The Nationalist Party is really up against it and always has been
This is the kind of mentality the Nationalist Party has been up against for 50 years at least. I’ve begun to think that every electoral victory the party has made has been near-miraculous.
People like this Jesmond Muscat exist in every country, in every society. The problem in Malta is that they are extremely numerous and dominant.
Here is a comment from Malta Today’s comments-board, beneath a report on the EP election survey results. This man doesn’t know that the prime minister is not a candidate in the EP elections, and his sole priority is his car. His big and important issues are two cents off petrol and maybe five euros off the gas cylinders he will buy before September. Nothing else matters and the language is just unbelievable.
Jesmond Muscat
dEJJAQTULI IL GARRETTA TA RAS ZOBBI,JIEN JITLA MIN IZ ZOPP IRRID U XORTA SEJJER NIVOTTA GHAL PRIM,JIEN JINTERESANI MILL L-ELEZJONI TA PAJJIZI GHAX BIR REBHA U TKAXKIRA LI QALAW DAL HMIEG TA L-ENUQ GHET NIEHU,PETROL U GAS B’IRHIS,HA NIEHU IL FLUS TAL KAROZZA LI SERQULI DAD DEMMEL, ETC
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Wow – he can actually use a keyboard…..
No. The correct verb should be ‘misuse’.
Kemm huma ta’ livell baxx! Dawk li ghandhom xi ftit sens u xi ftit edukazzjoni jisthu minn dawn il-hamalli.
Hallih jivvota lil min irid, ghax nies baxxi bhal dawn hadd ma jridhom mieghu, lanqas il-Labour hlief ghal voti.
Il-PN heles minn hmieg li kellu u biex jinki, Muscat hadhom mieghu. Issa igawdijhom.
I agree. Malta’s biggest problem has always been ignorance. Sure, other countries have it too, but at least politicians can be somewhat counted upon to recognise it and know how to deal with it.
Being ignorant doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be treated equally, but it sure doesn’t mean that a politician should bow to your every demand.
I guess this is everyone’s fault. We should have fought ignorance and made it our main priority. I guess we failed.
The Labour Party: A Liba Ba and the Forty Thieves.
Louis Grech has declared on the European Voice that he is against the IIP. Go figure!
Oh how right you are. This country excels in the huge number of idiots like this Muscat and it has always had.
Typical PL. say no more.
No, Daphne, it wasn’t miracles that made the PN win a multiple, consecutive number of elections and referendum. It was these type of people who convinced us not to vote for them and their leaders.
We don’t want ‘woccmnijiet’ (Maltese plural for watchmen) jobs. Instead we study hard to get a good education by which we earn an honest living with lots of perspiration and some inspiration so that by means of our taxes we would be able to support the good-for-nothings that go by the name of Jesmond Muscat.
And vote PN so that we would have the opportunity to work hard in private enterprises, as I do now and have done all my life, a long one, thank God.
Mr Jesmond Muscat is the typical Maltese gentleman par excellence.
“Gentleman” si fa per dire.
True, but I don’t think Malta is a special case.
It’s the same the world over. You can sample any country and find the same Jesmond Muscats.
Yes, but there’s usually pockets of them outside of Malta. I don’t come across them in the UK, because I don’t go to certain places. And over here in the UK, sadly, those people are usually too busy struggling to survive.
It’s a different form of underclass, less rowdy, less confident, less brash, and one I sympathise with and feel a need to protect with my vote.
In contrast, in Malta, they’re everywhere. You can do your best to avoid them, but then you get your first job and find yourself dealing with them on a daily basis. And again, in contrast, I feel no sympathy for them. Most of their presumed inequalities are imagined and driven by a uniquely Maltese proneness to jealousy, greed and watching what other people have.
I agree with you on that last sentence.
As for the rest, I suspect it’s the result of country size: the UK is big enough to be living in a community and working at a comfortable distance away from Jesmond Muscat.
Be that as it may, the point is that Jesmond Muscat could easily be Jesmond Smith.
I think that is most definitely true.
Most of the social barriers in Malta are made up by some people and made more impermeable than they actually are.
Catherine, you’re perfectly right. I experienced the same.
Having to move sideways on a pavement as the git walks into my path as if I don’t exist, is bad enough, but that ‘taparsi ma ranix’, remains unbearable.
It’s about density, there’s a much higher probability of coming across these if the space is smallest.
Suffice to add they also tend to take over a place, even if their number is small compared to the rest.
Dilution on the other hand, produces a higher sense of order which checks their propensity to entropy.
It just takes one parking his car badly to disrupt everything else. When that isn’t corrected at once, the whole area becomes a free for all.
It doesn’t take much for the leopard spots to blend, becoming continuous.
Which is why architecture has been given up in favour of the ‘built environment’. Ribbon sprawl we call it.
Muscat wants to plonk a bunch of unregulated peddlers selling stuff both dodgy in quality as well as in source, right in the middle of Valletta’s new dimension. His, is graffiti of the worst kind, the intention not to communicate but to vandalise spirit.
These people need to understand that what they do results less because their gesture requires they be more. Their nature is in itself unsustainable.
FP, that’s true, but it’s also true that people in Malta are smaller-minded and petty.
The seemingly respectable-looking graduate who you share an office with turns out to be a raving hamallu/a because, despite having the luxury of education and doing quite well for themselves, there’s that worry that others might be doing better/have more etc.
The ignorance and jealousy runs too deep – there’s closet hamalli everywhere in Malta. You don’t need to scour the underbelly of society for them.
Zibel u demel int siehbi Jesmond, u min se jivota al PL.
Zibel u demel int li qieghed tindirizzani b’hekk. Iva nibqa nghid dak li nhoss u mhux se tigi zibel bhalek tindahali
He’s so intelligent that he can’t even decide on the way the word ‘penis’ is spelled in Maltese.
Let alone how to use it …….
Unfortunately, the very existence of Jesmond Muscat and the likes of him is concrete proof that they do indeed know how to use it.
Miskin u imsieken aktar ahna.
Unfortunately these are the level of people deciding our future whom the PL is targeting very effectively.
The flaw with democracy is that it gives the same voice to people with differing vision and intelligence. It gives our Jesmond above the same say as the most intelligent, cultured and visionary.
To realise how “up against it” the Nationalist Party is, think about the 1987 result. After 16 years of institutionalised corruption and violence, with the country on the brink of civil war, the PN managed to scrape a meagre 4,000 vote win.
And of course the 2013 result – a 36,000 majority for the the party with nothing but “new” faces and promises against a government which had lead the country through the worst recession Europe has ever witnessed.
The PN has always tried to appeal to people’s intelligence. The MLP on the other hand, banks on the people’s lack of knowledge and fear. Mintoff was an expert at this – with the term “Mintuffjan” suggesting someone is of dubious intelligence, and gullible.
I agree. But one must always remember that no ones vote is more valid than others. We all get one vote, and that is all.
However, I believe that there is more than needs to be done to eradicate ignorance in Malta.
As someone mentioned here, many if not all of the social barriers that exist are made up by the oppressed themselves.
However, perhaps there should be a bigger effort to help people realise that actually there is no need for them.
There is a YouTube video about wealth inequality and distribution in her he US that shocked the world. Someone should carry out similar research in Malta and find out what wealth distribution is like in Malta. We might be in over a surprise.
Or no surprise at all really. Malta is not a rich country, and the people are generally prudent with their money. Even the middle class keep a watchful eye on their bank account.
I think one would find that the gap between the “rich”and the “poor” is…well there isn’t much of one. Plus, with the PN we have seen the most remarkable amount of social mobility, where a fisherman’s daughter can become a doctor, a farmer’s son can become a lawyer.
One wonders what punishment the PL were talking about not so long ago.
That’s not social mobility, Edward.
And I think you’ll find that Malta does very badly in the wealth equality index. The gap between rich and median income (which is close to the minimum wage, mind) is enormous. Think John Dalli, Karmenu Vella, Yana Mintoff and me.
You think the Nationalist Party tried to remedy that, do you? It didn’t.
Instead, it created a series of scandalous laws about ‘high net worth individuals’ that turned Malta into a tax haven for the super-rich.
The super rich, please note. Not the super bright, or the geniuses, or the inventors and innovators. No. Just the super rich. And bugger the rest of us.
Baxxter: I m sure there are very rich people in Malta, but to be honest, I never experienced a huge difference between me and my friends who lived in a flat in Birkirkara, San Gwann or Siggiewi.
But there is no point in discussing it all. We need to know once and for all what wealth distribution is like in Malta. We need facts and figures, not perceptions.
I like Church Schools.
I think they were beneficial and ascertained that with a notable exception, values were imparted to the pupils and students and to society.
I would like to ask the Church, no matter what the current liberal wave says, to stop cowering in a corner, to recover and to get stronger again within our society. A modern Church.
When Mintoff attacked the Church schools, instead of backing down over the decades that followed, they could have taken, and still can take, a different approach.
What they had was so good that Labour wanted an entrée to it.
It still does.
All the negatives thrown at the NP are because in fact the Labour party wants all it stands for.
Whilst not equating the NP and the church, the children of people with certain beliefs were also those that then grew up to be independent and autonomous, for the main part.
We now have a number of Private Schools and the available State schools for which the Government has publicly said it does not not enough budget to keep on building the one new school per year as the NP in Government did.
The lottery system has thoroughly impeded free access to any impartation of morals.
It is morals that come at a cost really. It is morals that have been set off limits. Not access to literacy or schools in themselves.
The Church has a choice and sits in a very strong position – if only it would use it.
It is sitting on a centuries old franchise but its marketing skills have become dated.
It also needs to change and modernise the approach of its priests. With the exception of a few, it is not the priests I rely on for a modern take or a message of value in the homily. The message is mediocre and the edge is missing. Yet the structure remains.
Fear has overcome the church. It needs to shake it off, urgently, and partake in the society it is, whether it is admitted to or not, an essential part of.
The Church needs to run its schools as a franchise. This is what St Joseph’s was and still is abroad. The same goes for Sacred Heart, etc. They do not need the daily presence of the Curia for the everyday running of the schools. Schools can be present in every village. Church property guarantees that this is a realistic possibility. Church -State agreements can still exist. Catechism can return to be peacefully taught in schools in an organised and serene fashion – without the confusion that has been introduced since the separation of duties.
Morals can be taken to the villages even if the villages still have jungle patches.
The schools need a more moral philosophy and less exaggerated competition. There are other ways of getting the job done better and of removing, once and for all, the reliance on private lessons; or the expectation that to be really successful one needs those additional hours.
A school need not be a gigantic building, but a house of serious learning. A house where logic and reason is imparted, not just knowledge. Knowledge is available on the net.
Quality, not quantity.
Modern aspects introduced, but the discipline of a moral approach retained.
The position of teachers would be reassessed. Parents – instead of complaining – should have a direct cooperative hand in the running of the school.
This is a different approach and perspective.
If it can be thought of. It can be done. It is done with success abroad.
The local Church needs to get its head out of its shoulders and get on with it.
Instead of coming to the rescue, it has abandoned us to fools.
It needs to visibly clean up its act in Malta: get rid of Priests who are not priests, etc, strengthen the roles made available for lay people, and shake off this mediocre humble moffa inducing image.
Mostly, when I listen to a homily these days, I fall asleep. There’s no use pretending. The content is there -somewhere – but presentation skills are nil. We need some smart and savvy stuff.
There is a role for the Church that it is not fulfilling, and it needs to do its bit too.
Sa kemm jigu bhiex jispiccaw mit-term taghhom Malta sa tispicca f-idejn ic-Cinizi u mmerrqa fid-dejn .
Jispiċċa t-term tagħhom għidt? Jekk nibqgħu sejrin kif aħna jidher li t-term tagħhom m’hu se jispiċċa qatt. Il-Bambin jilliberana. Muscat qed jiftaħar li l-kbir għadu ġej! U jiġi tafux b’konsegwenzi koroh u diżastrużri għal kulħadd. Imma mbagħad ikun tard wisq.
At 2.30 pm yesterday a convoy of about ten cars, escorted by six traffic policemen passed through Siggiewi.
One of them had the OPM number plate and the others DIV and another flying the flags of Malta and of the EU.
Most probably they were coming down from Girgenti after a function.
My impression is that Martin Schulz was the guest after addressing the PL supporters at Paola.
If his visit was to gather backing for his personal campaign in next EP election, how was it that this function was held at the official residence of the PM and not at the PL headquarters? If this is the case, then it shows the true spirit of Socialism – no distinction whatsoever between party and state.
When someone act and pretend to be someone whose he is not, he detach himself from the closest of realities. A prime minister CANNOT lie to the nation ALL THE TIME, and get along with it.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-05-11/news/i-have-never-had-the-luxury-not-to-take-a-decision-and-abstain-pm-4947148800/
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/How-Joseph-Muscat-thinks-you-should-vote-on-EU-membership11.jpg
“The problem in Malta is that they are extremely numerous and dominant.”
Or maybe Malta is so small that you are bound to bump into one of them sometime.
And this guy, I can only feel sorry for him.
“HA NIEHU IL FLUS TAL KAROZZA LI SERQULI DAD DEMMEL”
Ah yes, the ‘qerduna bil-guh’ rhetoric.
Did they steal his car?
He’s probably referring to the money he paid voluntarily to the government, because he could actually afford it, to buy a second hand BMW (which has become the new Escort Mk1). And now he wants the money back.
Pity he will have to wait 7 years of trickling for it.
In the meantime Italian doctors are working unpaid for the state health service because of the sorry state their country is in. Pathetic bloodsucker!
The problem in Malta is that political discourse isn’t set by the intellectual class, but by Jesmond Muscat.
You’ll find hamalli, chavs and illiterates in every country. But the politicians make an effort to stay above that. For marketing reasons, if nothing else. In Malta, they go right down to Jesmon Muscat’s level.
Ghax il-partit tal-haddiem on one side, and il-bniedem fic-centru tal-politika on the other.
It’s no wonder the bright ones are abstaining in droves.
And there is one more point that, of all people, I thought you would bring up, Baxxter.
Jesmond Muscat is the typical man you will find in the Xarabank audience. “Ghax Pepp, ha nghidlek, …”
It’s a pity that persons like this Jesmond are still around.
Printing his comment was wrong as I am sure it makes him feel important instead of realising that he is nothing but SCUM.
What baffles me is that it seems to be useless to spend all those millions trying to educate these people.
My advice is just ignore them and treat them as second class citizens. They are not even worth the air they breath.
To think that all politicians are advocating equal rights and so on.
Why should they be equal to reasonable persons?
I’ve given up on that front. Joe Azzopardi wins. Baxxter loses.
One of the benefits of democracy is surely that everyone has a right to education in order to improve oneself.
Whether the Jesmond Muscats of the world (and of this little island) ever manage to realize this is already doubtful.
Xtara il-computer biex jikteb it-tezi fuq l-iskop ta’ hajtu
Jekk thares lejn l-istorja politika issib li l-Labour party qatt ma kien kapaci biex imexxI dan il-pajjiz. Il-motivazzjoni tal-partit qatt ma kienet biex itejbu u jghollu l-livell ta l-ghejxien jew biex jghazlu l-ahjar futur ghal Malta.
Hija sfortuna kbira ghal Malta w propju ghalhekk li fil-verita m’hemmx ghazla politika hlief wahda, il-PN.
It is so unfortunate that Labour panders to the likes of Jesmond Muscat. But then again this is what Labour identifies with. Joseph Muscat conned a large part of the electorate just over a year ago, but, as he had shown repeatedly during the last few days, Labour is the natural home of people like Jesmond Muscat.
Malta is not only physically and geographically small, but unfortunately it is also small-mindedly utilitarian.
This is amply typified by the expression, “u ejja, mhux xorta.”
Remember Mintoff’s purging of the university courses he considered useless, which meant most of the arts, theology. and others?
And KMB’s inflicting on Malta a second-hand Strauger telephone system because it was cheaper, even if it was inefficient?
And the extension to the airport which could not even handle cargo flights efficiently, let alone the increased tourist traffic?
The malaise spread right down to the residential areas. I remember that the new houses in the San Gwann housing estate all had a small front garden. They have all disappeared.
What about the Santa Maria estate in Mellieha? How does the present site compare to the original plan?
Individually, most people buying a plot to build a new home use every inch, leaving no space for decorative or even just “empty” features.
It seems that our “smallness and small-mindedness” has little or no sense of the aesthetic.
This utilitarian mind-set is reflected in our voting patterns: which politician/political party is more likely to benefit ME PERSONALLY?
What other way is there to vote? Isn’t that the whole point of one citizen, one vote, viz. personal benefit for the citizen?
You could argue that the stupid and the uninformed will have the wrong set of personal benefits. But that’s another issue altogether, and it inevitably leads to some very un-PC solutions.
I didn’t vote for the EU because of some high-brow or selfless ideal of gid ghal uliedi. I voted for myself. Ditto for every election in which I voted to keep Labour out of power. Not that I benefited personally from the other lot – I’ve been shafted by PN and Labour policies and politicians alike. But I will always vote against the party that 1) tried to deny me a European passport 2) destroyed my European identity in the last fifty years.
So in the end, it’s still about myself and my personal benefits.
Ma hemmx kelma ohra biex tiddeskrivi lil nies bhal Jesmond Muscat hlief ‘zibel’.
Dawk l-insulti kollha ghax iffranka 2c. Il-vera mejjet bil-guh.
Scum and vermin like Jesmond Muscat are to be found in every country.
This sort of people appear to be so prevalent here because, for some strange reason, they are proud of their backwardness and actually flaunt it.
You just defined Mintoffianism. Mintoff chose the third world as a social model.
He declared this choice repeatedly in his speeches.
I really think you hit the nail on the head here, Ms. Caruana Galizia. You say that every PN electoral victory is near-miraculous. I have always believed it and, the older I grow and the more people I meet, the more miraculous I deem each victory to have been.
The reality is that Austin Gatt was right when he said that the PN should win for another twenty years but because the people are so ignorant, we will get another, at least, 10 years of Muscat.
Why am I saying people are ignorant? Not because I consider myself to be wise and clever but rather because I am realising that people just do not reflect and think for more than two seconds. What this so-called gentleman is saying is so telling and shocking not because the language and grammar he uses speak volumes about his peanut brain but, rather, because he reflects what the (I daresay) the majority believe.
The problem with most of our fellow citizens is that they do not really care about working to improve their lot or or about really moving on in life. They do not have the mental and educational capacity to see (not even look) beyond the tip of their noses. They are happy that gas will be cheaper – but do not realise that the reduction in price will be absolutely non-consequential. Their mentality is after the quick buck – which, at the end of the day does not amount to much and will not change one’s life.
What the majority (again, I daresay) of our fellow citizens do not care about creating opportunities, about social mobility, about broadening one’s mind. So many of our fellow citizens just care about amassing wealth for the sake of it. I read a few months ago that the most intelligent are not necessarily the richest because they splurge on “experiences” rather than objects. I have always been fascinated by those people who use pianos just as furniture rather than a musical instrument, for example. The point is that most Maltese are after objects, which are manifestations of wealth, and hence a two-cents reduction, a government job, a 20% reduction in water and electricity is tantamount to becoming a tad richer just for the sake of it. If I had to ask the so-called gentleman: how much are you actually saving on petrol and gas till the end of this year? He might not be in a position to reply. He might argue that he is in a dire fianancial situation. However, the reality is that had he been in a dire financial situation, he would not have bought a new car so, in all probability, he does not “need” the two–cents reduction.
When wealth and well-being are measured by how many cents you can save, when the effectiveness of any government is measured by how much they makes us “save” rather than by the quality of life generated by any government, then electing a PN government becomes more divine than human because the Nationalists have always striven to give this country a vision of good quality of life, vision and opportunity coupled with a good life experience in our country.
If we had to look at the Gonzi’s administration, and see the “results” two things spring to mind: the tens of projects which have no immediate financial value (Valletta and Mdina Ditch projects, national aquarium, the tens of real playgrounds which sprouted around the islands, the embellishment projects everywhere) and the sound economy which Gonzi fostered against all odds.
Individuals like Mr. Muscat here, will not identify these two results as giving HIM any benefit because he does not value experience and wealth in the way I – and so many others – value them. I care that our children have a beautiful playground to play in. I care that our capital city has an entrance designed a genius of our age, it matters to me that Mdina Ditch is a pleasure to behold, it matters to me that I can go to a real acquarium. It matters to me that we have economic stability – even if I am not wearing Prada every day.
This is the “other Malta” as you, Ms. Caruana Galizia, describe it, in my eyes. Individuals who are more about their “karozzi armati° than for experiencing architecture and who care more about museum homes (as I call them) than how serene our minds are because we know that we will not have a surprise every other day.
Gonzi could never have won the last election becuase his vision was too refined for the majority of us. His ideals for this country were higher than the majority of us could ever appreciate. He was disciplined with the public service and in many other spheres, hunting included. The Maltese “gentleman” does not want discipline because it diverts him from his goal of instant fix-it solutions.
This is the difference I see. This is the ignorance I see. As you, Ms. Caruana Galizia, so eloquently put it: it is a clash of visions, a clash of ideals which are so fundamental that we can never really understand each other. And as long as this ” other Malta” continues to foster this mentality, each PN will be near-miraculous. Yes. You couldn’t have been more spot-on (as always).
That is excellent analysis Lomax, I enjoyed reading your comment.
Spot on, Lomax.
Thank you PB and Rumplestiltskin.
Can someone translate “Enuq” . Never heard of this word
Maybe plural of ghonq (neck). Maybe his collar is getting dirty. This man has his own vocabulary and grammar.
Please do the world a favour and do not reproduce, Jesmond.
This idiot can vote – democracy..haha
This guys fits in precisely in this joke which I really love (slightly edited of course)
———-
A guy goes into a bar and there is a robot bartender. The robot says, “What will you have?” The guy says “Martini.” The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says, “168.” The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.
The guy leaves, but he is curious, so he goes back into the bar. The robot bartender says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Martini”. Again, the robot makes a great martini, gives it to the man and says, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says, “100.” The robot then starts to talk about football, TV series and gossip.
The guy leaves, but finds it very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time. He goes back into the bar. The robot says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Martini”, and the robot brings him another great martini. The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?” The guy says, “Uh, about 50.”
The robot leans in real close and says, “So… you are you going to vote Labour again?”
Diskors pastaz bhal dan m’ghandu qatt jigu ppublikat.
Possibli hawn daqshekk injoranza f’dan il-pajjiz . Jesmond Muscat int veru miskin u hamallu bil-provi.