When Labour went to the Christmas pantomime
Reading the prize-winning letter in last issue of M magazine, which is distributed with The Times, brought back fond memories of the days when for the price of a ticket to the MADC pantomime you would sometimes get, thrown in for free, an unscripted cabaret put on by Labour thugs, there to avenge the honour of their political masters, who had been joked about.
Here’s the letter, written by Christian Mifsud, who was stage manager during one such event.
Reading your article about the bust-up during the 1985 edition of the MADC pantomime, Robinson Crusoe, brought back vivid memories of that ill-fated evening. I was the stage manager for that show and can still picture those three thugs bursting through the backstage entrance. We thought it was all over when they left their seating. Little did we know they were coming round the back.
While two of them tried to smash the props, the third one made a beeline for the sound-room to try and destroy the tapes. Five of us were on hand in the wings and a fight soon ensued. I was closest to the sound-room and with difficulty managed to restrain the thug from entering. More help was soon at hand and these three ‘guests’ were evicted. Damage was minimal but our nerves were certainly on edge.
The incident did not end there. A member of the Manoel Theatre committee happened to be walking by and was frantically called in. Not appreciating the extent of what had just happened, he walked into the auditorium and was promptly met with a punch from an irritated member of the audience.
All through the confusion, Maestro Vella did his best to keep the audience calm by playing Christmas carols, using the chorus as his main singers. Having calmed our nerves, we had an obligation to our paying audience and we continued with the show.
As a member of the MADC committee at the time I know there was a lot more that happened behind the scenes but that would make another story.
Oh, incidentally – Alfred Sant was president of the Labour Party at the time, and Marie Louise Coleiro was secretary-general. Lovely.
A glance back at the madness of the recent past
What a pity I didn’t bother looking at this magazine before the election. There was such a gem in it.
It is again in this context that Dr Sant brought up the Malta Labour Party’s proposed reception class, between the end of kindergarten and the start of formal primary education. This would, he admitted, increase the number of years children would spend in school……He also dismissed the idea that the cost would be prohibitive. “Yes, we will need more teachers, and we will need more space. But all that this means is that we would need another Lm1.5 million in the education budget and 200 more teachers. What’s wrong with that?”
The Economic Update, February 2008
Two hundred extra teachers, eh? And where were they going to come from? Perhaps he was going to wave his magic wig and whip them up out of thin air.
My God, what a narrow escape that was.
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He would have enrolled Anglu and Lorna to teach the kiddies the English (set text their websites)
Jaysin is-somom (ya know forgetting that there were 34,000 new votes and not 18,000)
Michael Mangion – choir practice (Oeee Oooo)
ic-Chalie Mangion u Justyne (Studji Socjali) – because they have a firm grasp of social studies…DNA hazin, mhux tal-familja taghna (u iva Studji Socjali ma jaghmluhx daqshekk kmieni s-soltu imma peress li huma avvanzati fil-hsieb taghhom, l-indottrinazzjoni tibda kmieni)
The Poodle watching a Bord-ta’-Vigilanza-approved panto in his honour… the lady sitting next to him is ‘Mrs Arani Ma’
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/media/adf-atf-poodle.jpg
http://www.mattwolf.info/images/toilet1.jpg
@Merkaat.
LOL!!!!! Isma, you keep a whole set of poodle pictures on your PC? X’gosti!!
On a more sober note, pity everyone seems to have overlooked that Economic Update article; the reception class trash would have been rubbished more easily. I have heard an interview with Bencini the other day (and I have a son of schooling age, and my wife is in the schooling profession) so I am fully aware of the great difficulty all schools are finding to employ teachers, let alone having the need of extra 200 teachers for a reception class.
Speaking about teachers, I think that not everyone is fully aware of the problems this profession is facing. Amongst other things, there is a huge need of teachers in all areas, especially in newish subjects such as IT. Additionally, these teachers are not graduating with the necessary skills, especially to deal with children with disorders such as ADHD and other related disorders.
The Education Minister has a hefty load on her hands….
Dear Daphne,
I get the impression that you think that history started in your youth. Nothing that happened before seems to interest you much.
I fully agree such events as described in your panto write-up is shameful and certainly did Labour no good either at that time or later. I fully agree that Ms Coleiro Preca should carry the burden of such events that happened when she was Secretary Gneral and rather than contest for leadership should atone for condoning such shameful events through her silence.
Incidentally Ms Coleiro Precas disappeared from Labour ranks immediately they lost the 1987 election and was not seen again before they were returned in 1996. Some people never miss being there for the glory!
Yet history did not start in the 70’s or 80’s . Much worse things happened in the 60’s when it was mortal sin to read Labour papers, to attend Labour meetings and obviously to vote Labour. This was not the work of a handful of hot-heads. This was institutional moral violence. In holier than the Pope Malta of the 60’s being denied sacraments and threathened with eternal hell was no joke. I remember my father, a very holy person but who had a mind to think with and supported Labour, crying as Mum and my sisters put pressure on him to deny Mintoff in order to regain the right to go to heaven.
Things much worse than violence in a panto happened before you were born dear Daphne. And incidentally at the time Lawrence Gonzi was very active in the Catholic Action preaching that merely thinkiing of Labour would buy you a ticket to hell. Apologies are due from all sides but why not look forward now to see how can we make this country a better place for our children.
[Moderator – Evarist Bartolo was a member of Catholic Action, too. You answer your own question: ‘…history started in your youth.’ That’s precisely it. Alfred Sant’s personal history is tied to Labour’s history, and it ain’t purdy.]
@ amrio
Yes I keep a stash of poodle pix and gorgeous men just to get your hackles up hehe (pls Daph, don’t tell us to stop…I don’t need to date :-D
I’m getting sick and tired of Labourites whining about the fight they started with the church in the sixties and lost. But they tried to win it again in the eighties didn’t they? Wasn’t trying to close the church schools simply another part of the exercise in thought control, just like the absence of pluralism in broadcasting?
And I don’t see why it should in any case be compared with the police state Labour attempted (partially successfully) to create in the 70’s and 80’s. If you want to come up with something worse than the Labour Administration of 1971-1987, at least in the 20th century, it’ll have to be WWII or the Spanish flu of 1918!
And where does the ‘all sides’ argument come in? After all, this was an argument between labourites (Archbishop Gonzi & Mintoff) of different shades of red. Why do they keep blaming their internal battles on the PN? Denial, as usual. (“We didn’t lose the election ‘cos we’re clueless, its the power of incumbency”)
And so what if the Church fought back? It’s a private club and it has a set of rules. If you don’t like thoses rules, leave. Nothing’s stopping you. I left years ago and it hasn’t hurt me any.
All sides indeed! The only thing in common between the two issues is that the Labour party started it both times. And since when is the church ‘a side’. Get over it. There’s an easy way to make sure it doesn’t happen again, just don’t start the same fight again. The 70/80’s situation is different, again, it doesn’t depend on us for it not to happen again, it needs the MLP dinosaurs and their younger alcolytes to stay out of politics.
@P Portelli
Lawrence Gonzi was active in Catholic Action in the 1970s. During l-interdett he was in primary school. No, history did not start before my youth but if I want to know what happened before I was around I would want to be lectured by someone who has a more accurate grasp of the details.
@Moderator
History started in nobody’s youth. Only those who lived the sixties know how cruel they were and how Labourites were morally vandalised. Ask Lino Spiteri & Micallef Stafrace who had to marry in the sacratsy or Agatha Barbara & Patrick Holland who went to prison for their political beliefs. Alfred Sant was insult to the true spirit of Labour and was always unwilling to defend Old Labour sacrifices in the sixties. Sant was a great friend of the PN … he gave them three elections on a silver platter.
@Mike C
Arbishop Gonzi was a Labourite. The side is splitting!! Tidher li ma tiftakarx lil ta that l-umbrella. Gonzi gave the PN two elections 1962 & 1966 becasue he made it a mortal sin to vote Labour. Some Labourite!
@Fausto Majistral
During l-interdett Law Gronzi an active teen attending the Gunta meetings where gullible faithful were made to believe that Mintoff had the devil’s tail in his pants!!
@P Portelli
Your side may well be splitting, but I suggest you take a look at the list of founders of your own party. You will find a certain Monsignor Michael Gonzi. Gonzi taught a lesson to Mintoff. And he learnt it well. In fact he then taught it to Sant. Who will Sant teach that same lesson to?
And again, stop blaming others for the problems you yourselves create. If you pick a useless and unwinnable fight, expect a loss and its consequences. Its the MLP which did the handing over on a platter. Does this ring any bells?
All Lino Spiteri & Micallef Stafrace needed to do to avoid ‘moral vandalism’, was to obey the rules and leadership of the club (catholic church) they belonged to. If you belong to two clubs which demand exclusive loyalty you can expect to fall foul of one of them. At which point you have to choose one. But don’t whine when the other one disciplines you or threatens to kick you out.
As to the ‘being thrown into prison’, to start with, this was yet another MLP fight, this time against your erstwhile heros, the British, (and getting our constitution suspended and losing our self rule in the process) and therefore not strictly speaking part of the local political scene. And secondly, lets not confuse riots, incitement to riot, stopping ambulances from taking patients to hospital etc with political beliefs. Don’t make me laugh. Now THAT’s a reason for splitting sides. Although the MLP is more used to splitting heads. Other peoples’ heads, that is.
As to Sant being a friend of the PN, maybe an incompetent leader is a better description. But guess who chose him? Not the PN. MLP delegates. Again, stop blaming others for the problems you inflict upon yourselves and sometimes the rest of the nation. You’re living in denial. Wake up!
@P Portelli
And by the way, the interdict was declared in March 1961, 4 months before Lawrence Gonzi’s 8th birthday. Pretty precoscious progeny, huh? :)
Good night…… (or should I say bonswa!)
@MikeC
L-interdett ended in 1969 When Gonzi was 16!!
The fact that Arch Bishop Gonzi was one of the founders of the Labour Party does not make him a Labourite. It made him an opportunist who wanted both Chrich power and political power.
Your super democratic credentials show in justifying that the Church can use its religious powers to order us who not to vote for or face the wrought of hell!! That’s why this exchange all started.
As the gospel says Taraw it-tibna f’ghajnejn ghajrkom u ma tarawx it-travu f’ghajnejkom!!
@P Portelli – the point you miss is that the Nationalist Party is no longer the same party it was in the 1960s, while the Labour Party has stayed almost exactly the same. If the Nationalist Party were still what it was in the 1950s and 1960s, I wouldn’t support it. No member of my family on either my mother’s side or my father’s side did so, incidentally, and I was in kindergarten – so your arguments about Gonzi and the state of mortal sin are irrelevant to me.
Pierre Portelli,
If you consider orders from the church not to vote Labour (however ridiculous they were) equal or worse then the brutal violent regime of the eighties you really need to check yourself out.
Thanks to the “Fusellus”, the “Toto’s” and the “Qahbus” of the Dark Ages and so many others of their ilk, the MLP has now been solidly sealed in opposition benches and will remain there till this brainwave hits them and elect Dr. Abela as their party’s leader.
I stand to be corrected but didn’t EFA apologise to the nation and in particular to those Labourites that suffered during the 60’s? I think this says it all, don’t you?
@P Portelli
“The fact that Arch Bishop Gonzi was one of the founders of the Labour Party does not make him a Labourite”
Excuse me? (incidentally he was also a candidate and won election to parliament, I think to the senate) Now who’s side is splitting? :)
What more does it take to be a labourite? What you mean is ‘it doesn’t make him a Mintoffjan’, which is perfectly true.
The Labour party was created by mixture of clerics and church friendly individuals and a lot of the reforms it carried out were based on catholic thought and publications of the time. Then Mintoff came along and hijacked the party, and its been sliding downhill ever since, with no reprieve in sight. The choice was confrontation (Mintoff) against diplomacy (Boffa), and confrontation won out. And has ever since. One useless fight after another.
And your comment about democratic credentials doesn’t make sense. I’ll try and make this as simple to understand as possible.
1) The Archbishop is the head of the local church.
2) He decided that the MLP’s politics went against the catholic church’s policies. He believed (as many still do) that the MLP was turning into a communist party, and we know communist parties in power always persecuted religious organisations. (and as we saw in the 80’s, he was right)
3) He instructed catholics not to vote labour, in order to prevent what he saw as a potential dictatorship coming to power
That’s perfectly democratic. If you belong to two clubs and they are in conflict, you choose one of them. Mintoff could have instructed Labourites not to go to mass, not to get married, not to get baptised etc etc. If I was a labourite at the time and I believed in my party I would have still voted labour, but I would not have felt any animosity to the church, I would simply have understood that my place was not in that church. If on the other hand I felt that my spiritual leader was right then I would have left labour.
You make your own choices based on conviction and principles. And I certainly wouldn’t accept EUR70 to change my vote, as Anglu Farrugia seems to suggest YOU would. But evidently our minds work differently.
And another thing. Daphne says “If the Nationalist Party were still what it was in the 1950s and 1960s, I wouldn’t support it. No member of my family on either my mother’s side or my father’s side did so”. What she’s telling you there is no secret, its that her family were Constitutional party supporters.
Well you know what? The Constitutional Party was interdicted too, earlier on in our political history, but you don’t hear her, or anyone else, whining about it, do you?
Get over it. Its just another one of the many useless fights you picked and lost. Remember my comment about the choice between confrontation and diplomacy above. Time you tried the other path.
@Mike C
If you go to Tehran I’m sure you be given an honourary gedree in religious fundametelism and offered a post as personal assitant to Ayotallah!
@AM
The Church tru Archbishop Mercieca offered such an apology (Mike C please note) The PN who were the main beneficiaries of the Church’s misdeeds never uttered a word of regret.
@David Buttigieg
You clearly have no idea how painful the 60’s were for liberals who were expected not to use their mind and follow the Church abuses blindly. You have no idea how many families were ripped apart. Insitutionalised psychological violence hurts much more than the physical violence of a few hotheads which is nonetheless condemnable in the strongest possible terms.
@DCG
I take your point. For you istory started in your youth and do not care about anything else. I’m different. I can understand the present better if seen in a historical context. Yet we both agree that GA is the best choice for Labour and for Malta.
@ P Portelli – I didn’t say that history started in my youth for me. I said that the controversies you mention between the church, the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party in the 1960s are irrelevant to me because I come from two families that supported the Constitutional Party, which was extraneous to the equation. The Constitutional Party and the Nationalist Party were even greater enemies then than the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party are today; the Stricklandjani had more in common with the old Labour Party, and in fact, lots of people who supported the Constitutional Party swung to Labour after their party ceased to exist.
@P Portelli
If I went to Tehran I would probably be hung. I am an atheist. I do not approve of religion, organized or otherwise. I do not support the catholic church. As a pragmatist, I just happen to think that in this case it was the lesser of two evils, and history has proven me right. Calling me a fundamentalist does not weaken my point about picking useless, unwinnable fights.
If Mercieca apologised, all it shows it that he was more subtle than Gonzi, preferring diplomacy to confrontation. Ring any bells?
I also don’t see why the PN should apologise to their political adversaries for benefiting from their political adversaries’ masochistic tendency to keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Again, stop blaming the church and/or the PN for your own self-inflicted ‘Insitutionalised psychological violence’, as you put it.
And if we want to talk about institutional violence, we can talk about the institutionalisation of torture at the police depot, including that of a disabled individual. ‘a few hotheads’ indeed. The creation of a quasi-police state is not the action of a few hotheads. I’m tempted to use the expression ‘shame on you’, repeatedly, but someone else has overused that already. (To great effect, I might add – more shots in the foot – more bells ringing, huh?)
Minimising the dark days of the 70’s and 80’s to the actions of a few hotheads is a bit much. I suspect you would be much more at home with Ahmedinajad in Tehran than I would. Like you, he is also a denier of history.
@Mike C
I minimise nothing. What’s condemnable is condemnable and I have condemned it. But the moral violence of the 60’s stands in a totally different league from the excesses of the 70 and 80’s. The violence of the 60’s was across the board to the whole labourite population.
If you are an atheist you can’t understand what it means that in Malta of the 60’s one is told to deny one’s poltical belief or face eternity in hell!! For you it was easy to give up your faith. For the rest of us it is not.
Repent Mike repent. Nowadays you be be both a Labourite and a Catholic. It was not always like that.
@p portelli
You keep missing the point. You made your own choice. If your political beliefs are in contrast with your religous beliefs then you have to choose.
And the reason why you can be both a catholic and a labourite today is because it is labour who has changed its position (except for certain stalinist manifestations like the board of vigilance) and not the church.
Again, you cannot equate the 60’s to the 80’s. The interdict left you with a choice. Stop attacking the church or leave it. Its rather different from an all out attack on freedom and democracy. I just can’t understand how you call it violence. Self defence is more like it.
But both periods had one main cause. Mintoff. Its as simple as that.
@Mike C
Sorry mate but you got it wrong. You should not need to choose between your political beliefs and your faith. You dont have to do it in 2008 and no one should have had to do it in the sixties. As far as I know it is still the same faith!
The Church admitted its mistake. Labour did not change anything from is-sitt punti which brought in the interdett. The Church had to admit it was wrong and that it tried to play the poltical game to keep Mintoff out of power and enthral the PN. Archbishop Gonzi was not knighted by the British for nothing!!
The whole point of this exchange is that Labour should apologise for the violence it condoned. But it is wrong to pretend that history started in the 70’s and the PN have nothing to apologise for. That’s all.