And then Ramona Frendo stood up in a Labour tent in Feb 2013 and said that she had “decided” to vote Labour
This is what Ramona Frendo wrote on her Facebook wall when Mintoff died last August. She’s supposed to be very bright but there’s no cap on brainwashing when you grow up in a family of Mintoffjani.
She can’t possibly believe, can she, that she went to university – in 1988 – because Mintoff made it possible. She can’t possibly believe that Mintoff made university free (it was Borg Olivier’s government which did that, in the 1960s).
She can’t possibly believe that it was Mintoff that made state schools free and schooling compulsory (that was a British imposition and predates even Ramona Frendo’s parents).
As for Mintoff making free healthcare possible – spare us, please, Dr Frendo. And spare us, too, the total rot about Mintoff and the University. You might not be old enough by a decade or so to actually remember what happened there, but you’re not too stupid to find out.
Maybe you’re rather keep your head in the sand. Either way, this kind of rubbish thinking really doesn’t augur well for the Justice Reform Commission on which this neo-Mintoffian sits. But interestingly, she sits on it under the chairmanship of Giovanni Bonello, so perhaps he could take her out to lunch and explain Mintoff’s contribution to tertiary education and healthcare in Malta in the 1970s and 1980s.
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She would get the job of rewriting Malta recent history, North Korean style.
But history is not written; history is made and nobody rewrites it.
Mintoff was Malta’s curse, but now he has competition.
So Ramona Frendo didn’t need to switch.
Ramona, Mintoff decimated the health service with his actions in the 70s.
Today there are more university courses than there were university students back in 1987. You’re right about pensions but the way they are at present they won’t be sustainable when you reach pensionable age and the Labour Party had objected to reforms in this regard in the previous legislature.
My only regret is that I could not show my disdain for Mintoff as the anti-Thatcherites showed in Britain last week.
Pity he did not give this to all. There was no university, free or not, for me in the 80s
Faulty logic is the source of where we’re at. Garbage in, garbage out. Labour set out to change perceptions in 2002, and change them they did by making sure the false ones remained in place and working on the rest.
Free education! As if Mintoff left a big chest full of gold coins to pay for the education of future generations.Same applies to the social services.
Governments give free this and free that in every budget – if they find the money generated by the economy and taxes.
It is unbelievable that false claims on Mintoff’s contribution to Maltese society in education, especially at the tertiary level, and other social benefits that were introduced before he became prime minister, have attained common currency among a generation that could only have achieved university education thanks to the reforms brought in by Eddie Fenech Adami’s government.
Do these “educated” people know that the world-renouned German educationist, Professor Ralph Dahrendorf, resigned from his role as adviser to Mintoff because he did not want to be associated with the policies that he was introducing?
Dr Saliba, the real fundamental problem with these people is that they are not educated at all.
What’s really unbelievable is that certain professors teaching in the Faculty of Education actually applaud Mintoff’s contribution to education in lectures to students.
Most of them have no clue otherwise because 1)they’re Labour and already believe this, 2)don’t care so they take it as face value, and 3)are to lazy to find out the truth even if they have heard at home that this might not be case. Not all, but the majority.
One professor admitted that Mintoff’s tactics were ‘a bit heavy-handed’ after he heard one older student snickering when he started going on about how great Mintoff was for education.
Ramona Frendo should thank her lucky stars she didn’t want to study English or Philosohpy, or any of the arts for that matter, during Mintoff’s time.
The Faculty of English was amalgamated into the Faculty of Education and you could only read English if you were going to be a teacher. She should ask the older lecturers how they liked Mintoff’s ‘heavy-handedness’.
The only ‘philosophy’ the Maltese were allowed back then was Mintoff’s type of philosophy that he spouted during Labour mass meetings.
The stuff she was brought up on.
Dear misinformed Dr. Ramona,
Free tuition at University became a reality in 1970 when Dr Gorg Borg Olivier was still prime minister.
During the Mintoff regime, students got a ”salary” for spending half the time studying at university and half the time ”working” in an enviorment totally alien to their studies.
I am referring here to students who were ”lucky” enough to make it to university thanks to having a sponsor with the right political affiliations and/ or having a 20 point start on students ”unlucky” enough to have had their secondary education in a private(shock! horror!)church school
It was not unknown for such student -workers to get called in as strike -breakers when teh occasion demanded.
It was only after 1987 that university students started getting a no-strings -attached stipend for attending full-time at university. By then , the university had opened its doors to several thousands of students thanks to the re -introduction of courses that during the Mintoff regime had remained closed as a result of the infamous but official ” intellettwali fid deep freeze” and ”diplomi li jintuzaw bhala karta tal incova” views prevalent in the enlightened Mintoff era.
Finally , Dr Ramona, please ask yourself this question – if education was so hunky -dorey in Malta during the Mintoff regime , how come the Mintoff girls were packed off to the capitalist west for a secondary and then a tertiary education?
‘the time ”working” in an environment totally alien to their studies.’
Yes, the great, useful task of painting chairs and washing floors at some government primary school.
Some people “educated” according to the Mintoff exclusive method do not even realise it when they were being insulted and fobbed off with a worthless ersatz indoctrination.
Din bis-serjeta jew ?
So she doesn’t have to worry about what happens to her parents.
Typical. Ghamlilhom karta Perit.
Frendo, were you always this gullible, or was it economically motivated?
Airbrushing history as Stalin did with Trotsky.
“..gave us dignity and peace of mind”? She can’t be serious.
Dignity: waiting for the water bowser to come and fill your tanks. Waiting in a line of odd-looking people to get a colour TV. Waiting outside the university gates to get an interview with Sant about the 20-point system.
Is this the dignity she is talking about?
Peace of mind: a Police-state sun by corrupt officers, Lorry Sant and Fusellu. If you read In-Nazzjon on the bus on your way to work, you were beaten up and shouted at. After 9pm, all streets were clear; people, even Mintoffjani themselves, were afraid to stay out after-dark. Peace of mind, my foot.
Hallina, Ramona. You need to really clear up your ideas and read the newspapers published during those terrible years. The Bibljoteka Nazzjonali can serve you with those, pronto.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/03/vote-labour-for-change-yana-mintoff/
What dignity?
Skimmed milk was unavailable to everyone except those with a prescription signed by a hospital consultant. And even then, you had to go BUY it from the government dispensary where you were given a ‘qartas’ with powdered skimmed milk like you were buying perzut or incova or zebbug.
Skimmed milk was deemed a luxury and not available in private pharmacies, let alone grocery shops or the mini-markets of the day.
APRIL 20, 2013 AT 12:23 PM
I just want to put the record straight on this Mintoff myth on education.
In 1970 (Borg Olivier Government) we had the common entrance examination for which standard IV and (repeaters) standard V students sat.
In the system we students could state our school preference.
1st preference Lyceum Hamrun
2nd preference De La Salle (yes a church school)
3rd preference Savio College (another church school which had just opened in 1968)
and so on and so forth.
I was at a state school and my teacher personally went to meet my parents to suggest the best preference list which suited my abilities. The then young teacher, Paul Micallef, tactfully placed Savio College where he wanted me to go for my own good. His strategy proved successful.
I got a SCHOLARSHIP for a church school for which the government paid…thanks to the nasty Nationalists.
In Form four (around 1975) the (Labour) government decided to stop paying my school fees and those of the other students in this scholarship scheme. My dad could not afford the five-pound fee per month and I was bound to end up at the Qormi area secondary school. The good Salesians who still run Savio College quietly told my parents that they would keep me on free of charge.
So if there’s anyone whom I should not thank for my education it is surely Dom Mintoff.
The system you refer to was available even in the sixties.
Top 100 students got admitted to the school of their first preference and the other successful students to the schools of their second and third preferences.
The schools included also all private church schools that were up to standard at the time. Tuition and books were provided free by the government. I was one such student in the sixties.
I got my primary education in a church school and then sat for the entrance examination where I managed to get good enough grades to continue my secondary education in that same school which was my first preference.
Thanks to the Borg Olivier administration, I got my university education for free as well. So much for the Mintoff myth about free education for all.
When you’re fond of plastering thick layers of make-up, a little airbrushing of history seems like a small thing.
When was schooling made obligatory in Malta? To say that the British did this defies logic and facts. Many previous generations had little or no schooling.
[Daphne – Current generations don’t either, David, and it’s not for want of schools or compulsory schooling.]
I think it was made obligatory in the forties – 1948 or there about.
I remember because when I was in stage two (today’s year two) because there was a dearth of teachers, each teacher had two classes – with different children, every day.
Every class used to attend a weekly morning session alternating with an afternoon session. The morning session used to start at 08:00 and end at 11:30. The afternoon session lasted from 14:00 to 16:00.
I’m now seventy and remember writing on the lavagna – a black tablet-sized board and we used pieces of charcoal to write with.
So actually, if the PN had won the election, the pupils would have gone back in time to using tablets – albeit a very different ones.
As far as I can remember, it was Mintoff who had the bright idea of transferring the funds collected from national insurance contributions into a consolidated fund.
This is one of the reasons that pensions are in such a precarious situation.
And what about the infamous 20 points system of the Eighties? Anglu Farrugia got the benefit of these points in 1985 since he was in the police force. How he got the other points in order to jump the queue is beyond me
What free education, Ramona? At trade schools we had classes on black and white televisions that worked with valves when the rest of the world had electronic colour televisions.
Motor mechanics had lessons on carburated, push-rod engines when car manufacturers produced cars with over-head camshaft 16-valve engines with fuel injection.
What was free?
One cent deduction on student bus fares was what we had during the miser’s regime.
Miskina … one wonders if she asked for a pjacir.
Probably she wants to be an MEP. Taf int, Brussell qed jigbor l-imbarazz Malti ghax Brussell taghhom ukoll.
Le dik Imhallef jaghmluha. Bortex se jkollu jhit l-izghar kostum li qatt hadem.
Ramona is the liar of the century. declaring that she was PN before. I did not believe it and will never believe it. Unfortunately this is a country run by liars.
Indeed – a country run by liars. We have a prime minister that lies through his teeth, (jew kif jghidu bil-Malti; izjed milli jiehu nifs) now also the president was caught lying. Who else? Let’s keep counting.
Mintoff’s healthcare policy:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/97127026/BOV-s-first-Chairman-Danny-Cremona-Showing-Off-His-Banking-Credentials-at-the-Gates-of-St-Lukes-Hospital-tomarchive-19770604-009
Mintoff holoq sistema illi parti mis-socjeta kienet tiddependi mill-istat, dejjem jistennew ic-cekkijiet tal-Gvern.
Holoq qatt ta’ bummijiet ghax Mintoff ma kienx kapaci johloq ix-xoghol. Tant u hekk illi fl-ahhar tas-70s kellu jaghmel il-korpi.
Aktar minn hekk, meta bdew jispiccawlu il-flus li kien ha minghand il-Gvern Ingliz, beda jdur fuq is-self-employed.
Lis-self-employed genninhom kien ghax beda jibghat kontijiet ta’ income tax bl-addocc, sahansitra kien hemm min anka tah attakk tal-qalb. Dak li ghamel Mintoff, Dr. Frendo.
I remember those years well. We were sent off to Ghajn Tuffieha to fill in drainage trenches. Just ask some magistrate out there, and a TV presenter, a vet and several others I remember well in the hot August sun.
I guess we were lucky – medical students were sent to the Red China Dock to pour concrete.
How do you impoverish your parents by going to university? Cheap of Ramona Frendo to express herself in that shallow and ignorant manner.
Ma tantx tidher impoverished. Diehla u hierga l-hwienet bix-shopping bags jarawha.
U tant marret tajjeb taht in-Nazzjonalisti, imma dak ma jghodd xejn.
Just some nitpicking about a couple of historical facts: both compulsory attendance and compulsory education were initiatives promoted and passed by the Maltese reps in the legislative assembly (UPM in 1921 and MLP in 1947 respectively). The British govt per se was notorious in dragging its feet in this regard.
Ramona Frendo, like many others, fails to distinguish between Prime Minister Boffa and Prime Minister Mintoff.
She makes the common mistake of attributing the introduction of pensions, for instance, to Mintoff rather than to Boffa.
No one is disputing Labour’s contribution to social welfare at the time, but it is their attribution to Mintoff that is fallacious.
So if these were Mintoff’s only redeeming features, and they are not to his credit after all, then this hero-worshipping is all based on false premisses.
Kellha bzonn Frendo twila daqs kemm hu twil ilsienha. X’qosor ta’ mara fiha. Qisha school girl b’ unifomi minn dawk li jbieghu Bortex.
Imbasta biz-zokk ta’ Facebook. Qazzuh lill-Facebook. Il-Maltin jirnexxielhom iqazzu kollox.
Whole families emigrated during the Mintoff years of terror. Whole families who had well-paid jobs, houses, relatives decided to leave the island out of sheer desperation and fear for their children’s lives. Does this not say it all?
I would love to know what fantasy world you are living in. Now even the most reliable and most developed diplomacy in the world, that ofthe U.S., confirms that the fears of these political emigrants were well-founded.
DAQT JGĦIDU LI L-PARTIT LABURISTA DAĦĦALNA FL-EWROPA………..MA TIEĦU XEJN BI KBIR. INĦALLU FTIT SNIN JGĦADDU U NARAW. I WOULDN’T WONDER AT ALL.
It’s already happened. Even worse some have attributed this to Mintoff himself. Talk about rewriting history.
Din ic-cuc qatt semghetl li Mintoff kien jghid ‘”Nixtieq li kapaci ngib xoghol ghal-Maltin daqs kemm kapaci ingib il-flus”.
Ramona Frendo’s words in her deceptive testimonial for Labour, “Mhux min taf, imma x’taf” now sound even more hollow.
Karen Bugeja, who was appointed to Airmalta’s board of directors, is Karen nee Borg of Bortex, Ramona’s sister-in-law.
Incidentally this blog has become a great source for establishing the truth on historical facts.
Our historians except for Prof. Henry Frendo, are ever so silent but then a couple are known for their extreme bias so cannot be relied on for objective fact. One, a former Secretary General of the Labour Party, even penned an article eulogising Mintoff just after his death. And he is the Dean of the Faculty of History. I wonder if this appointment too was sought out so as to be able to control what is written about our past and rewrite history to glorify their past master.
One myth for sure is that Mintoff was “missier il-Maltin”. There never was a more divisive figure than he and at best he can be considered father to half the nation at best.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Surplus-schools-could-be-sold-to-finance-budget-gap-20130420
The PN builds schools while Labour sells and closes them.
St Michael’s Teacher Training College comes to mind. It was sold to the Libyans by Mintoff while MCAST (Polytechnic) was built by the PN and closed by Labour.
Old habits die hard.
This is all due to the failed policy of reconciliation.
Reconciliation is a second step in any “making-up” procedure. For two people to make up, they need to first acknowledge that there had been, at least, a tiff.
If they do not acknowledge that there had been some disagreement, and why that happened, then they cannot make up. In Malta, we have people who have lived in those Golden Years and yet they refuse to believe that life here was hell.
If Mintoff took away something from us as a people, it was the serenity and peace of mind. I was a child in 1987 (born in 1977) but I can never forget the palpable tension in our everyday life as a family.
The funny thing is that people, intelligent and otherwise nice people such as Dr. Frendo, are brainwashed so badly that they write things such as this Facebook post without reflecting.
How can you say that Mintoff had “human faults”? Being inordinately obstinate is a “human fault”, being a perfectionist or nonchalant can be termed as being human faults. However, how can ruining a country be hailed as a human fault? For God’s sake.
And this is the serious repercussion of this wrong policy of reconciliation. Unless there is real acknowledgement of the thousands of lives Mintoff ruined, even Laborites’ lives, then there can never be REAL reconciliation because we, the victims, feel that we’ve been short-changed and thwarted and rather than achieving closure and catharsis, our wounds continue to fester and we become even more resolute in our fight against “whatever”.
In my case, I’m relentless in my fight against all injustice, whatever and wherever it may manifest itself. I’m sure in others it is expressed in such others’ different ways.
In other words, forced reconciliation, when one party wants it but the other dismisses it as a sign of weakness, leads to the creation of myths. The Mintoff who was mourned in August was not the real Mintoff, but the heroic and mythical Mintoff (some) people used to think he was.
I do not blame people like Dr. Frendo. I blame the advocates of the reconciliation policy, who, unwittingly, have been instrumental in ensuring that people who had brought up between four Mintoffian walls remains essentially Mintoffian, in spite of living a very cosmopolitan and Western life.
However, they know nothing better. They regurgitate whatever used to be fed to them when they were children – because our education system never had the balls to call a spade a spade and call Mintoff by his real title: the Dictator.
Ramona Frendo thanks Mintoff and his government for her education, maybe because she couldn’t do anything on her own. She needed the Godfather.