You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to work out what is going on with Ian Castaldi Paris
I can’t stand it when the media don’t give electors the right and proper information they need to assess, in context, the politicians who ask for their vote.
It’s wrong. Newspapers are there to serve electors and not politicians. Electors need the facts to assess the words and behaviour of politicians.
Yesterday I realised that there was something fundamentally wrong with Ian Castaldi’s speech to the Labour Party conference. The general gist running through it was of finding a home in Labour, welcoming arms, daddy, father, brother, friend, being listened to, Muscat taking off his jacket and sitting down to listen, the Nationalist Party rejecting him, not loving him, not appreciating him, not valuing him, not wanting him enough.
Listening with the ears and insight of a grown woman, it was all I could hear: the craving, the hunger. Everything else he said fell away as peripheral. That was the overriding note. And quite frankly, his hunger was so raw that probably even a man could pick it up. Given what I learned today, I realise that Joseph Muscat certainly did, and that is how he worked on Castaldi Paris – as he did with so many others, by recognising his vulnerabilities and going straight for them in the way that archetypal narcissists do, or those sorts of women who go after otherwise unavailable men by targeting their vulnerabilities.
People who do that kind of thing, who work out the vulnerabilities of others and then home in on them to manipulate the individual to their own advantage, have no conscience. But they exist, and many of them are in politics, the entertainment world, and business and industry – all fields where this kind of behaviour can be justified in terms of pushing the organisation forward.
Joseph Muscat strikes me as being a man without a conscience. For all I disliked him, I couldn’t say the same of Alfred Sant. Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici had a weird, twisted conscience, but he had one. Dom Mintoff did not. He was a textbook sociopath, complicated by the fact that his intelligence was limited, which caused him to paint himself into one difficult corner after another, with the country paying the price. George Borg Olivier had a conscience. Eddie Fenech Adami, Lawrence Gonzi and Simon Busuttil have a conscience. But Muscat, I think, does not. It is the single most worrying thing about him.
Without knowing anything at all about Ian Castaldi Paris – I don’t find mayors and former mayors particularly interesting, and neither do my readers – I had somehow picked up on the subtext of his speech yesterday as being replete with some very complicated ‘daddy’ issues. “He sounds like Kendra Wilkinson talking about Hugh Hefner,” I wrote.
Today I discovered that Ian Castaldi Paris does indeed have what are known as ‘absent father’ issues. He did not live with his father, but with his mother (today the Sliema PN local councillor Antoinette Castaldi Paris) and her long-time companion, who died around seven years ago, the Nationalist politician and member of parliament Carm Lino Spiteri, popularly known as Ic-Cumpaqq.
Though divorce and remarriage were not possible, the nature of the relationship and its duration meant that Ic-Cumpaqq was effectively his step-father.
You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see what is going on here, and the underlying cause of that naked display of need and emotion yesterday. Look at Ian Castaldi Paris’s long and complicated by-default relationship with the Nationalist Party (the step-father) fraught with issues of rejection and feeling unwanted and not quite belonging, culminating in the catharsis of a public display in which he repudiates the Nationalist Party (the step-father) and rushes into the arms of the Labour Party (the real father) in a move which he himself says he “has long dreamed about” (the classic step-child’s dream of finding home with the real parent), who makes him feel truly loved, appreciated, valued and listened to.
How amoral of Muscat to manipulate this situation.
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Now I begin to understand why a certain someone needed an ink-on-paper diagram of the Seven Deadly Sins.
I am almost certain the person who wrote that speech has watched “Foxcatcher”. I know I might be going on about it, but those of you who have watched it will know exactly what I mean.
Those words run throughout the film, the true story of a very rich man who was obsessed with being seen as a father figure by the team of wrestlers he sponsored and wanted to be part of.
Needless to say, he looked ridiculous, as does this former mayor.
For some, people are not human beings but opportunities. It is not difficult to surmise who wins in these situations.
This about sums up the whole situation… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcx8yI4xbqk
Ta tum! I guess the penny dropped.
My thoughts exactly.
For Muscat, it’s all a stage. What I don’t understand is why people (from all sort of backgrounds) prefer (and applaud) this charade.
Attakk personali fahxi fuq pulcinell
Is it just me who thinks so? Or is there really an uncanny similarity in facial and body features between Ian Castaldi Paris and ex-President’s son, Robert Abela?
[Daphne – Lots of Maltese look like other Maltese. This is not surprising, given that the same genes are going round in circles. it is the reason you can spot Maltese people on Oxford Street or anywhere else even before they open their mouth and even if you have never seen them before. You’ve seen that face, figure and bearing a thousand times before back home.]
This is a very interesting point, Daphne. I have lived in London for 10 years and work in the West End. I can spot a Maltese person from miles away.
Do you know what often helps my suspicion? The scowl on their face. They all seem to be having a horrid time – and not being on a (well-earned) holiday.
[Daphne – That’s right. Maltese people scowl habitually. It’s been noted by many writers and diarists. Some months ago, I picked up a book at a jumble sale, written in the 1950s by a man who sailed his yacht from England to Australia. I guessed that it would probably have a chapter on his experiences in Malta, because he would have had to come through the Straits of Gibraltar and then would have stopped in Malta, a British colony, before moving on to Suez. It did, and it was indeed serendipitous: he didn’t describe the buildings, the life. No, what struck him most was how the Maltese scowled on the streets, how nobody greeted anybody or smiled, and how the scowling masses on Kingsway were in complete contrast to the wild activity a corner away in Strait Street. Something else which immediately identifies a Maltese person abroad: the blank look, as though they are walking through their surroundings in a disconnected bubble, seeing but not registering, there but not connecting. It’s fascinating.]
Miserable bastards! I guess it costs money to smile nowadays.
Excellent. What also strikes me is that they often seem way outside their comfort zone and not having a good time at all.
The facial features don’t help. It’s those Jewish genes that give us the prominent nose, curled lips and fierce dark eyes. So even if we’re smiling, it looks like a scowl. I mean Nordics can’t really scowl even if they tried to.
[Daphne – How wrong that is. Some of the grimmest street-crowds on earth are German and Austrian and it’s not only because of the Pavlovian response engendered by decades of Nazi films. As for Norwegians…for some truly good satire on the taciturn surliness of Minnesota farmers of Norwegian descent, read Garrison Keillor. Most Maltese do not have “Jewish features”, which is the precise reason my own face is perceived as notably different. The typical Maltese face is also typically Sicilian and southern Italian: short and wide face with very blunt features: undefined cheekbones, undefined lips, round eyes tilted slightly down rather than up, short and broad nose. Also, there is no such thing as ‘Jewish features’ – it’s the way the whole face comes together. Does Ed Miliband look Maltese? No, but he does look like he could be my brother.]
Ed Miliband definitely looks Maltese.
[Daphne – No, he absolutely does not. In a crowded room I’d clock him in an instant as not Maltese. That hair – dead straight and jet black – is alien to Maltese stock, which is why in Malta you only see it on women, who can fake it with black dye and root-ripping blow-dries, and never on men, who can’t or rather won’t. Eyes which are pulled up at the corners but don’t have an epicanthic fold are also extremely rare in Maltese people. I notice them immediately. Then there is his shape: 100% not Maltese. The typical Maltese shape has an off-balance legs-to-torso ratio. The torso is disproportionately long when compared to the legs, regardless of the person’s height. Even a man of over six feet will look like his legs are too short for his height. The rangy figure is just NOT Maltese.]
I meant Semitic features. Not Jewish as in religious grouping. North African Jews and Palestinians are the most Maltese-looking people on earth.
[Daphne – North African Jews just look North African. Maltese people are indistinguishable from ordinary Sicilians. Lots of Maltese look Palestinian, but then when you’re in a crowd of Palestinians there’s no sense that they might be Maltese. There is, in a crowd of Sicilian hamalli.]
All I’m trying to say is the facial features make it hard to look like we’re not scowling. It’s either that or an inane grin. Of course it doesn’t hold for the minority blessed with better genes.
Note for those easily offended: Yes, I am saying that Maltese genes are inferior.
[Daphne – I really have to part company with you on your belief that it’s the facial features which make Maltese people look like they’re scowling. They don’t LOOK like they’re scowling, but they actually are scowling. The facial features have absolutely nothing to do with it. Your average Maltese person is angry and irritable all the time, and it shows. That’s about it. I mean, is it the features which make them ask for a packet of cigarettes in a shop by slamming the exact change on the counter and barking ‘Pakkett Rotmens!’? Obviously not. The facial expression, the way they interact are part of the same problem: rudeness and aggression.]
I’m not saying you’re completely wrong, but look at the face outlined in green.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Miriam-Dalli-Malta-Today-Kurt-Farrugia.jpg
Is that a smile or a scowl?
[Daphne – Green box and red, they’re all fake smiles and not scowls, and that’s how they’re registered by onlookers, unless those onlookers have Asperger’s Syndrome and can’t register the fakeness. The only one scowling in that picture is the man standing at the rear in the red box, and that is EXACTLY your typical Maltese facial expression, the alternative being the fake smiles in the front of the picture.]
Ed Miliband is Jewish.
[Daphne – Yes, gort. That is exactly the point of this discussion and why he was brought into it. Please keep up.]
I think now I understand exactly what you mean. The scowl at the rear of the red box is also the Maltese corporate scowl, à la Joseph F.X. Zahra. It cuts across social boundaries, but the message is always “Hadd ma jista’ ghalija”.
‘…Something else which immediately identifies a Maltese person abroad: the blank look, as though they are walking through their surroundings in a disconnected bubble, seeing but not registering, there but not connecting. It’s fascinating….’
I always made it a point to buy the Corriere to bury myself in its spread before approaching check in at Malpensa. Never, in five years, did I get used to the mood pervading the queue, boarding area and aboard the apron transit coach.
From non-verbal coordination to that tense sensation, call it venial pique. It’s where even eyeing a seat is a weakness. Just take it.
It becomes manifest trying to walk down a narrow pavement. I had some pretty tense moments getting used to that taparsi ma jarawkx.
If you find it fascinating, you should try giving way to someone trying to come out of a side street into a jam.
It is getting better, the number of people who’ll acknowledge is on the increase, given the increase in perceptions lately.
But still, there’s a considerable number of people who think smiling or signalling thanks is verboten.
It does not correlate to age, gender or finances.
I think there’s grounds to investigate the possibility of mass psychosis, maybe manic depression. Italian friends invariably mentioned it, from the hotchpotch of styles polluting substance to the passive aggressive attitude of people supposedly enjoying themselves in clubs. Then they’d try to read road signs and would volunteer the answer.
An illegible language should not exist, it defeats the purpose of bringing its speakers together.
Just following any discussion to what supposedly makes us Maltese makes me want to roll up in the foetal position. It will invariably take on two opposed fundamentals; what matters is that there be left nothing in between.
Even when there’s no need to, the attempt to distort the subject becomes the agenda at all costs. The object of discussion here is architecture in its alien form; manipulation of empty space to cause chords within to resonate.
It’s not even horror vacui at this point, it’s Victorian clutter and useless junk to fill the nation’s emotional void.
I mean, politicising geometry or feeling entitled to the monopoly of public space is ridiculous, refusing to recognize the weakness for killing discourse, cheating it of any content, is an urgent matter to consider.
Piano challenges us to experience the space first, the graphic, mechanized erosion of the building’s ‘sterile’ walls, oh look, it looks just like St.James, second.
Take in what it actually means, we have no alibi to refuse the future.
Those whose j’accuse is the absence of the gate never decided which gate. Even because they couldn’t get themselves to propose the restoration of something which never existed in this republic. That would make it a replica of someone else’s Malta.
Can we please decide whether we’re here to stay?
Someone tell these hawkers the space is there for them when they choose to be themselves and not perpetually at the lower end of the trade.
There’s this fragility in our mental composition that must be tackled. Mainly because the challenges that lie ahead are all similarly related to the constraints we refuse to consider.
That we not lose those dear mqaret, which by the way, someone please specify which vast expanse of date palms makes the maqrut a local delicacy.
Onto the mix of cultures then. That it never digest to assimilate into result. Jaded, dazed and confused.
Wait for Muscat’s monorial.
Maltese scowl most of the time because most are an embittered bunch. They lack a joie de vivre and are very materialistic.
Most conversations among people meeting the first time inevitably revolve around a description of how one earns his keep. Any job that is generally classed as an occupation that does not generate material wealth is frowned upon (e.g., research based jobs versus a “profession”).
Women are automatically classed as housewives and frowned upon if they are married with children and enjoy a career.
Maltese have lost sight that there’s more too life than money or having greener grass. Ours is largely an arriviste culture.
With such a mentality and the difficulties of life, it is impossible to smile and be happy.
The Maltese are not materialistic, if anything they suspect of its associated sinful qualities. Hence either indulge like there’s no tomorrow to invert it into hate.
Materialism in Malta remains the realm of sociopathic intellectuals and lately psychopathic individuals.
And don’t blame the Church. Whatever is worth protecting was its design, down to the way fields were terraced.
The basic ABC of materic, material and materialistic an unknown.
You’re so right. I play “Spot the Maltese” with my twelve-year-old daughter at Heathrow, the winner claims his prize when we reach the gate and you get positive confirmation.
Miskin – mort f’halq il-lupu – erbat ijiem ohra – jghasrek u jarmik.
He will be given a token appointment – after all it as at the taxpayer’s expense
You have to add that Ian Castaldi Paris wanted to be made Nationalist Party secretary-general as an uncontested candidate. He never had a chance to compete with Chris Said (even though not from Simon Busuttil’s camp) and Charlo Bonnici.
Mur arah. X’affarijiet dawn.
Joseph Muscat is amoral. Full stop. That is what makes him dangerous.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-02-02/local-news/PL-deputy-mayor-questions-red-carpet-treatment-of-Castaldi-Paris-and-neglect-of-party-faithful-6736129884
Oh, Daphne, don’t! I’ve been slagging him off all over the comment boards and now I feel bad for him.
[Daphne – Oh come off it. Feel bad for him? He’s a middle-aged man with a wife and children. He should have resolved his daddy issues by his 20s at the latest. After that age, we’re fully expected to have worked things out and grow up, whatever our private grumbles.]
I so often notice that scowl on men’s faces, especially when they are at dinner alone with their wife. Indeed some just stare at each other with nothing interesting to talk about.
What gets me in particular is when you give way in traffic, and all you get is a scowl in return.
Also, I would venture to say that gay men tend to smile more. Baxxter, please note.
[Daphne – I agree with you on that last bit, Freedom5, but it goes with the fact that gay men in Malta tend to be more civilised than straight men and have better manners. Your average straight Maltese man has appalling manners, even when his background should dictate otherwise.]
Oh absolutely, Freedom5. There’s nothing like gay shop assistants. Gay CEOs, on the other hand, are bastards of the highest order.
Baxxter, I repeat, your perception of gay people is so stereotypical, bordering on homophobic. Veru miskin.
That is true about traffic manners of the Maltese. They rarely wave or at least nod in gratitude when one gives way to another car in traffic or stops one’s car to concede that they cross the road. Never a smile. Such arrogant people.
Explains why you seem to have a high number of gay followers actually.
Gay men would have been through all the hell we’re discussing.
Oh no, the young gay men will take on the scowling now that they’re free. To scowl.
“gay men in Malta tend to be more civilised than straight men and have better manners”.
Why, thank you
The fact that GAys tend to be more civilised etc( according to Daphne) could be the,reason why we Maltese men tend to scrowl so much.
What man would like to be taken for a Gay and scorned at by every normal man?
Normal man? Do you mean like that Mellieha guy who ran over someone because he called him gay?
U ejja Silvio, come out.
Hi daph, guess what, next pl leader have no concience, how bright, you must be a prophet. Bye bye.
The North Korean style homage he paid to Joseph Muscat seems to me more of an ambitious man who wants to secure his private income and social status.
Or maybe there’s something lying beneath which the PN did not accommodate to his liking, and it’s time to go to Joseph, pump his ego and get what he needs in return. That’s my two cents thought.
Shall we deconstruct some more? Turn the sound on and enjoy.
http://youtu.be/krN4keGopHE