Malta first and foremost

According to your back page report last Sunday, Nationalist Party secretary-general Joe Saliba said: "I make a distinction between Mr Callus who has repented, and Joe Meli who confessed that he is still a fascist."

If, according to Mr Saliba, showing my support to the Armed Forces of Malta is a crime and/or considered a 'fascist' act, then I pleady 'guilty'!

I have no remorse about attending the Safi meeting called to show national solidarity with the Army and organised by Imperium Europa. I would have attended the meeting even had it been organised by the Communist Party or by the once-glorious Partito Nazionale (PN).

Being a Nationalist does not mean being a PN member, but by puting la Patria first and foremost in the traditional Mizzian, Borg Olivierian and, yes, in Dom Mintoff manner. Mintoff after all made Malta a republic and appointed a Maltese as head of state. He is to be lauded for the implementation of the welfare state we enjoy, or used to enjoy, as the PN is now dismantling it.

In this sense, and in this sense only, the words "Nationalist"/"Fascist" are one and the same.

This is my credo, and with this affirmation of political faith I identify Fascism. This was always my credo, from my MZPN (Nationalist Party Youth Movement) days, way back in 1973, and will continue to do so till the end of my life.

That is why I consider the Malta Labour Party, the party I am now with, truly nationalist because in the 'moment of truth' it defended la Patria's sovereignty, unlike your pseudo-nationalist party.

Let us come to crux of who owes an apology and to whom.

The PN did not impose mortal sin or interdiction on the MLP in the Sixties, but was a moral accomplice, with the Church, in bringing about that sorry state of affairs.

As a member of the MZPN, in 1976 I had presented a motion to the AGM of its Valletta section dealing with this subject. Of course it was not passed and I was labelled anticlerical and was censured for it.

On January 27, 2002 I had written to the mayor of Valletta, Dr Paul Borg Olivier, about the verbal abuse I was subjected to by a government minister and his entourage during the feast of St Paul celebrated in Valletta the day before. (A PDF version of this letter is found at www.avemelita.com).

The same verbal abuse happened a year later, not by a minister this time, by a PN member. This year again, I have been subjected to such abuse by the very same person.

To date no apology has been forthcoming, either from the government or from the PN