The Labour Party in its present incarnation is governed by underclass amorality
Of course Nakita Zammit Alamango genuinely thinks there is nothing wrong with copying a famous journalist’s article from an even more famous newspaper, as she protests on Facebook.
If she knew it’s wrong and still did it in circumstances where she would certainly have been discovered, then my God, she’s even more stupid than we thought.
Nakita thinks that there is nothing wrong with what she did because she works among politicians who operate in a belief system that is almost completely amoral, the result of their only recently having emerged – over perhaps a single generation or at most two or three – from the underclass.
I am specific about the underclass, as distinct from the working-class, because in Malta as in England the working-class proper traditionally made decent and honourable behaviour and upholding the correct moral standards the household badge of pride.
The underclass, on the other hand, did what it took to survive and as a consequence became amoral. The imposition of material trappings, university education, houses, cars and jobs on what remained quintessentially underclass culture has not changed the amoral mentality of its newest generation. Despite the university degrees, the money and the jobs, they still think like the underclass.
The Labour Party in its present incarnation – let’s leave the recent past aside – is governed by underclass amorality, and this has become increasingly apparent.
What appear to be mere details are actually the most telling: Muscat’s airy dismissal of Cyrus Engerer’s appalling behaviour; the way Nakita Zammit Alamango’s fellow party executives have gathered round her to insist that she did nothing wrong; the way the party leader and deputy leader turned up to the birthday party of a man currently on trial for attempted murder of a union leader; the way the party leader visits a magistrate at her home at night (and moreover, a magistrate currently being investigated by the police and the Commission for the Administration of Justice) as though she is just another person; the way certain individuals (and it is known who they are) did what they did to the then chairman of PBS; the way Jason Micallef perjured himself and lied under oath in the magistrate’s court, saying that he had no idea that I am a newspaper columnist or that I write a blog, and that he thought I was a cookery writer.
Why would the former secretary-general of the Labour Party perjure himself so blatantly? Simple: in the belief system of the underclass from which his family has only recently emerged, ‘tghid li jaqbillek’ even under oath is not perjury, and it is perfectly all right to go several steps beyond that and actually lie under oath, as distinct from being selective with the truth, if it suits you and gets you what you want.
It doesn’t help matters, of course, that Jason Micallef is outrageously stupid and doesn’t seem to understand the implicatons of his lies, not just in terms of perjury but also in terms of his being ‘in gamba’ as secretary-general of the Labour Party and chairman of Super One.
If the chairman of Super One lies like that under oath, we should not be surprised that the Labour Party has not asked for Nakita Zammit Alamango’s resignation. We should not be surprised, either, that Super One itself has again been caught out in another appalling lie, a lie rendered more horrific because its consequence is to turn public opinion against the victims of abuse in a care home, who have been through hell.
Super One broadcast the ‘news’ that the Catholic Church will give those men 10 million euros. But today The Times reveals that this is not true at all.
If you wish to find the reasons why Super One did that, look no further than the sacking and looting in England. Same difference. The people at Super One are mainly from the underclass, not the working-class, and the biggest clue – their behaviour and amorality aside – is their white-trash first names.
They know no better. But precisely because of that, they shouldn’t be in charge.
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Put simply: a real eye-opener.
I wish I wrote that article.
Ah, that photograph. I recognise it. That’s the one captioned ‘demonstration in solidarity with the people’ because, you know, they’ve moved up in the world and are no longer among ‘the people’.
Criecer imkebbin fil-kowtijiet.
Their sartorial advisers should tell them that a gentleman’s coat must be charcoal grey, never black and certainly never loose-fitting or left to flap and blow. The loose black coat is the preserve of the spiv, hence the accurate costuming in the poster showing the London East End gangsters in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in the link posted by Baxxter.
The leaders of the Malta Labour Party are, in this photograph, wearing the exact same outfit as that worn by the younger generation of their social class in Paceville on their big dress-up night, Christmas Eve.
Ronnie, Primark does not sell gentlemen’s coats.
Maltastar’s still displaying the story. Like Alfred Sant, they have no regrets.
Spot the difference.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00007ELEP.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Kullhadd-bil-kowt.jpg
Easy. The first lot don’t care about ‘the people’.
It is astonishing just how heavily influenced Maltese chavs are by British chav culture, in everything from the choice of first names to the choice of coats and the way they are worn. The strange thing is that this seems to have started when the British left Malta.
Baxxter, here’s the difference. The first one comes in DVD format. The second is, unfortunately, real.
What does Godfrey Grima have to say about Zammit Alamango plagiarising a Financial Times article?
Nothing. The article wasn’t his.
The Partit Laburista leadership, from Zorro on the left, to Zrinzo on the right.
Il-partit taz-zeta…
Taz-zb*b
Get a life
And Zero 2 in the center.
The photo at a glance reminded me of the shot of the cast from the film ‘Armageddon’ walking on the tarmac towards the camera. Yet this photo makes my hair stand on end for the wrong reasons .
Yet again, spot on.
I arrived at a similar conclusion following the Cyrusgate affair, Nikita’s Alamango’s blatant plagiarism and the attendance of senior PL officials at the birthday party of someone accused of grievous bodily harm and attempted murder.
Alamango made her situation worse by referring to presumed wrong-doings of the PN to justify her actions. Two wrongs do not make a right, as Andrew Borg Cardona rightly pointed out on his blog. What she wrote in her defence on Facebook will come back to haunt her in her political career.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110814/blogs/go-forth-and-copy.380238
Two things emerge from these cases.
– The PL is unable to distinguish right from wrong.
– There is a distinct lack of a moral code in the senior ranks of the PL.
I would have expected much better from the party leader, who was schooled at St Aloysius College and presumably taught to distinguish right from wrong there, even if he was not taught at home. The amorality of the people around him has rubbed off onto him and has sunk deep.
These are not one-off mistakes but a pattern of behaviour which is becoming worrying.
The Jesuits do their best to school people to be Men For Others and to have a kuxjenza.
Unfortunately, when one of their products is defective, the results are horribly spectacular.
Joe Muscat went there not for the edukejxin, but to learn how the other half thinks and acts, and then do the exact opposite.
Comment under news item in The Times this morning reporting ‘disturbance’ by immigrants at Hal Safi detention centre.
“Brian Bassom
Today, 12:16
Send them back. What gives them the right to come to another country and cause trouble. Ungrateful savages. God bless Malta.”
God bless Malta – fill it with racists.
And with a surname like “Bassom” …
Why is Toni Abela NOT wearing a coat? And he still has the silly mouse under the nose.
He likes to be iconoclastic and not follow Marisa Micallef’s instructions to shave and wear a coat.
Now, now, Bob, let’s not be nasty. It’s probably hiding something.
Some of the comments that were allowed to appear on timesofmalta.com are indeed horrendous.
Anyone noticed the advert that preceded the video clip? It referred to “…..Maltese till the last drop” , just before we were regaled with the Maltese soldieirs in full riot gear.
Hate that advert. A put-on voice, and “grrwopp” (Drop).
Just one humble observation and this applies to both sides of the political spectrum: intelligent, but really intelligent, politicians who think for themselves and don’t need anyone to help them out with their writings or speeches and don’t need to plagarise are an extremely rare breed. Indeed I can only think of three or four individuals who would fall under this category amongst whom are: Lino Spiteri, Mario Demarco and Alfred Sant. Unfortunately, the latter proved that an intelligent person does not necessary make an able politician.
With regard to Nikita (or Nakita) Zammit Alamango, what I find most worrying is not the plagiarism (after all, the battle against plagiarism has long been lost) but rather the genuine belief that she could get away with it.
‘Speech writer’ is a legitimate job title.
Nikita Alamango did not believe ‘she could get away with it’. She genuinely believed that she didn’t do anything wrong at all, even as she pointed to similar incidents in an attempt to justify herself.
Mintoff irid jarhom jippuzaw hand in hand mal-mara. Ara dak ta’ selvagg li kien qatt ma deher imkien mal-mara u dawn qishom ghaddejjin fil-passiggata ta’ nhar ta’ Hadd.
Sorry fejnha Michelle? Mohbija wara Anglu forsi?
Mur oqghod bihom la jkunu fil-gvern.
The Labour Party as far as I can remember has been ruthless and carping, and far from inspirational. Are we going to turn Malta into a War Z area… saying that things are good when they are bad and that incorrect behaviour becomes correct only for the fact that it suits us better?
Are we really going to leave the future of our next generation in the hands of a party that doesn’t know how to distinguish right from wrong? If that what the Maltese aspire too then all of us have lost the dignity and the diligence of what really makes us human and conscientious.
The man indicted of assault on Vince Farrugia was at St.Aloysius’ College. I can assure you everyone kept his distance.
It confirms that schools cannot do the job parents should be doing.
As for Muscat, his actions betray lack of character and a naivety typical of a spoilt upbringing.
I can already see him whining that it’s not his fault but that of a marmalja his party had no control over.
I can assure Joseph Muscat that the mob, now with degrees in hand and internet-literate, concur with his latent irresponsibility.
I met one who still thinks that Tal-Barrani was the Nationalists’ fault (of course).
The sad thing is that the pervasive insecurity condemns their mental disposition onto the defensive, inhibiting the notion that maybe we’re right and that all we ask for is the capability to sharpen their thinking.
That’s what a moderate liberal does.
Il-marmalja progressiva u moderata.
Insejt tghid li hi liberali ukoll.
erm….keep it up!
Well said!
I recently had an enlightening experience with a PL friend of mine who feels he belongs to the upper middle class. Of recently whenever we meet he salutes me with “hawn dritt-ghal- go-l-hajt-dot-com” (which in itself blows up his own “class” perception).
I have sorted out a standard reply which goes something like “glorja l’alla ghal dak il-hajt ghax warajh hemm irrdum” (he is a Parrucjan akkanit ghal festa). It took him a couple of days to get around my return salutation but eventually he tried to make it the subject of a discussion. To cut a long story short the whole discussion produced a thought provoking rendition from him of the 1st of the 10 commandments which in Maltese reads “’Jiena Hu Alla Sidek ma jkollokx Alla ieħor Għajri’”.
Nothing wrong with that if it wasn’t for his understanding of “Jiena hu alla sidek”. For him this was a first person singular statement, understood as a holy acknowledgement entitling him to anything that results in personal gain irrespective of other and others.
I tried to explain that he was wrong but he was adamant that I was completely lost. I did have this discussion with a couple of other individuals across the political divide and the majority share this thwarted reading – I guess I am onto something very interesting in relation to underclass thinking and Maltese religiosity.
The religion of the underclass is called egotheism.
I think that the PL’s acceptance and defence of morally incorrect behaviour by its delegates plays into the hands of the Nationalist Party because many upstanding people who may have been unhappy with the present PN team, and who had considered voting PL in the next election, must surely now be thinking twice about such action.
My question for you Daphne is – where is the ‘independent press’ in all of this PL mess?
As far as I can tell it is just bloggers who are showing up the PL and its crass incompetence.
The ‘independent press’ are giving the PL a free ride – why?
Are they possibly resigned to the fact that the PL will win the next election and are therefore trying to keep them happy in the run up? Don’t the people at The Times remember their recent past or are they prepared to change history to give the PL a leg up?
You know, when the post divorce referendum debate was raging about who will vote how, I heard many a Nationalist declare that they had not fought for this ‘limitation on freedom’. In spite of the fact that it was a moral issue for some and that the PM guaranteed passage of the Bill (and time proved him right).
I don’t want to go into the merit of yes or no but is it possible that even institutions like The Times of Malta are prepared to forget what the PL had done to it just 30 or so years ago – and are prepared to suck up to the PL even if they know, deep down, that the PL in govt will prove Malta’s unmaking.
What the Nationalists have delivered during this mega economic crisis the PL will dismantle in less than a year – and The Times will sit idly behind and talk ‘smack handy’ while the nation crumbles.
Il-bambin jghinna.
“Are they possibly resigned to the fact that the PL will win the next election and are therefore trying to keep them happy in the run up?”
Yes.
The Times has just reported (in one of its captions) that even the Azure Window in Gozo has given up.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110814/local/youtube-video-promoting-dangerous-diving-in-malta.380257
I agree with Thinker regarding the delegates; these are the ones who perpetuate the myth behind Labour. They are fully aware of their stranglehold on the party and are the most extreme in their views.
The elected MPs interfacing with the rest of us are consistently reminded of this tacit agreement and end up pandering to the former.
It was Mintoff who engineered this, a weapon to ward off any potential rival. The keyword here is fear.
The use of religion is conveniently coincidental to the geography; you’ll find most of these delegates active in band clubs, doing their best to keep the tension running high.
Labour makes a prostitute of iconography. The intention is not to create a faceted whole but its fragmentation.
It explains why people expected to be able to divorce and remarry in church.
It may explain why Alfred Sant, isolated in his secular thinking, felt being anti EU would appeal to the grassroots.
Well, it seems to me that they are happy with the ‘uniform organisation’, not like tal-monti.
Tal-Lejber’s politics has always been driven by individuals with a massive chip on their shoulder. Full stop.
I honestly believe that this Nikita’s story was simply an oversight from her side. If I’m not mistaken, and please correct me if I’m wrong, in the same article, as well as others before it, she did quote, and referred to other writers as well as websites. I wouldn’t think she had a problem referencing this one.
So we are simply creating a storm in a tea-cup – maybe because she is involved in politics?
All she needs to do is acknowledge the minor mistake and move on.
[Daphne – Don’t be ridiculous.]
Nikita Alamango didn’t refer to other writers, nor did she quote them. She poached their ideas and ‘paraphrased’ (her term) their words. And she still claimed she did nothing wrong. Worse still, she said that it’s not wrong because other people got away with doing the same thing.
If Nikita Alamango had no problem referencing her article, then she really has no excuse for what she did. In her latest blog, there was a cursory mention of CNN and David Buick. There was no mention of Gillian Tett and no mention of the Financial Times.
Incidentally, Gillian Tett is not ‘another writer’. She is US managing editor and an assistant editor for the Financial Times. And because I know this sort of thing impresses a certain type of person, it’s necessary to point out that she’s Cambridge educated and holds a PhD in social anthropology.
If we are to take lessons on what is or what is not plagiarism, I’d listen to Gillian Tett any day, rather than Nikita Alamango:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cfb9c43a-48b7-11df-8af4-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1VCsxWfN5
“During the past couple of decades, the world of finance has certainly borrowed heavily from disciplines such as maths and science, and some of this plagiarism has produced disastrous results.”
So there you have it. Plagiarism is the borrowing of ideas and using them as one’s own. It is not a minor ‘mistake’. It is deliberate deceit. The tragedy is that Nikita Alamango thinks that that is acceptable. And this comes from a member of the Labour Party’s executive, no less.
Look on the bright side: at least the rubber-puppet fancier ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DJ34MOu_yQ ) was not wearing his tweed jacket.
Dawn l-affarijiet tal-misthija. U tal-misthija aktar li dan hu pajjiz fejn il-kotra tghidlek ‘u iwa’ u ‘mur ara’ u ftit huma n-nies li tabilhaqq ghandhom deep insight fil-karattri baxxi ta’ nies bhal Jason Micallef u bella kumpanija.
With Labour in government in 18 months, the underclass will be happy cause their hatred towards PN and proper governance is greater than the progress of their personal life and that of the country. This is what I fear about the PL, they commit the same mistake all over again just to fuel their ignorance and hatred.