Oh, by the way, did you know that Dom Mintoff’s mother was a usurer?
I’m having such fun.
Now that I’ve drawn in those thousands of young Mintoffjani who found me through Facebook links to xqalet s sahara tal bahrija dwar ilkbir Mintoff aaaa liba fox kem anda, and are coming in to post their rabid and subliterate comments, I’m seizing the day and telling them some things which their parents hid from them.
Dom Mintoff didn’t grow up in a poor home. Not at all. If the Mintoffs were poor and in the gutter, they wouldn’t all have got themselves an education and got ahead, not in those pre-war days.
Mintoff’s father was a cook, yes. BUT HIS MOTHER WAS A USURER. BIEX TIFMU SEW INTOM, OMM MINTOFF KIENET TAHDEM FL-UZURA. NAHSEB TAFU SEW X’INHI L-UZURA.
That shabby little doorway you get shown on televised mockumnentaries about il-hajja tal-kbir Mintoff? That’s not poverty. That’s QAMEL.
Dom Mintoff absorbed his financial values at his mother’s knee.
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That’s why he hated debt, as Edward Scicluna told us via The Times.
This is a lie Daphne pure and simple.
[Daphne – It isn’t. It is so much NOT a lie that’s even included in one or two of the obituaries in the international press that your lot so proudly boast about. Have you not ever registered the dissonance between what is said about the poverty of Mintoff’s family and the actual reality of that family, which is made up almost entirely of professionals and the well-to-do? Meanwhile, their neighbours are still in squalor down to the third and fourth generations.]
It’s certainly not a lie. My late grandfather (a contemporary of Mintoff) who was originally from Birgu and knew Mintoff well, told me several times that Mintoff’s mum was a money-lender (usury may be too difficult a word for some Labourites).
My grandfather also told me how Mintoff had obtained a scholarship to study at the seminary but it was revoked once the rector discovered the Mintoff family was relatively well-off. Stinginess does not equate with poverty.
I can confirm this having heard it from an old Bormliza many years ago. Her exact description is “kienet tirhan id-deheb”. Mintoff’s father was a cook to the British Services HQ at Castille.
Now that must have been a privileged job and one of trust (feeding the British High Command). I suppose that such a job must have been remunerated accordingly. It could have been one of the reasons why a mother with 9 children to raise could afford to lend money. Besides, she did not run any risks because she would make sure to get the full amount of the loan (plus some extra?) before handing out her money. It’s the equivalent of current banking practice to obtain a full-cover guarantee before issuing the loan.
It was also mentioned during one of the features/discussions running on one of the local TV stations this week that his mother was not one “li taghmlilha l-bzieq fuq imnehiha”. Someone said that he (Mintoff) once remarked that she had a great influence on his character. No wonder that in view of the many facets and anecdotes exposed in your blog he was always reluctant to write his autobiography or memoirs.
When the time comes for a full, unbiased and objective biography to be written about him and his political career I’m sure this blog will be a great source of information and insights.
David jekk trid konferma, mur staqsi l-anzjani li kienu joqodu fl-inhawi tal-mandragg il-Belt fi zmienha.
I think that the appropriate phrase used in those days was is “Tirhan id-deheb” (pawn-broker).
It was lucrative business as well. The trick was to grab as many gold ornaments as possible then one fine day start squalling that your house has been burgled.
Ah, so he grew up in the business of money lending. It must be why later he wanted to have his own banks.
They were not his own banks, Stupid. But were our banks…The Maltese banks…one of them was mid med bank today Hsbc, wich your friends sold for little money….
[Daphne – “Our banks” ta’ ghajnek. Turi kemm taf l-istorja tal-Bank of Valletta, injorant.]
Mintoff kellu xi bank tieghu personali?? IL MID MED ta min kien?
[Daphne – Il-Mid Med kien Barclays Bank.]
Time for a repeat of how Mintoff ‘nationalized’ all private banks in Malta, and what it meant.
I would also recommend the saga of the ‘development act’ and the PAPB, and how this country found itself upside down, with self proclaimed have-nots, one of them an untouchable member of the labour party’s ‘bord tad-dixxiplina’, picking out any property they fancied.
These would be the ones who enforced the party’s dictum under Mintoff’s supervision kicking out, literally, any dissent.
“Nationalised”? I stick to my view. He “personalised” the banks – he made them his own. He could control them from the Auberge de Castille.
Here’s another one for the FZL people, courtesy of a flyer distributed by The Malta Independent some years ago:
“1980 – The Departure of the Blue Sisters from Malta
At 5.45 p.m. , on Friday, 19th December 1980, two plain clothes policemen arrived at Zammit Clapp Hospital and asked to speak with all non-Maltese nuns. When they had gathered, the policemen informed them that they were to appear in court that very evening and if found guilty, they would have to leave Malta immediately. Seeing that their fate had already been determined, they decided to go quietly.
Their personal effects were packed into police vans by which time a large crowd began to gather outside the hospital. Archbishop Mgr. Joseph Mercieca was one of the first to arrive on the scene and Dr E. Fenech Adami, Leader of the Opposition were also present. Priests, nuns and friends, wishing to show solidarity to the sisters, gathered outside the hospital.
As the nuns emerged from the convent, the crowd burst into applause and the scene took an emotional turn. Fenech Adami and other PN officials attempted to talk to the nuns but were restrained by the police. Some crowd members shouted “We want the Blues!” whilst others cried out in anger “You’ll bring them back!”.
At 9.00 p.m., the nuns and a British midwife were escorted by the police to Luqa Airport. There, another crowd had gathered but the nuns were restricted to the police room. From Luqa, they departed to the United Kingdom.
At 11.00 p.m., the Department of Information released the following statement:
After the Government, responding to an appeal made by the British High Commission, extended the deadline for the nuns to leave Malta to Sunday 21st December, as stated in today’s statement, these nuns, instead of having used this time for their private arrangements, as requested by the British High Commission, took advantage of the situation and decied to cause more trouble bu instituting a case, today (Friday), against the Administrative Secretary and the Commissioner of Police in the First Hall Civil Court. When the Government saw that this time extension was being used solely for political purposes, it had not other option than to notify the nuns, through the Police Immigration Section, that they were either to leave quietly and immediately or if not, necessary steps would be taken through the Court to enforce their departure. The nuns opted to leave today without the need for any Court Procedure.””
People who voted for Mintoff should be so proud of what they’ve achieved, shouldn’t they?
What is this all about?
The Blue Sisters nuns were deported under a provision of the law intended – not against running a much needed private hospital – but against undesirable foreign “ladies in women’s oldest profession” to stop them from practicing their trade here.
The Blue Sisters were kicked out as part of Mintoff’s war against the medical profession.
Having been locked out of St. Luke’s Hospital (eternal praise be to Danny Cremona) the consultants, particularly the surgeons, had nowhere to earn their living but in a private hospital.
The closing down of the Blue Sisters Hospital was designed to finally bring the doctors to their knees. Most were forced to emigrate, if they had not done so already. Other than the strike breakers, of course.
What did the Blue Sisters do?
[Daphne – They ran a private hospital, in the Zammit Clapp building in Sliema which is now a treatment centre for the elderly.]
I see. There were trumped up charges.
One tiny detail. An Habeas Corpus attempt to restrain the deportation of the Blue Sisters was rendered impossible because the magistrate on duty (tal-Ghassa) remained untraceable until after the nuns had been safely flown out!
My great aunt, bless her, who used to sponsor novices, was quite an insider of matters clerical.
She once told of how the Curia asked Mintoff’s mother to pay for his tuition, given that he had been awarded a scholarship, after details of his sister’s lavish wedding were revealed.
His mother refused and the scholarship was handed to someone in real need.
[Daphne – Yes, that bit of information was included in one of the obituaries in a British newspaper.]
Tell us about you father’s relationship with Mintoff BITCH!!!
[Daphne – He didn’t have one. He’s not gay, bisexual or a woman, and in any case, they never even met.]
Goodnight Daphne. A. just texted me. You made his Sunday night; turning an otherwise boring babysitting job to a hugely entertaining evening.
I wonder who were the thugs that his mother used to collect the debt.
More on the Mintoffian ‘qamel’ and behaviour: Mintoff used to be part of the group my grandfather used to play boċċi with.
He told me how, during the game, if Mintoff was losing he’d ‘accidentally’ knock the balls out of place when going to inspect them during his turn.
Moreover, they used to take it in turns to pay for some tea and pastizzi after a game; Mintoff used to get sick every time it was his turn.
And an interesting fact is that he never took the tea from the club but always brought his own thermos flask, convinced he would otherwise be the target of poisoning.
David Gatt, you people are in denial.
Yes Mintoff’s mum ‘kienet tirhan’ whether you want to beleive it or not.
I wouldn’t go as far to say that she was an ‘usuraria’ but yes she was a money lender.
[Daphne – Where does money-lending end and usury begin, Herbie?]
As regards Mintoff’s schooling at the seminary no he was not awarded a scholarship in the real sense of the word. At the time the seminary used to waive fees to some students who came from poor families.
As confirmed by Wenzu Mintoff himself this was withdrawn after Mintoff’s sister’s wedding.
The then rector told the Mintoff family that once they could afford to pay for the reception they could pay their son’s fees so somebody else could benefit of a free education.
Mintoff was taken out of the seminary and attended the Lyceum. Guess what.
Apparently the rector was Mikiel Gonzi.
Daphne leave everyone in piece. x jinpurtana min nies li mietu issa?
ghidllna fuq il politici tal llum u hallik mill passat ..
Xi dwejjaq qawwija ghandek jaq you are bored middle aged women with nothing else to do except wrting bullshit
get a life!
You complaint is that Daphne won’t leave the guilty dead “in piece. That is because diehard Mintoff adulators are still trying to excuse the inexcusable. Those of us who who suffered unjustly cannot afford to leave these malefactors in PEACE (note the correct spelling please). She skillfully exposes the disgusting truth and reduces these sycophants to “pieces”. And they do not like that. They are allergic to the truth.
What a pity today’s youths do not know these things. It is us…..the generation that lived through the misery of the late 70’s and early 80’s who remember. From some of the statements I read here, the younger generation have no idea what we’ve been through in those dark Mintoff days. Pity history lessons in shcools cannot reveal those dark days. I was there when the Blues left Malta. They left with dignity and with their heads held high. It was such a shame to see them go….I was only a young 20 year old then….but I remember their Maltese neighbours silently weeping…..Alla hares ninsew minn x’hiex ghaddejna!
Ajma! We are talking about a time when lending hadn’t been regularised yet! Those were different days.
[Daphne – A usurer is defined by the amount of interest charged and the methods used to obtain what is owed, Mel. It has nothing to do with regulation of lending.]
This post reminded of that day standing outside the Blues with my parents waiting for the nuns to leave under police escort. I was ten years old. I remember clapping when Eddie turned up and my mother pointing out the window of the room where I had been born. The mood was electric.