Political blinkers and bias

How extraordinary, to read what Dominic Fenech had to say about violence during the time the Labour Party was in government. When pressed on why the Socialist government did not do anything to contain the violence in its ranks, his retort was to question the assumption that the thugs were from the Labour side.

What an extraordinary reply! I had to remind myself that this is a professor of history at University - and the head of its department, no less.

It makes you wonder what scholarship comes out of our University, when one of its heads of department is unable to overcome his political bias. Isn't that what historians are supposed to do: evaluate past events and come to appropriate conclusions?

Well, since Prof. Fenech is obviously unable to work that out for himself, let me do it for him.

The reason why, throughout the 16 years of Socialist government, not a single person was brought to book for all the documented violence that government committed on its opponents was because they all belong to the same Labour party Prof. Fenech is so enamoured with.

It would have given the Socialist government the greatest pleasure to apprehend any Nationalist committing those violent acts and parade them in front of all of us.

They tried it once with Pietru Pawl Busuttil, but it exploded spectacularly in their face.

There you are, Prof. Fenech, I did for you. Not too difficult to come to that conclusion, is it? You only have to remove your political blinkers.

How unfortunate for Prof. Fenech that a letter by Ray Bondin, published in the same edition of The Sunday Times, dealt with exactly that political violence Prof. Fenech refuses to see.

Oh, and the violent episode mentioned in Dr Bondin's letter was in the 1970s, not the 1980s, which just goes to show how violence was a mode of governing used by the Socialist government of the 1970s and 1980s to terrorise their opponents.