Lest we forget our past

Freedom of speech and freedom of choice are taken pretty much for granted nowadays. Rewind 30 years and the rights we cherish so much today were on the brink of oblivion with gangsters vandalising property and threatening people and, to add insult to injury, with the Administration of that time and the Police Force turning a blind eye on the events.

Events that scarred our history, events that reached their lowest ebb on Monday, October 15, 1979, 30 years ago today when Socialist scoundrels set the Progress Press on fire and attacked Eddie Fenech Adami's home. That was the wake up call to start the fight to restore freedom, to stand up against those who had made Malta a puppet democracy and made uncertainty and fear the rule of the day.

Thirty years on, the battle for democracy has been won but it would be wrong to forget, wrong to underestimate the fact that those who forget their past are forced to re-live it. We have made so much progress over the last 20 years that sometimes we expect more, ask for more and question every move that is made because we feel it is our right to do so, which, incidentally, it is. However, we sometimes forget what it took to secure the democracy the Maltese people craved for back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We tend to forget the sacrifices and the humiliations that our nation went through before we could breathe the air of liberty again. We tend to forget the Ceausescus and the Kim II Sungs that visited our island and were given a hero's welcome by the socialist regime of that time, the secret meetings and alliances with the communists while the rest of the free world was fighting to eradicate communism. We also could easily forget the fight our parents put up for the right to choose where to educate us, the famous 20 points to enter University, the numerus clausus, the teachers' lock up, the exile of our doctors. Memory tends to be fickle but we would be making a grave mistake if we forget the events that blemished the history of our island.

It bemuses me to hear that Joseph Muscat wants to mobilise the crowds in a few days' time to protest against the present Administration. This reminds me of 1986 when the Leader of the Opposition also wanted to mobilise the people to protest, only to be met with tear gas, gangsters and a corrupt Police Force aided by North Korean hit-men.

What a stark difference from those days! If there was anything Dr Muscat had to worry about he surely does not have to be concerned with the security of those attending the demonstration. Speaking of this demonstration, Dr Muscat said it would be held to protest against a government that is not interested in the people.

He complained about Enemalta. Does Dr Muscat remember when, for days on end, households were without electricity?

He complained about the shipyards. Does Dr Muscat remember the days when the 'yard workers used to cause havoc on the island and intimidate honest citizens while the 'yard was losing millions?

He complained about the health sector. Dr Muscat must surely remember that during the ill-fated reign of his predecessor one of the first measures the so-called New Labour implemented was the introduction of a tariff on sick leave certificates. Or has his memory conveniently failed him?

He complained of shortcomings in education. Surely all those who were students in the Labour eras know what cushioned and velvet treatment the socialists gave them. Ask the sixth form students in 1984. Ask the Church school students of the same time. Ask the University and Junior college students of 1996 and 1997. They all lived it.

New Labour is trying to sound modern and different. Dr Muscat's tactic is to try and persuade disgruntled voters that Labour has indeed changed. Has it? Do you think that someone who truly believes that "Labour's forefathers in the 1970s had a vision for a free independent and sovereign country", the same 1970s that marked Malta's darkest period, could really turn this country into a Utopia as he is picturing it?

I doubt that very much.

Mr Casa is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.

david.casa@europarl.europa.eu, www.davidcasa.eu