Who is the real Alfred Sant?
I first met Alfred Sant when, as a diplomat based in Brussels, he accompanied his ambassador, Joe Attard Kingswell, to Helsinki, when the latter presented his credentials as Malta's non-resident ambassador to Finland. I was then Malta's sole delegate...
I first met Alfred Sant when, as a diplomat based in Brussels, he accompanied his ambassador, Joe Attard Kingswell, to Helsinki, when the latter presented his credentials as Malta's non-resident ambassador to Finland. I was then Malta's sole delegate at the Multilateral Preparatory Talks which led to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the CSCE. I have been given to understand that this meeting merited a mention in Dr Sant's Confessions of a Maltese European.
During our conversation Dr Sant had expressed the view that Malta's economic future could best be safeguarded by becoming a member of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). That was in 1973, when EFTA embraced the neutral countries of Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as the UK, our major trading partner. Italy, Germany and France, who also played an important role in our economy, were in the European Economic Community (EEC). The choice was not easy, but the idea of membership in EFTA definitely merited study.
The world - including both the EEC (now EU) and EFTA - has changed considerably during the 30 intervening years, but Dr Sant has not adjusted his thinking to this new situation.
The next time we met, some 10 years later, he was the deputy chairman (or something like that) of the Malta Development Corporation, and he let me know that he did not agree with a policy that Mr Mintoff seemed to be keen to follow, since this would have irritated the US. Again, I saw merit in his assessment.
President of the MLP and Prime Minister
There were no more personal encounters, but when Labour thugs, supported by the police, viciously attacked people, including my wife and myself, who were on our way to attend a Nationalist Party meeting in Zejtun in 1986, I felt the need to write a personal letter of protest to him since he was the president of the MLP. He never answered.
When, eventually, he became Prime Minister, and I took up writing in this paper in the series "As I Was Saying", I remarked positively on the first steps that he was taking (February 9, 1997).
I wrote positively even though the MLP had tried to deprive my wife of the right to vote and I had been personally attacked many a time in the MLP-supporting media, and by Labour MPs sheltering behind parliamentary immunity. One attack in a newspaper had attracted a court-imposed award in my favour of Lm800, the highest award until then. When payment was eventually made, after further court action, it was the MLP, and not the editor, who signed the cheque.
In a subsequent article in the "As I Was Saying" series (February 23, 1997), I had qualified my earlier positive remarks about the attitude of the new Labour administration by cautioning, that "however, even this will have to stand the test of time and trial, when things do not turn out quite as simple as one imagines". In my opinion Dr Sant has failed that test, and that is why he is now in Opposition.
Image and reality
It is a matter worth considering why, and how, a person who was able to bring the MLP back into government with a sizable majority, after being out in the wilderness for 15 years (I include the period 1982-87), should have lost everything, with a bigger majority, after just two years. The answer may well be in the enigma of the personality of the individual.
When he became leader of the party, there was a repetition of the Terinu case, when a person, this time anonymous, made a false accusation, at the very last moment, against Dr Sant's opponent for the post, with the obvious intention of influencing the outcome in Dr Sant's favour. This was not an auspicious start, and the claims that came to light later, have not clarified who was behind this Terinata. It is rather ironic that some MLP spokesmen now raise the ghost of Terinu.
I remember that before his electoral victory, Dr Sant had solemnly declared that divorce was not on the MLP programme. That was true as far as it went, but no sooner was he in office than he took a personal initiative, without consulting his party, to set up a committee to examine how - euphemisms excluded - divorce could be introduced in Malta.
Within his party, he crossed swords with Dom Mintoff, Lino Spiteri and George Abela. We know now that the decision to abolish VAT was taken by Dr Sant on his own, without any consultation within his party. His chief financial adviser was ignored precisely because Dr Sant knew that his advice was going to be against.
Tolerance is a virtue that Dr Sant preaches; but does he show any tolerance to those who do not see eye to eye with him, whether they are in his party, or journalists? As I had the occasion to write privately to one of Dr Sant's regular apologists, what is being preached is that we should be tolerant towards Dr Sant's intolerance.
His performance leading up to the referendum on EU membership, and his reaction to the result, has highlighted the dichotomy that exists between the persona that Dr Sant wants us to accept, and the one that he displays in practice, especially when things to not go his way.
This thought crossed my mind with some force when I heard of Dr Sant quoting the Prayer of St Francis as his inspiration. He had done this before.
Prayer of St Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
St Francis speaks of the peace of the Lord. He exudes humility. Do Dr Sant's intemperate tirades against his opponents promote this peace at the spiritual or the temporal level?
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
You cannot turn love on and off as if it were a commodity to be made available on the eve of an election. Does Dr Sant's cry of "War! War! War!" against his political opponents promote love?
Where there is injury, pardon.
Has not Dr Sant claimed publicly that his policy is that of "A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye?" Is this the doctrine of pardon?
Where there is discord, union.
Resisting the temptation to play on the word "union" and Dr Sant's reflex reaction to the word in the acronyms EU and GWU, I ask how can we expect him to promote union by his negative attitude to anything that he has not conceived, whether at party or national level? Or by his rallying calls for "War! War! War!", and "A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye?"
Where there is doubt, faith.
The campaign against EU membership has been a classic example of sowing doubt, rather than faith, and the future that Dr Sant puts before us is even more doubtful, promising a vague partnership with a reluctant EU, within a period ranging from 18 months to 10 years.
Where there is despair, hope.
Taking into consideration what I have pointed out above, what hope is Dr Sant engendering in the Maltese public?
Where there is darkness, light.
What light has Dr Sant shed on this partnership mirage? Having made a number of U-turns on major issues, what light is he shedding on the path along which he wants to lead the nation?
Where there is sadness, joy.
If Dr Sant could only admit to himself that he is giving a very bad image of Malta to the outside world, he would understand why he is sowing sadness rather than joy.
For your mercy and truth's sake.
Truth - the lies that peppered the MLP campaign against the EU, disqualify its leader from being a genuine follower of this prayer. At times I wondered whether the letter "L" in MLP stood for "Labour" or "Lies".
Selfishness
And finally, St Francis's prayer ends with altruistic invocations to counter selfishness. Yet Dr Sant's slogan for this election is "You first". The utter selfishness of this slogan has dawned, rather late, on Dr Sant, and in his usual play on words, he is now trying to create his own meaning of these words, rather than the obvious and commonsense meaning that a normal person attaches to them.
His last-minute promise of a tax holiday to voters is another appeal to selfishness and looks more like a policy of buying votes than sound economic and fiscal reasoning.
Invoking the words of the humble and holy St Francis to bolster a political party is hardly a plausible gimmick. In this particular case, it amounts to blasphemy. It is like the devil quoting scripture for his own ends. But then, did not Dr Sant claim that he would not hesitate to be in league with the devil if this suited his political ends?
This article is not addressed to those whose intellectual horizon is limited only to the information churned out by the MLP/GWU media and spokespersons. I agree with Friedrich Nietzsche that "Against ignorance the gods themselves strive in vain". It is addressed to the open-minded readers of this paper, which generously affords ample space to writers from all shades of the political spectrum.
It is also addressed to the regular apologists of Dr Sant, who write to this and other English-language newspapers, in spite of the Pravda label stamped on them by their hero. I shall not delve into their motives, but I would remind them that the uncritical adulators of Mr Mintoff and Dr Mifsud Bonnici only contributed to their heroes' political demise, and the very long rejection of the MLP by the electorate.