Like characters conceived by Orwell
Published:
October 20, 2014 at 6:17pm
Now they working on making us believe that black is white, that up is down, that the prime minister didn’t say he would resign and that we are all mad but they are sane.
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Good, this isn’t whether he’ll keep his word or not, but whether documented fact, videos etc. are real or just ‘perception’.
Busuttil did not call for his resignation, just that if this ‘man’ had any pride, the minimum would be to face the consequences of his actions.
Muscat prefers snaking his way out.
Everyone’s call.
What is the point in him resigning? It’s not as if there’s a tirade of talent beating down the doors of Castille, demanding to lead the island to glory. Name one Labour politician that could do a better job than Muscat?
The question to ask is name one who could do a worse job than him…….
If it’s Animal Farm, it doesn’t much worry me.
If it’s 1984, then that’s a different matter.
At this stage, I do not care any more with Muscat’s continual lying because every cloud has a silver lining. The more the power station takes longer to be built, the more the danger and inconvenience is put in abeyance for us in the Marsaxlokk area.
This may well turn into a very dangerous situation for those within the PL.
Anyone caught saying that they did hear him say he would resign is going to face a lot of bullying.
What? You say you heard Joseph Muscat say he would resign? Drag him to room 101.
Not even the mighty Eddy Privitera can get him out of this Pinocchio sitcom.
Eddy, where are you hiding? Please post. We really miss you.
“Now they working on making us believe that black is white, ”
That is a partial line from the movie “JFK” and also the result of a complete and strenuous Jesuit education.
There’s an epic conversation going on with Luciano Busuttil on Twitter. He says he doesn’t follow this blog.
Presumably that’s why he didn’t write in, his feathers not ruffled, about something you’d written re turnips and LLD degrees.
Could someone please forward Luciano Busuttil that Dissett clip to his Facebook account? Or else if you’ve got his mobile number, I’ll be more than happy to forward it to him myself.
This reminded me of something in 1984: The party’s efforts to destroy the English language and replace it with Newspeak was so that the vocabulary would become limited.
The English language is rich and with it one can express complex thoughts.
In 1984 they tried to limit free thought by limiting the language. Once you don’t have a word to describe an idea that idea no longer exists.
Remember the hatred the MLP had for English and their efforts to replace it completely with Maltese, with its limited vocabulary?
[Daphne – The Nationalist Party strikes me as having had a far bigger chip about speaking English than the Labour Party did. The chip got worse over the years and not better – George Borg Olivier and some of his MPs who lived round my neck of the woods certainly had no problem with it and spoke it routinely and perfectly. But now in the Nationalist Party, and I don’t mean parliament necessarily, you have all these people who are resentful about speaking English and make a point of not learning how to speak it, and who don’t even realise that this is exactly how they helped alienate a whole bunch of people like me (but not me, because I think Labour are crap). If you are going to mix with people and get your ideas across as a politician, you have to speak as they do, use their idiom, their accent and their language. Otherwise you’re doomed. Quite frankly, the language didn’t stand a chance in this country, with both government and Opposition firmly aligned against it on a near-permanent basis because of their colonial prejudices.]
I don’t think that the Nationalist Party, post Independence, had any issues with English. Well, at least I never thought that they had. I used to see people like Guido Demarco and his use of Italianised Maltese as a quaint oddity.
What makes Maltese different from Swiss German, for example? The only thing I can think of is that Maltese is used in newspapers and some books, while Swiss German is only spoken.
Having a unique national language is considered a good thing by many people. I’m not sure why. I think Maltese is a good thing in a romantic, fuzzy sort of way but of little practical use outside Malta and even in Malta if you are trying to do or study anything technical.
[Daphne – I can’t really agree. How many people in the Nationalist Party speak as I do? Perhaps one in parliament, and he spends most of his time masking it. That alone speaks volumes, because my way of speaking is representative of a few thousand people who make up a very small but very significant demographic.
There were three or four in the party structure, as distinct from elected politicians, but it is no coincidence that they had to deal with an immense amount of hostility and none of them are there any longer. It isn’t because of the language in itself, or the accent, or the codes – it is because of what all that signifies. It raises people’s hackles. Their subconscious processes it as the voice/sound of assumed superiority, yet it is their own prejudices which are at work here and not the prejudices of those they ‘read’ as superior aka ‘arrogant’.
There is nobody on the PN benches now who is the equivalent, in demographic terms, of Michael Refalo, George Bonello du Puis or Censu Tabone, to name just the more obvious ones, and there hasn’t been for some time. At one time, the Nationalist Party even had a leader who came from that demographic. The socio-cultural identity of the Nationalist Party has changed radically over the last 10 to 15 years or so, with the greater and more rapid changes taking place over the last 10 years.
People from that demographic no longer join the party because they feel alienated, unwanted, pushed out and outnumbered by a completely different demographic who make it clear that they are uncomfortable with that sort of person around. And when people from this demographic are no longer in the PN structure or on the PN frontline as candidates and elected politicians, electors from their demographic are alienated themselves.
I have tried to explain this several times, and the rapidly snowballing consequences in terms of lost votes and alienation of this demographic. I have to struggle at times to see anything I recognise and can relate to, socio-culturally, in the PN. Fortunately, I approve of its policies and go with those, but most people will overlook the policies and just want to see somebody who ‘speaks their language’.
I know a fair number of people in politics in both parties, and I can safely say that very few speak and write idiomatic English and of those who do, it is a very small number who made the effort themselves rather than acquiring it naturally while growing up. I don’t think it is a coincidence that they tend to be the clearer and more logical thinkers.
My observation is that Malta is still riddled with chips and prejudices about language, the roots of which go deep. It’s not only English, but also Maltese which brings out all the prejudices. Certain sorts of people simply won’t accept that there is such a thing as a ‘posh’ Maltese accent, still less ‘posh’ Maltese, even if they accept these distinctions in other languages.
They equate ‘posh’ Maltese with bad Maltese, and the ‘clean’ accent of a certain social group as the accent of somebody struggling with the language, when most of these people – the older generation at least – have been native speakers of Maltese from infancy. We are systematically told that ‘good’ Maltese is the sort spoken, and with that accent, by the people raised in villages, with a poor level of education, and who know no other language. It is the equivalent of making the kind of English spoken in Liverpool slums the Gold Standard for British English.]
I come from the sticks, but I would like to think that there exists a political party that places itself elsewhere. Because when all is said and done, we’d all love to leave this planet in a better position than that in which we entered it.
For me, it means leaving the socio-cultural group in which I was born, and supporting those who lead me out of it. But everyone who is remotely involved in politics is leading me back to the stratum in which I was born.
It’s no wonder there is a significant segment of the population that has turned its back on politics. Of course. There are people who would never feel comfortable supporting the Nationalist Party, not because of politics but because of their socio-cultural circle.
The Nationalist Party lacks refinement and sophistication. Is that inpoggu l-bniedem fic-centru tal-politika? Is that humanism? Is it the European way? I’m damned if I’m going to let those people define Malteseness. Not them. Especially not them.
A few months ago, blue became the new red.
Now it’s time for black to turn white.
You can’t blame Luciano for not hearing his boss making that statement. Probably he was too busy playing with his mobile during the event.