I.M. Beck - quote unquote

I really do have to make a clarification. I am not Tony Zarb, former-latterly-presently general secretary of the General Workers' Union. Nor am I Doctor Alfred Sant, not any more as you were leader of the Malta Labour Party. I am moved to make this clarification because the pseudonym I use for this column, when read the way it is supposed to be read, means that "I am back" and, well, you know, the dear boys are, indeed, back. Just making sure you don't confuse us, don't you know?

May Day, May Day

Last Thursday saw the MLP in its various manifestations having a bit of a manifestation for May Day. Bully for them, it would have been mighty peculiar if a party that purports to stick up for the worker were to have ignored this opportunity to have a junket, even if the concept of "worker" in this day and age is somewhat confusing.

Precisely why the MLP thinks it represents the worker is beyond me, given that it's pretty obvious that both parties have quite a similar support base.

Of course, it's convenient for the powers that be (and might not remain) within the MLP to keep class animosity to the fore, because that's what the yes-men keep telling Doctor Alfred Sant.

But back to the point, Beck, I hear you holler, so it's back to the point I will jolly well go, which is the MLP parade last Thursday.

The main attraction at the event, of course, was Doctor Alfred Sant. As you will have sussed out by now, I write this column early on Thursday or late on Wednesday, so I've no idea what he actually said to the massed ranks of adulators, though I have no doubt that he wowed them with his oratory and intellect.

However, I have been privileged to have a bit of inside information as to what the dear, dear boy was rehearsing, just to make sure that he didn't disappoint his fans.

Taking a leaf from the Book of New Labour Posturing as written by Tony Blair (NewLab Publishers, London 2001), Doctor Alfred Sant opted to go for it and turn himself into a rock star.

From one of the inner sancti (plural of sanctums, don't you see?) the strains of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys are Back in Town" have been heard ringing out, as Doctor Alfred Sant readied himself for what was being billed as the biggest performance of his political career.

Accompanying him on the drums was George Vella, strumming the bass was Joe Brincat, while the special attraction was Tony Zarb on second voice.

Backing vocals and (dis)harmony were in the capable of hands of E(M)(C), whose whispering tones at the mike in support of HM's skin (and his own) have been putting in tons (should be tonnes now that we're in Europe, of course) of overtime of late.

Rumours that Doctor Alfred Sant was also rehearsing "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way" in tribute to one of the greatest come-back merchants of all time, Frank Sinatra, could not be confirmed by the time my deadline loomed.

I do know, however, that the concert was originally to be billed the SARS Tour (Should Alf Resign Soon...) but then someone thought they'd keep that name in reserve till next year.

We really don't care, but

The various people on the MLP side of the fence who comment about the media have been expelling one halitosis-laden breath after the other crowing about how Tony Zarb's U-turn wrong-footed the lot of the pro-PN media, making them (us?) scrabble about madly to find a way out of the corner into which they had painted themselves.

These crowing people have got the wrong message completely. It is a matter of supreme indifference to me (I can only speak for myself, after all) if Mr Zarb is thrown out, asked to resign, resigns voluntarily, does a U-turn or, for that matter, turns himself into a pretzel. The same applies for Doctor Alfred Sant: I am not a member of the GWU or the MLP and if they want to turn themselves into a rolling farce, then hey, who am I to gainsay them?

But to be told by the sanctimonious posers on the other side of the fence (the other side as seen by them, I have no sides) that I can't comment about the farce and point out, with all due respect, that the protagonists therein are acting like toddlers in the school-yard, to say nothing of bringing two pretty important national institutions into significant disrepute, is too much.

So notwithstanding sulky cracks from people like Dr Anna Mallia and Dr Toni Abela about how we should leave them alone to sort out their own affairs, I'm afraid I'll go on having my innocent fun with the twists and turns in the tejatrin that is the so-called workers' movement.

And while we're on the subject, comments about Mr Zarb's resignation were not based on speculation: he had resigned and the GWU had issued a statement to this effect. Where is the speculation in that, pray?

What is a worker?

Does being a lawyer who has other interests, including writing a weekly column, qualify one to be described as a worker? Or a defender of the worker, at least?

I'm not asking in my own name, of course, because I don't give a stuff about how people classify me. I'm asking on behalf of Dr Joe Brincat, whose dulcet tones I heard on Super One Radio on Saturday night last, discussing the supremacy of the worker above all and whether said worker should be elevated to the sainthood.

Leaving aside the confused state of mind demonstrated by his callers-in, one of whom managed, by some stupendously intricate feat of reasoning, to draw some sort of lesson from the fact that Arsenal supporters do not support Manchester United, the whole programme seemed to revolve around an assumption that workers are looked down upon.

An example of this came from a female who phoned in to say that her two children, who are at the university, had told her that they feel like "children of a lesser God" (her words, repeated at least three times, not mine) though whether this was because they were MLP supporters or because they were offspring of workers was not immediately clear.

This is balderdash. When I was at the university, what your father did (mine, incidentally, was a civil servant whose salary was hardly princely) was absolutely irrelevant: what was important was what you did and, even more importantly, how you saw yourself. I have no doubt that this is the case today and if this female's offspring felt they were being treated as inferiors, perhaps they should examine whether they were treating themselves as inferiors and projecting their own self-image onto others.

A bit like the MLP saying it was the media's fault that they got well and truly thrashed at the polls, thrice, in the last two months, when you think about it.

The truth is, all of us work for a living, leaving aside a few parasites who live off their contacts and manoeuvres (and if the MLP thinks it has none of these, then I know they're living on a different planet) and a few people who have the fortune to be rich without the need of working for it.

This constant harping about the "worker" is nothing more than cheap pandering to the instinctive class-based envy that the MLP leadership thinks (wrongly, as multiple elections and the referendum have shown) motivates their support base.

On the town

What an excellent Saturday night. First a really very good, if mildly gruesome, play at the Cavalier (Fat Men in Skirts), then a satisfying snack at Del Nonno (Mona and I agree about something, finally) and then a very toothsome splash of wine at the Castille Wine Cellar (under the Stock Exchange).

The play was at the cutting edge of black humour, which was a refreshing change from the safe, mainstream fare that gets put before us most of the time and the actors strutted their stuff more than competently: they were, not to put too fine a point on it, professionals. If you can, go: it's still on as you read this.

Del Nonno I've written about before, so enough about them, but the wine bar under the Exchange is a new venture which deserves support and encouragement - we only had a bottle of grape fermentation this time around and I'll report further when we try them out in some more detail.

To cap the weekend, AM Mangion Ltd invited us (and a few hundred others) to the Manoel for an operatic concert with the divine Ms M (Gauci) and the National Orchestra, which has become a very enjoyable band of musicians. There was an Italian bass who was excellent as well, but his name has flown away on the wings of a dove.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt