Is somebody in the PN creeping to Musumeci as well now? Have you learned NOTHING?
Robert Musumeci (centre) celebrating the Labour victory in March 2013 with Silvio Schembri and other Labour Party activists.
If the PN is going to take advice from Jose Herrera’s brother-in-law as well as from Joe Grima’s brother, it might as well slit its wrists now and be done with it. Here’s Musumeci at supper with government minister Michael Farrugia, Jose Herrera’s sister and the sister of that woman who was photographed at 5am outside a Rabat bar with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando the night of that brawl.
Nothing about human nature, dysfunctional personalities, self-serving behaviour, knavery and bad characters, that’s for sure. If their beloved Maltese vocabulary were better diversified, it would have a word for scoundrel. But it doesn’t, and if you don’t have a word for scoundrel then you can’t define one or act accordingly.
As most women know and a few men too, the devil is in the detail. If you want to know what’s really going on, who is talking to who and which alliances are being formed, you watch out for the seemingly insignificant, for the apparently cursory detail.
That shoddy character, Robert Musumeci, has been flattering AZAD (that’s the PN’s ideas bureau, if you please) chairman David Griscti on Twitter. Work out what that tells you.
Griscti gave a keynote speech at the PN’s Ideas Convention the day before yesterday and said that the party should not ‘resort’ to ‘personal attacks’.
Robert Musumeci, who has allied himself firmly to a political party and politicians who use their media machine as a weapon for character assassination and slander, thinks this bloody marvellous. To quote one of the 20th century’s most famous whores: “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”
What a damned idiot Griscti is in this – juri kemm ma jafx sahta. I’ll just spell it out to you, David, shall I? Listen carefully and you might learn something. I’ll put it in point form.
1. The Malta Labour Party almost won the 2008 general election and won this last one massively because it spent 10 years (much more than that, actually, but it was up against the people’s desire to join the European Union in the 2003 general election) using every medium it owned – print, broadcast, internet and live on stage – to launch what you would call personal attacks on everybody it could within the Nationalist Party and anybody it associated with the PN.
2. Not content with legitimate exposure of the behaviour of individual politicians, the Labour Party went much further into lies, slander, half-truths, rank bullying and worse, attempts at intimidating its critics by targetting their close family members and children in a manner that resulted in reports having to be made to the police.
2. The net result of that is that the electorate’s perception of the Nationalist Party came to be that of a collection of criminally corrupt, greedy, grabby, self-serving and incompetent politicians surrounded by contemptible cronies.
3. The Nationalist Party adopted a Santa Maria Goretti approach to political communication and refused to ‘target individuals’, failing to understand, with stupidity that turned out to be catastrophic not just for the party but for Malta itself, that telling the electorate what you know to be a fact about politicians and their cronies is NOT ‘personal attacks’ but respect for the electorate who should be kept informed about the behaviour, nature and choices of those who ask for their vote. Yes, draw the line at the lies, half-truths and slander in which the Labour Party excels – that should go without saying – but be honest with your electorate.
4. The net result of the Nationalist Party’s failure to go to town on the real corruption, cronyism, ineptitude, disgusting behaviour and suspect alliances of politicians in the Labour Party and of the Labour Party itself is that the electorate was left with a picture of Labour and its people as squeaky clean and terribly efficient.
5. The situation deteriorated to the point where the electorate was actually listening to blackguards, scoundrels and knaves like Pullicino Orlando, Franco Debono and John Dalli, on a television station owned and run by other blackguards, scoundrels and knaves, accuse the Nationalist Party of being blackguards, scoundrels and knaves themselves.
6. Because of the Labour Party’s skill in using its media (and any media it can borrow) as a systematic character assassination machine and weapon of war for the destruction of its real and perceived enemies, and because of the Nationalist Party’s total incompetence in understanding communication, how people receive messages and what the results are in terms of public perception, the state of play by March 2013 was:
PN: stuffed full of old, corrupt fossils from the remote past, there to stuff their pockets and those of their cronies while f**king things up for Malta
MLP: replete with thrilling new and honest people who are terribly competent, know exactly what they are doing, and are there to serve the country and make Malta a better place for us all
I’m not the only one who has noticed what Jose Herrera’s brother-in-law (has Musumeci actually married his consort yet, or are they still trying to sort out their respective estates?) is up to. This website’s best-known reader has noticed too. H. P. Baxxter tweeted a response to Musumeci and sent in the column below. I disagree with him on the matter of David Thake. Thake owes it to himself and to the rest of us to stay there as a persistent reminder to the PN that it’s people like him and people like me who have put the PN into government in one general election after another. When people who are like us withdrew their support from the PN in droves in 2008 and then in floods in 2013, look what happened.
Posted by H. P. Baxxter:
There was a fascinating incident on Twitter last night.
Like a bolt out of the blue, I get mentioned by Robert Musumeci in this piece of sycophantic praise for David Griscti:
“Almenu fadal nies dicenti bhall- avukat Griscti.”
That tells us all we need to know. Not that Griscti is in cahoots with Musumeci (I have to spell out these things for my Maltese readership), but that Griscti’s message is music to The Other Malta’s ears.
And the Other Malta is all the comfortable, smug baby-boomers who shouldn’t even be seen, let alone given a podium at the IDEAS convention of a government-in-waiting.
What. A. Shambles.
Volemosi bene, as the poet Jozef would say. Game of shadows and charades.
My dear David Thake, if you’re reading this: you’re far too good for the Nationalist Party. Please run a mile. You’re alien to their way of thinking. You’re light years ahead. You’re modern. They’re not. You’re 2014 Europe, they’re 1930s Sicily.
Please, for your sake.
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Brilliant, and spot on.
Dr Busuttil, take heed lest you fall. .
When he talks about decent people, does he mean those who don’t repeatedly cuckold their respective wives and husbands?
I think we are well and truly f#@$&d for the next 10, if not more, years.
You mention the word “scoundrel,” and yesterday you mentioned the word “backbone.”
I believe the source of the problem with the two concepts in Maltese is the same.
When one thinks of “backbone” in English, one thinks of something that can be ramrod straight.
Not so in Maltese, where the etymology of “sinsla” has its roots in “foundations.”
The concepts are not identical. There is almost no meaningful overlap.
That is perhaps the root to that problem.
LP and NP both reverting to the founders, foundations etc. instead of to backbone in the English sense.
Actually, “sinsla” comes from the Arabic word for “chain”.
أساس is also a root.
Musumeci is stringing Griscti along to serve the interests of his Labour Party, just as his companion the magistrate did with Pullicino Orlando and his drunken promise to a bunch of Super One people, at a party she and Musumeci gave at their house, to vote against the St John’s Cathedral project.
That poor sap Griscti thinks Musumeci really, badly wants to help the PN. Maybe he should ask Magistrate Herrera for advice too, and join them in bed while he’s at it.
‘..That poor sap Griscti thinks Musumeci really, badly wants to help the PN. Maybe he should ask Magistrate Herrera for advice too, and join them in bed while he’s at it…’
And where, pray, did you get that, Mellieha?
Veru il- perit rega’ hiereg ghall- pulitka?
Fis-Siggiewi s-sitwazzjoni hi patetika. Musumeci telaq minn sindku. Il-kunsilliera Laburisti huma taht kontroll tieghu. Fost il-kunsillera tal-PN hemm l-akbar habib tieghu. Fost il-kandidati tal-PN godda li hergin hemm perit li bdieh hu u kulhadd jaf li huwa habin sew tieghu. Tal- biza.
Bhal ma hu habib kbir ta dan il-laghqi u opportunist Bundy, li xeba’ jilghaq s**m Joseph Muscat u jpeclaq fuq il-facebook kontra l-partit Nazzjonalista.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=351424578327203&set=a.277891559013839.1073741828.100003789904159&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=433138200155840&set=a.269909119812083.1073741827.100003789904159&type=3&theater
Andrew Borg-Cardona suggested the only possible explanation for Musumeci’s mysterious tweet to Minhexa Mexa and myself, viz. he is convinced that both of us are Daphne.
Wow. Very flattering and all that, but can’t this future lawyer even read? Do I sound like Daphne at all? What’s more fascinating is that quite a few of the Other Malta seem to believe the same theory.
[Daphne – It’s not only a matter of ‘can’t they read’, but yet another sign of their DISASTROUS inability to collate and analyse information. Why would I use a fake name for fairly innocuous tweets when I quite happy to say it to them straight under my own name everywhere else?]
Some points for them to consider:
– I swear like a trooper. Daphne only manages the occasional ‘bloody’.
– I do stream-of-consciousness. Daphne doesn’t.
– I also do R-rated. Daphne doesn’t.
– I can do authentic hamallu-speak. Daphne, not being from that background, cannot.
So let’s put this matter to rest once and for all. I am not she. She is not me. Neither of us is Minhexa Mexa.
Baxxter, I think you’ve been misfed information.
Griscti said we shouldn’t stoop to their level, and that’s getting embroiled in our own lies and deceit.
Unless we really want to insist this country’s made of morons who don’t deserve any better.
Volemosi bene is what Musumeci does, or what he’s trying to do here.
L-aqwa li jhaddru l-ilma. This shall be constant and pervasive.
So he didn’t say anything about attakki personali? Then what’s Musumeci gloating about?
Note that volemosi bene is almost universal in Malta. It’s not just Musumeci, or the lawyers, or Labour or the Nationalist Party. It’s 95% of the population, give or take. It’s the reason even Franco Debono’s most hardened critics never fail to give him his title, or the reason Godfrey Grima got his polite applause after his speech. Heqq, mhux sewwa ma capcapx.
If he referred to attakki personali as being the sole basis of building a political framework, he’s right.
If attakki personali is delegitimising Labour’s behaviour, he did.
Grima was booed, left huddling up to Busuttil after it was over. Poor little Godfrey.
[Daphne – Was he booed? That’s fantastic. Now I wish I’d gone with a banner saying ‘F&$K OFF, FAT CONTROLLER’S BROTHER’.]
Busuttil said he was rather disconcerted with Grima’s conclusion that politicians are by nature corrupt, and that no, he won’t bear with it.
That was this morning.
As that other darling of all things refined and wooden, the people have spoken; these idiots are over.
Distinction is what matters, rest assured it registered.
I say Occupy PN. Busuttil opened those doors.
What gets to me is if they don’t highlight the fact he was booed.
Busuttil scrapped Grima this morning.
Done. Next.
Lahqila t-tifel. Will he present cases in Magistrate Herrera’s (ahem) court?
What’s a Diploma in Notary Public?
http://www.rmperiti.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=37
Robert Musumeci is the only Maltese architect and civil engineer who concurrently holds a degree in Law and a Diploma in Notary Public.
He could start a fashion in German-style double salutations:
Doctor Perit Robert Musumeci.
Or Perit Doctor Robert Musumeci.
And if it all goes to plan: The Honourable Doctor Perit Musumeci.
Ustja, warp speed lej’ il-future sejjer dal-pajjiz.
….minghajr qatt ma resaq Tal- Qroqq…….brillanti hux?
Heq ux, min hexa mexa.
David Griscti may well be the target of a couple of people in the PN who’d like to see Busuttil fail.
Griscti hinted there may still be some in denial about what happened last year, and that’s too easy.
That Musumeci had to go after Griscti is enough to make the party aware of Muscat’s next phase, keep the PN from ever forming an alternative.
And that’s by keeping it as close to his influence as possible. Thus Musumeci steps in. Just keep in mind this ‘architect’ had to read law, betraying his misgivings to his own designs.
David Griscti also said no one’s above the party and the leader. What’s Musumeci’s call on this?
It would be disastrous for the PN to expend time and energy on courting the troughers who had crossed over to the snake-oil factory when the sign on its main entrance read >Great Future Ahead: New Power Station Within Two Years< and who now, belatedly, realise that they have been had, and that like rats they had boarded a pirates' ship which has now been holed.
Let them drown in the sea of political lies, illegalities, corruptness and outright criminality. Don't drop them that lifeline. They don't deserve it.
I believe the Maltese word for scoundrel is ruffjan.
[Daphne – It isn’t. Ruffjan means ruffian.]
According to the English-Maltese Kalepin of 1948, scoundrel means “brikkun.” In the village sense of its usage, not as used by Mariella Pace Asciaq:
“Min waqqghu il-vazun, ja brikkun?
Dak waqa’ wahdu, mama…”
[Daphne – Scoundrel does not mean brikkun and brikkun does not mean scoundrel. A Maltese-English dictionary is useless when the equivalent words do not exist. A dictionary is there to give you the exact word, not the nearest equivalent as imagined by its author. If the exact word does not exist, the dictionary should say so, and then simply explain what the word means.]
H@**ej is closer to the mark.
Oh and there is no word for “evil” in Maltese. None.
And you say a democratic state can be run in Maltese?
“Xibka tal-hazen, jigifieri Eeevilll” – Law Commissioner Franco Debono
“And you say a democratic state can be run in Maltese?”
Baxxter, neither can a modern, up to date democratic party.
Until the Akkademja tal-Malti uses the best university expert who IS available, to add more depth to concepts and new words in Maltese, English should be adopted without further dilly-dallying on this issue.
Perhaps the most suitable Maltese translation for ‘scoundrel’ is ‘minghul’ (pronounced – minawl); as in “Itlaq ‘l hemm ja minghul!” It conveyed the meaning of someone who spells trouble and disaster. It also had a ring of devilry around it.
It was regular currency (at least in rural areas) up to the 70s, when (it seems) Malta was adopting a more ‘politically correct’ attitude. With hindsight, it was never more apt (politically speaking) than in the decades that followed.
I always thought ruffjan was a sort of laqghi.
[Daphne – In my neck of the woods it was those types hanging round the port and Valletta bars.]
What would one do when his opponent is cheating: This blogger has got an ethical solution. It’s a very good read.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/kobayashi-maru/
I’m incredulous, what poor judgement of characters are they.
Just tell Musumeci to f*ck off.
At least there is a decent Musumeci within the PN and it is Robert’s elder brother Martin
Not this one, is he?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2010/02/the-magistrate-the-magistrates-lover-the-lovers-brother-his-wife-and-the-melita-cable-kaxxa-and-the-picnic-cooler/
Don’t know. Maybe he has more than one sibling.
David Griscti, the lawyer?
Hemm xi wiehed li mhux lawyer?
Anke ghax il-monsinjuri mal-labour qeghdin. Halli ghandhom il-habiba fil-Unesco.
Yes the lawyer, who until recently used to belittle people who participated in politics especially Nationalists. He also used to brag that he does not vote PN. Time (or rather opportunism) does change people.
[Daphne – Yes, and to whose wife’s family a delegation from the PN had to be dispatched in the 2008 general election because they told everyone who would listen that they were going to stay away from the polling-booth en masse because an army officer in the family hadn’t got the promotion they felt he deserved. And what happens when Labour is elected to government? They promote everyone else and he resigns his commission. I have no time for these antics. Let’s hope they bothered to vote for the Nationalist Party this time instead of not voting or voting Labour. Because let’s face it, if you can’t even persuade your own wife’s family to vote PN, how are you going to persuade the rest of the country?]
It would do a lot of good for PN to publicly denounce all those that have rebelled against the party . It has to be said publicly that such ones will never form part of PN and likewise that J.Dalli will be considered a permanent traitor to both party and Malta . Not resisting the devils will haunt you back and overcome you – Simon .
[Daphne – ‘Traitor’ and ‘denounce’ are so Joseph Stalin. The only way to deal with individuals like this in politics is the way you would deal with them in life: treat them for what they are.]
Agree 100% with you Daphne and White Coat. The PN shouldn’t court the very individuals who did so much damage deliberately before the elections to the detriment of those of us who supported the PN through thick and thin.
Scoundrel is ‘viljakk’ in Maltese.
[Daphne – That’s a villain.]
Surprised about Robert Musumeci’s comeback in the PN? His brother Martin is in the PN’s education forum. I wonder how much info he is passing to the PL about what is happening at the Stamperija.
Christ. I knew this would happen.
Muscat cannot do otherwise.