Sir Ugo interrupted

I was both surprised and sorry to see Gerald Bartoli return so pugnaciously to the charge in a presumed defence of his father's behaviour during the Council of Government sitting of February 9, 1942, when he so keenly supported an unconstitutional ordinance to exile scores of Maltese nationals without charge or trial in wartime, repeatedly and mockingly interrupting Sir Ugo Mifsud's learned opposition to the Bill when all the odds were stacked against him. Mr Bartoli's letter, ironically published on October 15 - a date recalling another very sad occurrence - repeated his earlier argument in spite of my explanation quoting chapter and verse verbatim (October 7), and indeed that proffered eloquently and independently by Louis Cilia (October 8).

Since he has so wisely opted to shine a torch on a fleeting aside mentioning an interruption by "one Bartoli" shortly before Sir Ugo's heart attack in the Council, in my Independence Day article Whose Independence? - and that sequence of events, without attribution of motive, is undeniable - I shall alert the correspondent to some other references involving his late father which I had preferred to leave out from my first reply. I have no personal or party political interest in this matter at all, contrary to what he may imagine.

I would refer him in particular to Sir Ugo's biography (1997) in which the author, Fr Joe Calleja, pointedly cites oral testimony to show that, in the few words that Sir Ugo had managed to string together before he passed away on February 11, 1942, he continued to lament how hurt he had been by A.V. Bartoli's mocking interruptions during his (courageous and momentous) speech of the 9th. "Some members of the Mifsud family," adds the biographer, "still remembered that Ugo Mifsud, on his death bed, spoke of nothing but this banal laughter." In the Maltese original: "Fuq is-sodda tal-mewt, ma tkellimx ħlief fuq dan id-daħk banali" (p. 275). Mr Bartoli assures us that "interventions of 'Hear, hear' when approving what the speaker is saying and 'Ha, ha, ha' when disapproving are very normal and frequently made in any parliamentary debate including in Malta to this day". Fortunately, no more Maltese have been exiled since.

In volume 3, p. 143, of his autobiography Mill-Album ta' Ħajti, the late Dr Anton Buttigieg, a former Deputy Leader of the Malta Labour Party and Head of State, who was born in 1912, said Bartoli had "iddieħaq b'Sir Ugo" (literally "made fun of" or "poked fun at" Sir Ugo).

I shall let pass other disparaging comments and citations which have appeared in the same book as well as in books by two or three other authors about A.V. Bartoli's demeanour and manner; after all I was writing about Sir Ugo, not him, and frankly I really am not much interested in him as such. I reject the accusation that "to make such allegations (sic) more than 67 years after the events is shamefully misrepresenting facts".

Mr Bartoli's attitude reminds me of a similar one by the late Notary Rosario Frendo Randon who, among others, chastised me in 1972 for having unearthed Manwel Dimech (died 1921, in exile) in my books Ir-Rivoluzzjoni Maltija (1970), Lejn Tnissil ta' Nazzjon (1971) and Birth Pangs of a Nation (1972). Such sad happenings, he argued, were best forgotten: it was wrong to dig them up and publicise them so long after they had happened. It was "a great error to revive a history which should have remained buried... Sorrowful facts should remain buried." (Sorrowful Remembrance, Times of Malta, November 14, 1972, p. 14). Similar hostile reactions appeared when my attempt at a first post-war reassessment of the Sette Giugno was published (and then again when the Sette Giungo became a national feast day after 1987). Various correspondents argued against according such events any historic or national importance: those were nothing but unfortunate anti-British riots involving some thugs and thieves.

I beg to differ.

As for "this fruitless correspondence", it was Gerald Bartoli who started it.