The politics of persuasion?

Thirty years ago on a Monday evening I drove into Valletta for a Malta Choral Society rehearsal. As I drove down Merchants Street at about 7 p.m. - one could and did in those days - I was struck by how unusually deserted Valletta looked. As I reached the palace and looked right I was shocked to see a crowd of silent policemen waiting in the area in front of the market and slowed down to take a better look. There was a sudden roar; a thousand voices and more howling in anger. I was transfixed. As if from nowhere hundreds of people in a blind rage poured out of Old Theatre and Archbishop Streets into Merchants Street. They rushed past my car, a little black mini, some of them actually knocked into it as if it were invisible, some gave it a shove as they rushed past, a couple of them even banged their fists on the roof. I was terrified. Faces pressed against the glass; faces distorted with some inexplicable hatred that sent chills down my spine. I couldn't understand what had happened. I was barely 23 and as oblivious as one could possibly be back then to politics.

A familiar face appeared at the window; a policeman I knew in Żurrieq where I used to work. He motioned for me to move onto the passenger seat, which I did and he got in. The now uniformed driver and the black mini now officially part of The Force drove slowly out of the still-oncoming mob. My teeth were chattering and I was shaking like a leaf. My friend, appropriately named Saver, was furious with me. What on earth was I doing in Valletta on a night like this? Did I not know that there was a demonstration going on because of the assassination attempt on Mr Mintoff? As if; we had no mobile phones in 1979 and no internet. They were still science fiction. Telephones worked in a rather capricious way and news was filtered by the MLP pundits at Television House. How was I to know that what I had witnessed was the beginning of eight long years of political turmoil and civil unrest that many times teetered at the edge of an abyss that would have plunged us into irretrievable anarchy?

Come 1987 and Eddie Fenech Adami becomes PM. What was his battlecry? Revenge? Vendetta? No, it was Reconciliation. We could not continue being a country divided by passions running as deep as those of the Capulets and Montagues; we could not go on being rent asunder by hatred and incomprehension. It was not easy. There were still pockets of Malta way back then that were "no go" areas; places like the Three Cities and what we used to jokingly call The Ritz; "repubblika indipendenti taż-Żejtun"!

When shortly after 1987 Dr Fenech Adami and Guido de Marco were asked to witness a wedding in St Catherine's Church at Żejtun there was literal mayhem, it was terrifying, and yet both statesmen stuck to their guns and still, despite all odds, preached and practised "the politics of persuasion" till slowly and painfully Malta became relatively normalised.

That was a feat that I will never cease to admire. It is part of our success story. There have of course been blips and dips since then, but on the whole the divisions have been healed and all subsequent prime ministers have pledged first and foremost to be leaders of the entire nation and not the select half. So far so good.

Because of the trauma of Black Monday, as it came to be called, the 30th anniversary of this terrifying event was recalled with great vividness that clearly shows that although the wounds have healed the scars still remain and at times cause pain. The burning of Allied Newspapers was a cataclysmic tragedy that is inexplicable to this day. The fact that the newspaper was issued all the same showed Mabel Strickland's indomitable spirit at its best and was the final straw that persuaded those old Progressive Constitutional Party diehards that Dr Fenech Adami and the PN were the only way out of the political mire.

Thirty years on we have a new PL leader who, at the time when these outrages were being perpetrated, was still a child. He has inherited a party with a good deal of baggage. He has earned my admiration for publicly apologising, stating unequivocally that "Black Monday should never have happened" and that "much more could have been done to avoid the violent events". Dr Muscat was giving a public talk at the Tumas Fenech Foundation for Education in Journalism on the actual anniversary date, last Wednesday, October 15. The theme was "What does the politician expect from journalists?" Speaking as he did was statesmanlike and reveals volumes about what he wishes to achieve for Malta. The "politics of persuasion" at work again? I hope so.

There are so many issues that must be put to rest after so many years. We are after all but mortal and all make mistakes despite the fact that we would like to think of ourselves as infallible and always in the right. Both parties have committed blunders that they should be ashamed of. A public apology like that made by the Leader of the Opposition will not make those scars disappear, they will not cease to throb at times, yet it is the ultimate balm to all those who suffered so needlessly for all those years. The apology goes a long way to reassure people that a change in government will not necessitate a bloodbath as it used to and maybe, just maybe, in four years' time, we will not have to "vote with a gun to our heads".

kzt@onvol.net