Lest you think all my readers are Mintoffjani hodor who are wild about foxes and axes, here's a sensible comment that came in
Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici accepts the Gaddafi Human Rights Award on Mintoff's behalf two years ago.
BUS DRIVER
Paul Borg – il-gid li tghid li ghamel Mintoff mhu xejn minnhu. Dak kollu gideb li bellawh lic-cwiec bhalek.
Biex holoq Air Malta, Mintoff hataf il-propjeta tal-Malta Airways li kienet ga xtrat tlett ajruplani Trident ghar-rottot taghha.
Biex holoq Sea Malta, ha il-vapuri tal-linja tal-bahar ta’ Pace.
Biex holoq Mid Med Bank, qala’ l-barra il-bank stabbilit internazzjonali Barclays Bank.
Biex holoq Bank of Valletta, seraq in-National Bank of Malta.
Biex holoq il-Malta Milling & Grain Handling, qered diversi mtiehen tal-qamh privati.
Izda ma waqafx hemm.
Dahhal madwar 8,000 ruh ma’ dawn il-kumpaniji u mal-parastatali minghajr ma kien hemm il-htiega taghhom u li swew – u ghadhom jiswew sallum – miljuni ta’ euro lil poplu.
U xi nghidhu ghad-dockyard… u ghax-Shipyard li bdiet titlef eluf ta liri mill-ewwel gurnata u baqghat taghmel dan sakemm il-poplu kellu jerga jhallas kocc miljuni ohra biex jizzarma.
U xi nghidhu ghall-famuza ordni tal-bulk carriers ghar-Russja li nnegozja Mintoff ghax-Shipyard, li l-poplu spicca ihallas biex jitkaxkru il-barra mil-port.
U l-fabbriki tac-Cinizi – dawk success. Cikkultata li ma kienitx u li ma tittikilx. Viti tal-ilma tar-ram fuq disinn ta’ mitt sena ilu li ma riedhom hadd. Fabbrika li tipproduci tessuti ta’ daqs u kwalita li ma juntuzaw mkien.
U kif solva il-problema tal-ilma – billi iddobba driller mil-Libja u ghamel Malta passatur bil-bore holes biex, iva, hexa l-aquifer ukoll u spiccajna naqaw li intellghu bramel tal-ilma mil-bahar ghall-WC.
U il-power station bil-faham, hexa mhux biss il-Menqa il-Marsa u s-sahha ta’ kull min kien joqghod hemm, imma anke l-ambjent in generali bit-trakkijiet ghaddejjin mit-toroq lejl u nhar iferrxu l-irmied.
Paul Borg, tassew l-anqas ghandek ebda ideja ta’ x’inhu gid, ghax mhux biss tara l-qassatat kollha msemmija hawn fuq bhala ta’ siewi, imma l-anqas biss taghraf il-gid veru li ilek tghix fieh mill-ewwel gurnata li Malta helset mill-hakma korrosiva u abbusiva tal-Labour Party f’dak il-jum glorjuz tad-9 ta’ Mejju 1987.
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Is the Gaddafi human rights award as prestigious as the Hitler one?
The award is a karta tal-incova. It’s the $250,000 that got him going.
No wonder Yana flew in from America. That man’s will should make fascinating reading.
I wonder whether Maltastar will publish it. Unless he made a secret will, it’s a public deed and anybody can claim a copy merely by producing a death certificate.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081026/local/kmb-picks-up-gaddafi-prize-for-mintoff
“The $250,000 prize, which in past years has been presented to Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, was awarded to Mr Mintoff in ‘appreciation of his struggle for the independence of Malta’…..Dr Mifsud Bonnici said Mr Mintoff planned to use the prize money to set up a fund to build and promote a global movement for peace.”
But then he thought otherwise, and kept it instead to top up the half a million liri he picked up from the Maltese taxpayer for pain and suffering to L-Gharix.
KMB… what a lackey!
No, just a manipulated puppet, miskin.
Bus Driver might also have mentioned the huge unemployment figures that always accompanied the so-called Labour administrations. A contradiction in terms. Not only did they swell the civil service with thousands of unwanted and unreliable staff (remember that at best out of every 11,000 school leavers in any one year only 800 went on to tertiary education) but they hatched the labour corps.
Pijunieri, Bahhar u Sewwi, Izra u Rabbi, il-fabbrika tal-kappar, and many other ridiculous names to cover up the total failure in employment and investment.
Labour was devoid of any idea as to how to create true employment and FDI went elsewhere. Nobody wanted to deal with schoolyard bullies like Mintoff and his gang.
Other countries which gained independence at the same time as we did steamed ahead and we were left with a Red China Dock with dockyard workers sitting on their backside while we were paying their wages out of our taxes. It was a complete and utter shambles.
For those who say we should lay off Mintoff because he’s old and sick I’ll quote a phrase I recently heard a Nazi-hunter say on television: “Don’t let the wrinkles fool you.”
Torturers and murderers such as Demjanjuk and Barbie were brought to justice when they had become old and, in the former’s case, wheelchair-bound.
The decrepit shuffling Mintoff we see today is the same arrogant brute who terrorised even his own ministers. When I hear about the experiences of those who worked with him I realise he was unable to form normal human relationships and the only way he knew how to interact with others was by trying to bully them into submission, even when they were his “friends”. That was also his style of government: the politics of mob violence.
In some ways Mintoff was similar to a Mafia godfather in a Sicilian village, handing out petty favours when it suited him but using his piccioti (e.g. Żwieten and dockyard workers) to punish whoever stood up to him.
He has never expressed the slightest remorse for his misdeeds so his age should not shield him from our judgment, however harsh that may be.
You are right about the “wrinkles business”. See this http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,624567,00.html
Why should a man be spared what he deserves simply because of his age?
Why this old goat has never been charged with inciting hatred, mob violence, conspiracy, generally threatening the foundations of democracy and a myriad other offences is utterly beyond me.
Jista jkun li dawk li gew warajh, kemm mil-partit tieghu, kemm mil-PN, kienu daqsxejn (to quote this most eloquent of ex-Preems) “nejjien”, jew forsi ma kellhomx “bocci tal-laham”?
4 busdriver: Pls issemmix id dockyard ghax inqas minn tlett snin ilu Gonzi kien iddikjara ezatt qabel l-elezzjoni: “No downszing to dockyard” u ftit wara li rega gie elett zamm il kelma tieghu u ghalaqha, Dan wara li kien baghat ittri lil kull impjegat tad dockyard. Igifieri Mintoff ma kienx qaddis imma Gonzi lanqas hu xi Madre Teresa di Calcutta.
We had to wait 10 months or more for the delivery of a new car (if we could afford it). The engine size was not more then 2000cc, motor-bikes up to 250cc. We paid more for a second-hand car (at least 10 years old) than we would have had to do for a new one across the sea in Sicily. But the ministers bought their BMWs brand new.
[Daphne – They didn’t actually BUY them, surely you realise that.]
You are right Daph, he didn’t. He took them from a dealer in Sliema who consequently went bankrupt.
Everyone thinks that Mintoff was a bully in his days…but when the going got tough in 1984, he resigned and took a step back leaving Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to face to music.
Mintoff could never match Fenech Adami and Guido Demarco. He felt they were too strong and he moved out of the way. It was his way of conceding defeat.
Diamond1, bullies are, by definition, cowards and Mintoff was no exception.
@ diamond1 – So Mintoff surrendered power to KMB for fear of Eddie and Guido, eh? A gem of an argument, diamond1. It nearly made my day.
I realise that they didn’t actually buy them; the then Malta agent was known to be very close to Dom. I’d like to point out to you that we could not import cars from Sicily either, the only possible way of importing a car was a commercial van (or panel van) many of which had no MOT and were SCROUNGED from salvage yards in the UK.
I got my husband, who is Italian, to read your blog these days as he tends to think that I am exaggerating when I relate what I went through in my teens and twenties !
Another funny side to import restrictions: Two models of cars that one could buy without having to wait too long were a BMW (Lm5500) if you had the money or a Skoda (Lm1600) , but nothing in between.
There was a ban on all imports from Japan, and then from France (that must have upset both countries), so no cars from them.
diamond
Le, Mintoff ceda ghax waqa ghan-nejk fl-1981 u kien qed jibza li Lorry Sant ser jaqlibielu. Allura dahhal lil Karmenu iz-Zero.
Ghax Mintoff hekk: l-izball li jaghmel jitfaw fuq haddiehor.
Loved the way Bus Driver used “hexa'”
To Johan Malta – please don”t mention the dry docks. They had it very good for a long time and finally this government had the guts to say enough is enough, no more robbing the taxpayer of all those millions of liri every year.
The dry docks workers can”t complain, they were awarded all those thousands of liri, roughly 20,000 liri for each person for bringing the dry docks to bankruptcy.
Now the money that used to be pumped in to the dry docks can be used to a more constructive purpose.
Bus driver mela tisthi turi ismek? u jekk int veru bus driver se jirrangak gonzipn. Dak li semmejt inti kollu veru ghax inti stess qed tghid x’ghamel mintoff bid-differenza li il-gvernijiet pn kollox hxew ghax ma ghad fadal xejn.
Mintoff and KMB – two prime ministers straight out of a horror movie.
“Allura dahhal lil Karmenu iz-Zero”
Huwa tajjeb ukoll li niftakru li anke Joseph Muscat huwa ‘Zero’ ghax dahhluh fil-parlament minghajr ma kien hareg ghall-elezzjoni, minghajr ebda vot mil-elettorat – u dan meta kien iddikjara b’mod car li huwa qatt ma kien ser johrog ghall-elezzjoni ghaliex biex taghmel dan wiehed irid ikun mignun jew halliel.
Forsi .Joseph Muscat jinfurmana x’ser jaghmel meta jispicca it-terminu ta’ dan il-parlament. Ser iwarrab? Jew ser juri lill-kullhadd li huwa ‘mignun’ jew ‘halliel’?
Johan Malta – Dwar id-dockyard tajjeb li izzomm quddiem ghajnejk li terz mid-dejn nazzjonali – u, allura anke terz mil-miljuni f’imghaxiet li jridu jithallsu kull sena mil-poplu – huma rizultat tal-madwar Lm300,000,000 li tferrghu fid-dockyard tul is-snin, biex dawk ta’ hemm gew flok hadmu biex jirrangaw is-sitwazzjoni mwiera li holqu huma stess, bdew jarawhom bhala xi dritt taghhom.
Tad-dockyard kienu derghu bil-‘blank cheque’ fuq il-Mid Med Bank li Wistin Abela kien aghta lill Sammy Meilak biex kull gimgha jigbed flus ghall-pagi, inkluz overtime li ma kienx jinhadem – u dan apparti mil-PAYE u l-kontribuzzjonijiet tan-national insurance li qatt ma thallsu, li ammontaw ghal miljuni ohra ta liri Maltin, u li ukoll eventwalment gew mahfura – jigiefieri wahhluhom ukoll lil-poplu.
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The exchange of these rewards/gifts are a wonderful case study in the theory of gifts from a sociological and anthropological perspective. One of the pillars of such theory is that such gifts circulate amongst birds of a feather!
So Mintoff rewards Cuacescu, Gaddafi rewards Mintoff and so on and so forth.
Well, at least Mintoff removed anti-sodomy laws and laws punishing adultery.
[Daphne – God, I’m impressed. I do remember our jails being full of fornicators and sodomites in 1971. Now let’s see – couldn’t he have done that without wrecking the country over 16 years? I’m sure it was possible.]
‘at least’ – why is the measure of Labour’s successes always the lowest of the low? Surely the party’s supporters – at least – expect better?