GUEST POST/Mintoff, or how I let down the nation

BY H. P. BAXXTER

I can remember exactly where I was when the first plane hit the Twin Towers. But I forget where I was when Mintoff died on 20 August 2012. Just as well. Nitqammlu fin-neurons.

I can remember, however, how I celebrated the news. After a couple of high-fiving text messages to a like-minded (but non-Maltese) friend, I checked out our trusty one and only blog. Hell yes, GLORY, GLORY, ALLELUIAH! I was on the verge of exploding with suppressed partying. By now it was past 10 p.m., so I headed to the place-to-be: Paceville.

I quickly eyeballed the options. Strip club, fast food joint, strip club, strip club, fast food, pizzeria, fast food, strip club. I had a vow to fulfill: champagne. So strip club it was. I think it was Stilletto. Or maybe Steam. Can’t remember. They’re all alike.

It was a Monday night, so the den of iniquity was almost empty. Just half a dozen of the usual bald, potato-shaped kuntratturi types with massive bellies and a raging hard-on, caressing their girlfriend-cum-strippers with their fetid breath.
I sat down at the bar and ordered champagne from the barmaid (a gypsy). She had obviously dyed jet-black hair and possibly plastic tits. English wasn’t her forte, but I finally got through to her. I was served some fizzy thing that tasted suspiciously like peach juice. In a plastic goblet. Oh well. The dead old bugger was never one for finery.

I immediately felt a tongue probing at my earlobe.

“What the deu–.”

“Hello. I am Roxanne, what’s your name? You want sexy dance?”

“No, thanks. I’m just having a drink.”

“Why?”

“Celebrating. Someone’s died and I’m celebrating.”

“Oh oh that’s naughty!”

“It’s a former prime minister. He was horrible. A real evil bastard. A tyrant.”

“Tyrant?”

“What’s your real name, Roxanne?”

“Ha ha! OK you wanna play. Ioana.”

Romanian. She would understand. “A dictator, like Ceaucescu. Now he’s dead so I’m celebrating.”

And by God I got the first, and so far the only sensible reaction in the three years since Mintoff’s been dead. She immediately dropped the sexiness and said, very gravely:
“I understand. Same in Romania. You do good to celebrate.”

So I did. I celebrated. I didn’t buy her a drink, of course (they’re saleswomen, not girlfriends), but I felt an inward joy such as I’d never felt before. Mintoff was dead. Kaput. Six feet under (except that he wasn’t yet; he was still on display, embalmed, in an open coffin). Finished. A dreadful chapter in history was now closed.

Three years have passed since that night. It is time to take stock. Mintoff’s party is now in power. Yes, you read that right. Labour is Mintoff’s party, not some cool new modern thing created in a St Julian’s loft by Swedish interior designers. It is the Malta Labour Party. MLP. Il-Lejber. The statutes are unchanged, including the bits about using violence to achieve political ends.

Mintoff never had any male children (that we know of). But he had one special spiritual child – Joseph Muscat. He is now our prime minister.

Mintoff’s former victims – the former Nationalist Party front bench, the clergy, yea, unto the British High Commission – all poured tributes full of words of admiration, if not downright fawning praise. A statue has been erected in his honour – not by the Labour Party, but by the Government of Malta, mind. Your government. Our government.

What is one to do? The democratic tools at our disposal do not include dynamite or pneumatic drills. So the statue will remain, a shameful reminder of the abject cravenness of this ridiculous people. For gallantry, refer to 1942. For cowardice, look around you.

I say cowardice, but perhaps I should say fear. Sure, there are many who genuinely admired their erstwhile foe – columnists who regard everything as an intellectual game. But for the rest of us, it is really fear. Who knows what may happen if one vents one’s feelings on Mintoff? Careers destroyed, police harassment, legal action, perhaps even prison.

As for myself, I never got round to urinating on Mintoff’s grave, nor on his statue. The latter is too exposed, and covered by security cameras. The former is in a consecrated cemetery – if you please – and unlike the old bastard, I believe in the sacrality of places.

If I get caught, that’s me in prison and a permanent mark as Public Enemy No. 1, with the inevitable condemnation from people and parties who should know better.