFA, you are clearly not from the working class..
(with all due respect to EFA who in my opinion still had excellent leading characteristics and did rid us of the labour regime that was taking place)
People like you shouldn’t be let anywhere near the internet. Fifty years of independence and vast fortunes spent on your education haven’t improved your thinking ability by one iota. At the very least, you fail at comprehension.
HP, apologies for picking on this, but, ‘Western World’? ‘Western values’? And what would these be?
Democracy? Come on. Let us wake up. There is no such thing as the ‘democracy’ which we have been led to believe. Do not take me wrong. I too am a believer in the will and capabilities of the individual, but I am realizing more and more that different individuals have wildly opposing aims – ie: is-sewwa mhux veru jirbah zgur. Daily episodes show that we have had the ‘panem et circensis’ mantra thrown at us since when the Romans have coined it, and we have swallowed it hook, line and sinker (an example of the unashamedly-paid people in the entertainment world versus the ‘normal’ people comes to mind).
I will give just two examples of Western values at work, one on the local scene and one on the foreign one.
I will start with the local: what do you make out of the all the war drums on a European level that have been banged against the IIP scheme? Then all of a sudden, these war drums were miraculously transformed into a blessing. Just one short meeting, some kind of understanding, and everyone involved comes out smiling. What, or rather who, has changed Reding’s mind? Western values? (No, not even Daphne’s claim that it is cunning versus good intentions, explains it).
I will refer to the happenings in Ukraine as the example on the foreign front. Where are the Western values being espoused by the EU and the US? The threats leveled at the Ukrainian government to give in to the mobs who are leveling Kiev (does nobody remember Gandhi anymore)? Cannot the EU and the US wait for elections to really see what the majority of Ukrainians want? Or do the US and the EU have other considerations in mind but they prefer to dress these considerations by appealing to the “will of the people”? Are not elections the will of the people (Western values) any more?
Fact is, there is no such thing as democracy. ‘Democracy’ in the West is nothing but lip service paid to the democratic model practiced in the cities of classical Greece. However, even that type of democracy, was not the democracy that we understand today.
And, on another level, if we had to espouse democracy as the ideal model for government, why would my vote, ie, that of an unlearned person, be valued as that of a valued scholar?
Western values are flawed for many reasons, not least of which is that the electorate has NO choice. We can start from Malta and travel all the way West to the US.
People, let us get a grip – it is game over. On the local scene, we can accept the fact that Muscat and his team managed to out-fox everyone with their cunning. They have out-foxed the, by now, clueless opposition and they have out-foxed the electorate (ignore the typical labour voter, whose amorality dictates that it is the bread (crumbs?) on the table that count). People of good will have relied on the EC for sense to prevail but instead have been treated to a veritable charade of war drums which have been transformed into pipes of peace.
My conclusion is that the few years between 1987 and the early naughties were the only few years were idealism prevailed and, our country at least, may have really had its reins in its hands. Since then, it has been the diktat of the few mega-powerful of the world who have the reins of the main stream media in their hands and who dictate the world’s agenda.
So, to wind down my long-winded ramble, Western values, you say? Say what?
The million dollar question is: why were the people who fought, suffered and voted for Western values so ready to throw it all to the wind?
I think much had to do with a sense of financial security as Malta weathered the global economic crisis admirably, a feeling of security, now that Malta is a firmly anchored EU member state, the confidence trickster that is Joseph Muscat, and a desire for change as the Nationalists were seen to have done their job and well past their shelf life.
All told, a recipe for the disaster we now find ourselves in as the veil of deceit has been ripped off.
Money was spread around very unevenly, Baxxter: the bummers at Drydocks continued to bum for years and the Air Malta gravy-train chugged along nicely, thank you.
Our massively bloated civil service remained massively bloated. Essentially, those on a salary in private enterprise pretty much footed the bill for all and sundry, including projects spectacularly late or over-budget or both, Airmalta’s losses, Drydocks/Shipbuilding’s losses + the aforementioned civil service.
To me, it felt very much like it must have done to British/Commonwealth de-mobbed squaddies after WWI. They had won the war and got precious little reward. Ditto with us who had shown 70s/80s Labour the door.
Of course, the sacrifice was still worth it for freedom, free trade, EU membership and so on. But how many Maltese are capable of valuing the common good above personal gain?
You know exactly what I think of that: I’m all for economic liberalism. So I’m with you. But for the effort to have been worth it (and to be called a sacrifice) it had to help in the victory. I very much doubt that it did.
What whole generations of PN politicians fail to realise is that “doing something” is not the same as applying your effort effectively. Parsimony in ingratiation is the greatest virtue in politics. When Lawrence Gonzi took over, all semblance of strategy crumbled away. In addition, in place of critical debate we have Christian cant, and the stage is set for what I like to call social profligacy.
Yes Harry, winter is coming.
It will be a Siberia for a very, very long time. The signs are all there and very clear.
In modern liberal and progressive Malta, sticking to principles and moral values means you are being either conservative or undemocratic or antediluvian or negative or a puppet to the Church and the Vatican.
Defending those morals and principles in international fora or in the newspapers gets you the label of “traitor”. Those who publish these sort of articles are pawns, lackeys or mercenaries.
One does not air dirty laundry in public. At worst, one states one’s criticism and then shuts up. At best, one simply does not interfere with those who know better. One obeys the all knowing and wise Leader for He knows what is best for us. He is not in government – He is government and He is law.
When all else fails, “mhux ahjar tara x’ghamiltu ntom? Dawk il 500 Euro zieda?”
Here’s another way of raising a billion ($ not euro) in a year. It will also solve his problem of blaming it onto others.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/why-dutch-mayors-want-to-cultivate-cannabis-9102858.html
There was a young lady of Riga
Who went for a ride on a tiger.
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside
And a big smile on the face of the tiger.
The Maltese took a risk last year for which there is no insurance cover.
Yesterday the MLP’s Toni Abela accused the PN of copying the PL. He forgot to tell us that Joseph Muscat sold himself as a new born-again Nationalist even wearing the now famous blue tie, thus making many believe that the leopard has changed its tie, sorry, I mean its spots.
My hounds have shat better speeches than that after scoffing Bengalese vindaloo, so I wouldn’t grace Toni Abela with my opinion. The man is an utter imbecile.
If Malta had stayed out of the EU as Joseph Muscat had wished for so long then today he would have had nothing to sell.
The man who preached so much against Malta’s EU membership is now abusing that membership to thwart the wishes of the electorate by manipulating the outcome of the forthcoming general elections by the false Maltese citizens’ votes.
In 1981 the MLP gerrymandered the electoral districts – now it will be gerrymandering Maltese citizens.