Maria l-Maws puts on a show

Maria l-Maws was on TVM last Tuesday night, being interviewed by Reno Bugeja. I don’t quite know why, but Maria l-Maws puts me in mind of a nun without a habit and wimple – not a priest, but a nun. It could have something to do with that deliberately low, monotonous, faux-gentle tone, which some nuns are excellent at using for the delivery of menacing words. It could be because if you were to wrap a wimple round his head he would pass muster as Sister Evarist, or Suor Bartolo. Anyway, when I look at him and hear him speak, all I can think of is nun, nun, nun and not mouse, mouse, mouse. But because his alter ego is Maria l-Maws, mouse it’s going to be.

Reno showed Varist (or Ev, as he is known among tal-pepe circles) a video clip of a television broadcast he had made in the 2003 referendum campaign, asking Malta in that nun’s voice to vote No, not to vote, or to spoil the ballot-sheet. There he was, repeating the mantra of His Master’s Voice – a man who now wishes to be considered statesmanlike enough to be prime minister, telling the nation to scribble on the ballot-sheet while in the polling-booth. Does this happen anywhere else in the democratic world? I’m just wondering. It seems shameful to me, but Evarist made his request with such nun-like confidence that he almost convinced me of the normality of senior politicians telling people not to vote or to rip up or ruin their ballot-paper.

Il-parabboli ta’ Bartlu

Reno said he would show him another video clip, and Varist replied: “Nista nimmagina liema.” Well, what do you know? It was one of those didactic ‘let’s make things simple for simple minds’ intimate chats he likes to have with television viewers, the assumption being that they all have a mental age of three and like to be spoken to in parables and metaphors a la Dom Mintoff.

In this one, he was talking about the European Union and its regulations as a pair of one-size-fits-all shoes, which we have to wear whether they fit us or not. “Trid tilbes l-uniformi tal-EU, trid jew ma tridx,” he said. Any moment, and he might have brought out a couple of puppets on strings to give us a demo: a balena clearly marked with the letters E and U, and a makku sporting the George Cross. Suor Bartolo pulls the strings and the balena eats the makku while the children burst into tears.

The weird thing is that, in the exchange of views which followed this clip, you could see Evarist getting all hot under the collar at the very thought of EU membership. Is he over it, or is he not over it? He’d better let us know. Reno asked him about U-turns and non-U turns and credibility, and Evarist tried to get out of his tight spot by putting on that attitude of outraged self-justification that he likes to adopt when he’s painted himself into a corner. He tried to compare the Labour Party’s shifting position on the EU to that of Britain’s Conservative Party. It just didn’t wash.

206 Laburisti in Haz-Zebbug didn’t vote

Then he let slip a bit of information that tells us how the big cheeses in the Labour Party know more than they are letting on about the Laburisti who didn’t vote in this last election. There were ‘mijiet’ in Haz-Zebbug alone, he said: 206, to be precise. I asked around the living-room to be sure that I had heard correctly. Two hundred and six? You mean, not 205 or 207, or about 200, but precisely 206? Where did that six come from?

Il-ggant tal-palazz

Then it was back to another video clip. By this time, I was looking forward to them for their amusement value. There Ev was again, speaking in parables:

Il-Partit Nazzjonalista qisu l-ggant tal-palazz. Libsulu werqa biex jghattu dak li hemm taht; werqa bl-istillel tal-Ewropa.

Il-ggant tal-palazz. They were all screaming with laughter on the sofa thinking he was speaking about the giant at the end of Jack’s beanstalk. Then somewhere from the dimmer recesses of my memory I retrieved the information that the large bronze of Andrea Doria that stands in the courtyard at the Grandmaster’s Palace in Valletta was known as il-ggant tal-palazz. Some puritanical governor or other had a fig-leaf soldered on to protect Doria-cum-Neptune’s modesty from the eyes of the ladies, or vice versa. Il-ggant tal-palazz – oh good grief.

Unilateral TV disarmament

Then Ev was on to the subject of television stations owned by political parties. He thinks there shouldn’t be any because they are a financial burden. Well, that’s a non sequitur if ever there was one. If the cost is crippling the Labour Party, then the Labour Party should give up Super One, but what we are speaking about here is something like the question of unilateral disarmament in the Cold War. I won’t do it unless you do it too. Neither of us will do it unless we are forced to do so. Soon, I expect, they will be holding bilateral meetings to ensure that each disarms when the other does so.

Evarist thinks that the money would be better spent in developing policies. I hate to break this to him, but to develop policies what you need is people with brains, not money saved on a television station.

L-ekonomisti tal-jukebox

Time for another clip, and we were treated to the sight and sound of Evarist speaking about l-ekonomisti tal-jukebox – sorry, gujkboks: titfa l-flus u ddoqqu d-diska li trid.

Another clip, this time showing Evarist rounding on university professor Kenneth Wain with the words and gestures of a nun. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but he didn’t go on the attack like a man. “Missek tisthi!” Mouth takes on shape of pig’s rectum. “Imbasta professur tal-universita!” Mouth makes ‘pooh-ghalik’ gesture. “Ghax ma’ tmurx tara….” He sits with hands crossed across his knees, tut-tutting, pooh-poohing and x’gharukaza-ing, wearing the sort of scornful and contemptuous expression usually seen on old ladies watching a girl go by in skimpy shorts. You get the drift. Kenneth Wain was in the Yes Movement, and Evarist thought that we should vote No, not vote or spoil our ballot-sheet.

Evarist says that when you educate your children, they vote Nationalist

Like Silvio Parnis, he said he was concerned about the number of children of working-class Laburisti parents who are not voting Labour, because they feel it is beneath them. Iss hej, their parents make sacrifices to ensure they get a good education, and then off they go and vote Labour. Of course, what Evarist is really saying here, though I’m sure he didn’t mean it quite that way, is that when people are educated they start voting Nationalist. Ev did the opposite, of course. His Nationalist parents struggled to give him and his siblings a proper education, and then off went Ev to become a Laburist.

Wow, he read Mao

Reno Bugeja asked him about his youthful flirtation with Communism. Yes, he replied. I read the works of Mao, Lenin and Marx. Oh god, I said, there on my sofa. What next – Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? The Little Prince? A Che Guevara T-shirt worn without irony? A Deep Purple Live LP? So 1974.

Then Ev began boasting about how the Labour Party had cleaned up its act post 1992, and how it had set up the Board of Vigilance and Discipline to keep things under control and to clear out corrupt and violent elements. And Reno reminded him that he was the chairman of that board when it took the decision to expel Wenzu Mintoff and Toni Abela – for speaking out against corrupt and violent elements in the party. Ah, but they were washing Labour’s dirty laundry in public, and that’s unforgivable. “Illum hbieb hafna,” Suor Bartolo said. Ar’hemm, hej – definitely not leadership material, but then neither was his friend Fred.