GUEST POST: And it’s a (fossilised Labour) wrap
Joseph Muscat’s official campaign video is produced by Mario Philip Azzopardi, a film director who has been living in Canada since 1978.
Audiovisually, this two-minute piece is a crass rip off of an Obama campaign video.
But there is something more sinister at work here. Behind the shots and the music, you can see a particular brain at work: that of an ideological Labourite who left Malta three decades ago and is chronically unable to see how it has changed since then and why.
Behind Azzopardi’s cinematic gloss and ‘cool’ shots is a man who simply cannot understand that Malta is already Taghna Lkoll, and that thanks to only one party, the one run by Eddie Fenech Adami and since 2004 by Lawrence Gonzi.
For his campaign, Joseph Muscat has imported a film producer who, like so many Labourites who emigrated decades ago, simply does not have the ability to compare how Maltese people lived in 1987 with how they live today. He just does not grasp the stark difference.
Mario Philip Azzopardi, who has been walking the streets of Toronto for over three decades, is unable to see how the liberties, prosperity, peace of mind and security he has been enjoying there are precisely what the Nationalist Party brought to this country ever since his party of ideological choice was turfed out of office in 1987.
The director of Joseph Muscat’s campaign video might have an eye for a good cinematic shot but his mental panorama is riddled with political blank spots.
A Labourite who lived through the 1980s sipping coffee in downtown Toronto cannot see how offensive it is to call for Malta Taghna Lkoll in 2013 when he never did so in 1976, 1981, or 1987, when Malta belonged to a truly evil clique who ran riot with corruption and violence, slamming down hard on those who expressed themselves for basic freedoms.
A Labourite who continued to sip the same coffee in the same city half a world away for two decades after 1987 just cannot see the simple and devastating irony: the European Malta he portrays in his video is the Malta which was born under Eddie Fenech Adami’s and Lawrence Gonzi’s watch.
It is the very one his new hero Joseph Muscat fought so fiercely to deny us.
That European Malta is already here and it is already now. It is not waiting to be sired by JosephMuscat.com in the next five years.
We can do without Joseph Muscat’s poor judgement and terrible ideas, just as we rejected them wholeheartedly in 2003, when he told us to vote No and we voted Yes instead.
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From an article in The Times:
“Yes, Mr Azzopardi is back, and he plans to spend a few months a year in his native Malta, having packed his bags and left for Canada as a consequence of the dispute and controversy that unfolded around the censorship of his play in 1977.
The gist of Ix-Xitan Kunjomu Malti: A girl in Scotland is possessed by the devil and starts talking in Maltese, so she is brought over to Malta. It transpires that the devil is terribly upset because the hatred between the Labour and Nationalist supporters is waning…
“I am at the last stage; the last act,” he says, claiming he is stuck. “I want to end it by vanquishing the devil but I am liking his character so much that I don’t want him to die. I may actually end up having him get the better of us all. He’ll get sent back but we’ll all end up pining for him,” he concludes, with a deep and diabolical chuckle, seemingly totally immersed in the role.
When he has finished with Beelzebub, next in line is an even “naughtier” play: A satire on sexual mores, or wife swapping, to be more precise. Marti Martek, Martek Marti, the title, says it all! In a nutshell, it is about the search for absolute personal sexual freedom, which is never really attainable.
“It is not a moral play! I don’t deal in morality!”
“I’m a storyteller at heart… and I like to light up fires under people’s bottoms and see them squirm a little,” he laughs.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080123/local/the-obscenity-of-censorship.193045
Two things at which the Labour Party excels:
a) copying other people’s ideas and presenting them as its own;
b) telling half-truths (and outright lies!) in the knowledge that, if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick.
This is a clear case of (a) above. It is probably also in breach of copyright law – but since when did the Labour Party care about the law?
But what can you expect when you see the people in the PL’s lineup? It’s just another instance which shows how totally devoid of ideas they are, and how incapable of doing anything without having someone else to copy.
It is positively frightening to think of them in government. What will they do without Nationalist ideas – ring Tonio Fenech for advice every Monday morning? So they have one budget in the bag – but how will they come up with the next one? And the one after that?
And what’s worse, think of their *execution*. We have seen, through the water and electricity debate, just how incapable they are – since every aspect of their flagship project is full of holes.
God help us if the majority of the population cannot see through them.
He must become Malta’s next prime minister at all costs.
Dan x’kien ma dahlux is-Sindku ta’ Hal Qormi jew ahjar is-sindku tal-Laburisti BISS f’Hal Qormi, fil-video Obamaesque?
Ghax Nuxellina kollox taghmel ghal Joseph u dejjem warajh toqghod halli meta il-cameras jigbdu lil Joseph tidher hi, gieli bejna u bejn l-gharus taghha joqghod xi hadd iehor biex dan ix-xi hadd jigi wara Joseph u hi u l-gharus taghha jigu jidhru qishom zewg gandlieri ta’ JosephMuscat.com.
Wrong. The MLP back in government will not have its first budget in the bag.
That budget was based on figures that were valid back last October. By next April the numbers will all have drastically changed, and the government will have lost four months of projected revenue.
It will need to make up for the resultant deficit – all in a climate that, by virtue of MLP being back in government, will undermine investment.
As was the case with Alfred Sant’s government in the mid-90s, Malta will be set for economic collapse even before this year is out.
Agreed. And the first thing to go is the reduced tax bands. Undecided voters, take note.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1JFWamwDYQ
I’m glad that Mario Philip Azzopardi seems to approve ripping off other people’s work. It makes me even more glad when I see links to his films on the net.
Happy sharing, Mario.
Mario Philip Azzopardi is not new to Labour. In 1998 Alfred Sant had purposely set up a company with BOV and Mid Med to finance Mario’s films but due to the abrupt end to Labour’s rule he never managed to get a cent.
Since he is no longer fashionable in Canada I bet he is now desperate to see Muscat become Prime Minister and have his government as his next (and only) financier and job provider. Obviously he is obliging his help by voluntarily shooting Labour’s rubbish propagandistic clips.
Apparently he is already developing projects with Muscat’s core advisers Phyllis Muscat and Keith Schembri acting as producers.
Well, that’s tomorrow’s klikka today.
@ Hitchcock: actually I resigned from the company which I disagreed with re their way of doing business, at a huge personal loss. Read open letter to the press at the time. as for being fashionable in canada, well, my present work load doesn’t seem to verify your claim. Attached to two feature films and a new TV series in Bulgaria as a co pro with canada. Re development, yes, I am still committed to creating productions I can bring to Malta. More of this very, VERY, soon.