For the sake of compassion, please give this man his iced bun
I can no longer stand the sight of an old man debasing himself in this fashion.
And that is quite apart from the fact that prostrating oneself for a prolonged period at the age of 80 carries the risk of never being able to right oneself again without permanent damage to one’s spine – a slipped disc, at least.
Martin Scicluna forgets that, as one of his own kind (though not in temperament or in any other way), I am perfectly placed to know that the truly insufferable snobs are those who patronise people like Joseph Muscat and who enjoy the process of feeling socially democratic by doing so.
I have long held the theory – several years, at least – that the contempt of people like Martin Scicluna (there were so many others, out of the same mould) for the Nationalist Party started when they began to perceive its image and its key figures as what I can best describe as lower middle-class.
People like Martin Scicluna despise the lower middle-class in a way that they don’t despise the working-class, the pool from which their servants were provided in a time-honoured relationship. The lower middle-class, however, are seen as jumped-up imposters who fit nowhere into the scheme of things, and worse still, who refuse to understand that they are manifestly inferior in every way to people like Martin Scicluna.
People like Martin Scicluna feel superior to the sort of people who have formed the Nationalist Party hierarchy for the last decade or so, but become frustrated and angry at the fact that they do not feel inferior to them, refusing to acknowledge their massive social superiority and knowledge.
People like Martin Scicluna therefore despise them and turn instead to the Labour Party which, made up as it is largely of working-class people who have a great deal of money but who are nevertheless working-class in mentality, are greatly impressed by them and their social superiority, because they have been programmed over generations to think of Martin Scicluna’s caste as something special, which is the flipside of periodically ransacking it in a variety of ways.
This misplaced and generalised belief of the working-class that people like Martin Scicluna are by definition their betters is the reason that people like Martin Scicluna are able to patronise them. These working-class politicians enjoy being patronised in return – because they don’t see it as being patronised, but as having acquired the society of Very Important Tal-Pepe Persons.
The trade-off here, though it is largely unconscious, is that Scicluna and his like get to feel socially democratic, edgy and tolerant (they are stuck in the 1960s) by mixing with hamalli tal-flus who have been elected to government, while the hamalli tal-flus who have been elected to govern feel they have arrived because Scicluna and the likes of him are licking their spittle.
Because he is from a very different generation, and possibly also because he was never known for his intelligence (lack of intelligence is effectively masked by eloquence) Scicluna does not understand that I have absolutely no mealy-mouthed qualms about taking people as I find them. If a person is a total prat, the fact that he is working-class, uncouth and with a terrible accent will not stop me saying he is a total prat. Real snobbery would be refusing to say so on the grounds that one does not speak negatively of those one thinks of as social inferiors.
And if another person is a total prat, but grew up round the corner from where I did – albeit in World War II – and is from my social background, then I will say so too. As Martin Scicluna knows only too well.
I am a liberal democrat: prats are prats whether they are Joseph Muscat from Burmarrad or Martin Scicluna from Graham Street, Sliema, and I have no compunction about saying so either way.
Insufferable snobs are those who enjoy patronising people like Joseph Muscat because it makes them feel 1960s-hip and tolerant (“some of my best friends are black Communists and one-legged Jewish lesbians”). But if Joseph Muscat were to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage, it would be a different matter.
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Joseph Muscat is mocked in international circles, and not just because of his thick accent.
“… prostrating oneself for a prolonged period at the age of 80 carries the risk of never being able to right oneself again without permanent damage to one’s spine – a slipped disc, at least.”
There are different levels of Prostration (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostration), some of which should be quite safe for most 80-year olds. However I suppose that this was a metaphor and thus the envisaged physical consequences are irrelevant anyway.
So we can now safely say that Martin Scicluna has turned into an arse-licker par excellence.
I am wondering at the basis of his assertion that the speech given at the LSE was “well received”. It definitely was by the first four rows stacked with the PM’s entourage and sidekicks. As for the rest, I’m sure they felt enlightened beyond belief.
A rose is a rose is a rose. Well argued Daphne
Daphne, your straightforwardness is what makes your opinion worth reading. Your perception of situations provides mental stimulus.
Too old for an iced bun – but there is still hope, he should consult Eddy Privitera, perhaps, who knows?
He has been given his iced bun. He is the chairman of the National Commission for Further and Higher Education.
‘Real snobbery would be refusing to say so on the grounds that one does not speak negatively of those one thinks of as social inferiors’.
I have been saying this for years, although in a different context. In various social contexts, this same mentality is applied – for example where one ethnic/national group is viewed as demographically inferior. Those belonging to the ethnic/national group with a better standing will never criticise those viewed as inferior, or who indeed view themselves as inferior, for fear of being called prejudiced.
The sad truth is that the person who criticises fairly and without prejudice is seen as prejudiced merely for taking to task someone from the ethnic/national group viewed by most as inferior.
Therefore the closet xenophobe/racist gets off scot-free and the non-prejudiced are labelled xenophobic/racist when their actions in treating everyone the same actually indicate quite the opposite.
To be honest, whenever I hear people raving on about their fantastic gay, black, disabled friend – as if they were a token of sort and a badge of tolerance for the friend – I just know that they are prejudiced. This worst thing, as in the case of the PL rabble, is that they don’t see through it.
Could it be that Martin Scicluna himself was the speech-writer, and that’s why he liked it so much?
[Daphne – That occurred to me immediately, yes.]
An astonishingly brilliant speech, then.
Martin Scicluna is positioning himself to be invited to join Joseph Muscat on his next trip. He strikes me as an ass-kisser in the mould of Balzan Saviour, the real BS.
‘The future of the Commonwealth’.
Enough said.
As usual – or, rather, as always – in this instance too, Scicluna does not know whether he is coming or going.
Prior to the 2013 elections, he was spitting on the PN – which, strangely enough, had hired him as a national security advisor – and euphorically praising Mscat’s electoral strategies to high heavens.
Barely a year had passed that Scicluna appeared to be ruing all his euphoria and started to complain, lament, and publicly ‘retract’ his support for the PL.
I remember Scicluna boasting about his important role in what was called, some five or six years back, the Think Tank to advise Government on a number of national issues – including divorce legislation. What his private agenda in this last-mentioned he alone (not necessarily, however) knows.
I remember he was highly incensed when, in the local media, someone had commented that the botched-up (not set-up, mind you) group of ‘sages’ was labeled as a bunch of tinkerers.
Rather surprisingly, one member of the group was a (now departed) University professor who enjoyed a very good standing, both locally and abroad, in academic and also political circles. I always wondered how this professor had ended up with Scicluna et al.- with whom he was perceived to carry no truck. But that is now history.
As for the ‘iced bun’ to be awarded to the valiant aged, may I suggest either free residence at a private seniors’ home or, at least, a reduced rate stay at SVPR.
The former would cost the state – or rather you and me – quite a hefty amount annually. Perhaps for not too long, after all. It may cost as much as a local-councils elections. And, as we all know, Muscat is not ready to pay for one of these before 2019.
The latter would cost even less – but may not be to Scicluna’s liking, or his room-mates’ for that matter.
Is Joseph Muscat aiming for the Secretariat of the Commonwealth? A symbolic position with perks but without any real responsibilities? Is that why Muscat is constantly flirting with David Cameron? Is that why the morons are trying to revive an almost defunct and insignificant institution?
In that case, Martin Scicluna would become his advisor.
The term of the current Secretary General expires in 2016.
If I am not mistaken, Michael Frendo lobbied for the position in 2008.
Not much of a gentleman is he.
Basta jridha ta’ Disraeli.
The world is full of prats. Avoid them when possible, ignore them when not. And whatever you do, don’t elect them.
Speaking of iced buns, can someone please explain to me what the current definition of expert in Malta is please? This because I found the following in Times of Malta today confusing:
”He said that following talks between the ministry, former Metropolitan chief of police John Lewis and educational expert Charles Caruana Carabez, it was decided that the college should be administered by a board made up of a chairman, deputy chairman, the Police Commissioner and two experts. Another official would be in charge of logistics.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140806/local/process-to-transform-police-academy-into-college-starts.530843
Where’s the virtu et honor in such shameless brown- nosing? Pathetic!
Can’t help telling you “Qaxxartu”
When men of 80 bend down to pick up something they look around to check whether they need to do something else while there.
Self praise is no recommendation, Martin.
Ajma, jahasra, how times do change.
I still remember the esteemed major, captain or colonel (cannot for the life of me remember his rank) Scicluna in the good old early 90s never deigning to acknowledge those colleagues whose English was not up to scratch.
Perhaps he has become wiser in his (very) old age, but somehow I doubt it.
Martin Scicluna looks like a Jewish auntie.
Martin Scicluna’s sister Valerie is married to Peter de Bono, brother to ‘lateral thinking guru’ Edward de Bono.
Peter de Bono is in business with Richard Hills, who is married to Patricia aka Paddy Hills, and their home address in London (135 Holland Park Avenue) is also where Shiv Nair’s UK businesses are registered and where Shiv Nair has been known to reside since 1996, with or without his family, when he is not in Malta.
This has been a long time in the brewing.
‘important, measured and well-received speech’, he obviously didn’t hear many of the under-tongued comments.