Friday, 28th November 2008
Joseph Muscat's MLP: Boffa or Mintoff?
Joseph Muscat's Malta Labour Party is now going to be Partit Laburista. Sounds like a concrete change for a party that for most of its history presented itself as the champion of the Maltese language.
In the immediate post-WWII years, that same party had a government minister named Arturo Colombo who proposed the use of the English language exclusively to the detriment of the Maltese language.
Arturo Colombo had fallen out with Dom Mintoff and perhaps that is why his proposal didn't go through back then. It wasn't only Colombo that fell out with Mr Mintoff though.
In the most recent Partit Laburista extraordinary general conference, Labour leader Dr Muscat recalls Sir Paul Boffa in relation to Labour's torch. Sir Paul Boffa is a former Labour leader.
In one of his first speeches as Labour leader, Dr Muscat also mentioned Mr Mintoff. Did Dr Muscat forget that for the then young Mr Mintoff "Boffa immoffa" and that Dr Muscat himself has stated that Mr Mintoff is the father of the Malta Labour Party?
Can we please decide? Is the anti-Boffa Mintoff the father of the Malta Labour Party or not? Perhaps Boffa was the grandfather?
By the way, Sir Paul Boffa had formed a coalition government with Giorgio Borg Olivier's PN to keep Mr Mintoff's Malta Labour Party out of power.
I don't think the Malta Labour Party's father actually enjoyed that!
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Comments
I do not blame you for asserting I have a simplistic overview. I do have world limits.
Labour and Strickland's Constitutionals provide something to note. Most of Strickland's supporters were so out of personal need or self-interest. Strickland was an aristocrat and Imperialist, a Tory in the House of Lords, someone that had started his political activity on the side of Fortunato Mizzi's Nationalists, whom he betrayed as soon as he was offered a nice post with the Imperial government. Supporting Lord Gerald Strickland meant job security for many, and I doubt anyone gave a hoot or understood his Punic Thesis and what not.
If many working class Stricklandiani became Labourites upon the death of the pro-Imperialist Constitutional Party, they also did it because Labour was guaranteeing social services. I doubt many Labourites back then knew what socialism and social democracy actually entailed, many don't today.
Support from the Stricklandiani went to both current major parties. Working class Stricklandiani in the greatest probability moved towards Labour. Those of the Stricklandiani having a more economically conservative bent moved to the PN, unfortunately. Sliema was a fortizza Stricklandiana in the past, just an example.
Italian was Malta's official language for centuries and only official self-interested British policies of "deitalianisation" changed this. There was no question prior to such policies.
Nationalists opposed the anglicisation of the Maltese because they respected an integral part of our heritage, something others didn't. The Nationalist press of the day stated that the result of Imperialist policies would have been the linguistic hegemony of the English language. Did this happen? Yes. A language forms a culture. I doubt we're Anglo-Saxon, Muscat and Boffa are Italian surnames.
Perhaps you are oblivious to the fact that the MLP wanted integration with the UK and had it been successful independence would have been quite difficult. MLP's supposed will to independence was after it failed to deny it, and not once but twice. Few actually do know that the MLP was actually secretively dealing with Italy to integrate us with such a state, all this prior to Independence, let alone "Ħelsien". This was revealed amongst others by PN's ex-General Secretary Victor Ragonesi. I happened to have read the Labourite memo in this regard as well.
Brush my history books? Not if Patricia Muscat says so.
Dane Cauchi makes a very valid point, I would have agreed with Enrico Mizzi back then. However, terms such as "conservative" and else should be used with caution when dealing with historical and cultural contexts. Mizzi was more socially minded and his PDN was quite close to the Labourites in social policy. The first social housing in Malta appeared in Blata l-Bajda when Enrico Mizzi was the minister responsible.
The question is complex in relation to the UPM. The conservative UPM shunned Mizzi to the extent that it had entered into a coalition government with the Labourites in the 1920s!
That would be Labour's first queer choice of allies in my view, the second would be with the conservative Lord Gerald Strickland's Constitutional Party. The Labourites allied themselves with an aristocrat, an ardent imperialist and a member of the House of Lords with the Conservative Party. The truth is that in this way employment with the British services was quite safe, unlike if one sided with the Nationalists.
“Labour removed Boffa openly” – More Mintoff other than Labour.
@ E Micallef Figallo - lol
PN first conspired against Borg Olivier - Labour removed Boffa openly - and than erected a monument for him....so?
And regarding inconsistency...PN does have female MPs even if originally it opposed female suffrage.
Ang, ahjar tmur taqbad dawk il-kotba tal-ligi!
Sir you should brush your history book. Like many partisan cadres, you seem to suffer from selective amnesia, because it was the Nationalist Party, that wanted to install ITALIAN instead of Maltese...dialetto di cucina- as the only official Italian language and not the Labour Party! And it was the Nationalist Party that wanted Malta to be redeemed- to (join) ITALY!!! Perhaps you should do some research on the phrase MALTA IRREDENTA, and then you will be surprised at the VOLTA FACCIA of the Nationalist Party! Indeed, according to this Newspaper, the NP wanted not Independence for Malta, but Dominium Status, a quasi feudal lordship system, while the MLP wanted full Independence. A dynamic political party changes with time,- to reflect the society which it represents,- and indeed Dr Joseph Muscat is the harbinger and catalyist of this positive development.
Perhaps Mr. Figallo could enlighten us about the situation in the 1920s when the Partito Democratico Nazionalista and L’Unione Politica Maltese (a nationalist party made up mostly of priests) merged.
Enrico Mizzi leader of the PDN was not enthusiastic about this as most of the UPM members were staunch conservatives. It is interesting to know about Mizzi’s policies the ones never adopted by the PN at the time due to the conservatism prevalent at the time in the PN.
If the 1920s are to remote for him maybe he could write a piece about the Borg Olivier – Ganado struggle.
Truly a political party of political inconsistency.