A timely comment
Posted by H. P. Baxxter yesterday on the subject of Tripoli:
There is one angle to this story which shows the vile falsehood of our national narrative and the lying nature of our government.
For all our talk of shared history and civilisation, oldest friends and brothers, it’s not China we turn to when the shit hits the fan, but Western countries.
We seek out the US, French or British embassy. We drive to the desert airstrip to board that life-saving German Air Force or RAF flight. We heave a sigh of relief when we get to that diplomatic mission flying the EU flag.
Our benumbed intellectuals happily forget this. If you were to believe them, you’d think we could take refuge in the Chinese embassy compound anywhere in the world if ever there’s trouble. No, we couldn’t. Nor would the Chinese government pluck any Maltese citizen from danger.
Because this is what ‘oldest friendship’ is all about. It’s about saving each other’s citizens, not about economic ties.
12 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
51 years ago, when I was 10, I asked my maternal grandfather why he had brought our family to England from Malta. He answered:
Because the English know the difference between right and wrong.
Hear, hear, Baxxter.
[Daphne – Well, there you go then. Your grandfather knew it too: that the Maltese don’t understand the difference between right and wrong, but only the difference between what suits them and doesn’t and what they can get away with and can’t get away with. Part of this is accepting criminals and bad people into society as though it is normal, not quite understanding, or not caring, that this is construed, even by them, as approval of their behaviour. In more civilised places, criminals keep the society of criminals. In Malta, you’ll turn up to a party and find a convicted cocaine trafficker standing next to you at the drinks table.]
Baxxter, I now live in China with my Chinese wife, son and extended family, running my business.
In the previous comment I used the terms right and wrong clearly highlighting their moral elements and juxtaposition.
In Chinese language and culture the terms right or wrong have no moral underpinning. They only transmit what works or does not work.
This is often translated into meaning what one may get away with or not get away with – thus Sai Liang Mizzi may have no intellectual or moral understanding that what she is doing is wrong, as it so patently is: the fact that she is getting away with it is good per se in her mind and her culture.
Sometimes, even to my Chinese friends I must cause offence and remind them that there are some things we will never agree upon.
[Daphne – It sounds astonishingly similar to Maltese culture to me, Carmelo. I really can’t see why anything would be lost in translation.]
Daphne,
Why do you say that? My understanding is different. Maltese do have understand the concept of what’s right and wrong, but there is a deep rooted believe that, “minn hexa mexa, minn MA hexiex MA mexiex.” With that thinking you can justify anything.
[Daphne – I have lived in Malta for 50 years and encountered nothing that changed or even challenged my view. People who are clear and distinct on matters of right and wrong even if they do not involve the law are by far the exception and stand out in conversation. The island is so small and so crowded that this society has had to develop a way of accommodating evil in its midst, and now the creeping evil has become full-blown.]
To Julie T:
You got the Maltese saying – which I hereby propose to have incorporated into the nation’s coat-of arms – wrong. It is: “min hexa mexa, u min ma hexiex inhexa”.
I can think of no more appropriate, apposite, few words that encapsulate most, if not all, aspects of the recent (4 to 5 decades) history of this country.
China’s biggest friend is North Korea. This is in itself very telling. Both countries work very hard to suppress democratic institutions. They mistrust their own people and yet our government is trusting our future in their hands.
Muscat must have received a lot of money from China to fund his campaigns and now they own him. He is China’s puppet.
Blood is thicker than water. Maltese blood is a vintage cultured under the Mediterranean sun, irrigated by the blood and guts of a thousand European wars, and pruned by a thousand European and middle-eastern occupations. In your moment of need or crisis, you turn first to family, not your distant overseas business partner.
Anthony, honour was never part of our culture. The mentality of grabbing what you can when you can and letting the imperial monarch foot the bill has not left us. Albeit two full generations and 50 years of self determination.
Contrary to what Joseph Muscat says, there is actually no “old friendship” between Malta and China. And there are no “historic ties” between the two countries.
Muscat keeps repeating this every time he speaks to Chinese leaders and on CNTV or on hastily organised China Daily videos because someone in his party keeps telling him to tell the Chinese what they like to hear and to make them feel important in the scheme of the universe.
The only friendship Muscat has is with his own arse. He knows that he is bankrupting the country with his politics of cronyism and expensive pre-electoral promises and that, besides hard work and investment, the only other option for his salvation is China. Of course, we know which option Muscat will choose. Actually he has chosen it already, by accepting numerous bailouts from China disguised as MOUs.
China can only help us economically, but everytime it does so, it asks Muscat for a signature on the dotted line on a document they call an MOU. And interestingly, such episodes are non events for the Chinese media, whereas our media salivates at the thought of “Chinese investment.”
Baxxter is brilliant as usual. Allow me to add one very important factor which might have hindered any action by Muscat’s unfit-for-purpose inner circle. The natural friends he mentions are reluctant to cooperate with Muscat, given the track record and declarations regarding foreign affairs in the past three years, out of sheer mistrust.
Arab spring should teach the present government a lesson.
It’s part of the reason I voted for EU membership, and also why I keep calling for closer, formal relations with the West. I want to be part of a bloc where one nation is willing to save someone else’s nationals.
A flavour of things to come – interesting Guardian article about the China-Africa pact:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/27/china-executes-ugandans-drugs-trafficking