PATHETIC
For my sins, which must be many, I wasted a perfectly good Friday evening watching Xarabank. Truth be told, it was not as mediocre as usual (not that I’ve watched it much over the years, actually hardly at all) though the audience was down to its usual standards of hooting and hollering loutishness.
My interest in watching had been piqued by the prospect of the Yana Mintoff Bland person appearing to defend the family’s interests, but like a true chip off the old block, she ducked out. Pity, it would have been interesting to see if she had a) learnt to speak Maltese any better and b) done any research about her father’s political legacy, shameful as it is. We got a clip of her weirdness, but it was not nearly enough, star candidate that she is.
Instead, we got Drs Deo Debattista (another star candidate?) Wenzu Mintoff and Toni Abela on the Labour side, presumably to do what the Mintoff Bland woman should have done, and Drs Beppe Fenech Adami and Francis Zammit Dimech on the PN side, clearly primed to thrust a few telling arrows into the heart of Mintoff’s myth as propagated by Labour.
And extremely successful they were too, because they demolished both the myth (that in itself not a difficult task) and the defenders of the myth.
Dr Debattista, who I am sure is an excellent physician, should really stick to what he knows. His sarcastic brand of discourse, for all that I love that style, went down like a lead zeppelin (and was much less fun to listen to) with his crack about the PN clinging onto power being particularly empty, given that they were talking about Mintoff. 1981 anyone?
And he went on to make a few more funnies, though perhaps less than deliberately, when he let it be known that Mintoff had created the middle class (don’t even ask me what that means) and that the current structure of the University is a result of Mintoff’s efforts. Well, in the latter case, he might be right, but only in the same way that someone saying that we’re in the EU because of Mintoff would be right.
Dr Mintoff need hardly have joined this particular shindig. For most of the proceedings, he sat there looking bored and when he did say something, he tended to wander hither and yonder – because I know some history, I could see what he was getting at, but a Led Zep song sprang to mind (“Ramble On”, in case you’re interested)
Most of the effort on Labour’s side was put in, you won’t be surprised to hear (I’m assuming you had more sense than I and didn’t watch, thereby saving yourself the ire of your better half) by Dr Toni Abela, who as always seemed to be having a paroxysms of joy at the sound of his own voice. Perhaps he should have put a sock in it, though, with his continual, snide-sounding, “stop acting” jibes whenever Fenech Adami and Zammit Dimech made points about which they clearly, and quite rightly, felt strongly.
The PN representatives were, not to put too fine a point on it, excellent. They restricted themselves to the topic, which was the Mintoff years (specifically the Seventies and Eighties) and put up a cogent case that Mintoff, for all the good he is said to have done, was a malign influence on the country.
Predictably, the main argument brought against them (ironically by two, out of the three, on the Labour side who had left the party during Mintoff’s reign) was that the PN was always looking back (and then we promptly got diatribes from all three Labourites about the Sixties, the Fifties and, for Pete’s sake, the Thirties) The supreme irony, that Joseph Muscat seems to be positioning himself as Mintoff’s obvious successor, seemed to escape them in their frenzy to deny their party’s past.
Another argument was floated by Abela and to his credit he managed it without breaking into a sheepish grin. This was the one that goes, yes, that (whatever that was, say a political murder) was bad but you know, the fact that the Nationalists didn’t do anything about it was worse. Follow the logic: failing to solve a crime is worse than committing it, even if you’re trying to solve a crime that had been contaminated by a cynical frame-up of an innocent person. He used this argument about most of the barbs directed towards the Mintoff fan-club, proving beyond reasonable doubt that there are no arguments that can be made in the face of the truth about that man.
And there you have it, a Friday evening spent watching three pathetic defences of the indefensible.
The only positive was that the two prosecutors were on their mettle and put Mintoff’s memory to the sword decisively, which is scant consolation for the fact that I’m in the doghouse for insisting, somewhat vehemently, on silence while I watched.
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Thomas C. Cassar
May 16th 2012, 02:07
Mintoff qassam bicca mil-cake li qabel kien 100% ta` 4 individwi lil batut u lil haddiem li kien dejjem sfruttat. Ovvja li dawk l-erbgha mustaccuni li kellhom 100% ta` dan il-cake ma hadux gost li naqqsilhom ix-share u flimkien mad-dixxendenti taghhom ghadhom joboduh sal-gurnatat Mqaddsa tal-lum. Fuq kollox iz-zaqq il-mimlija qatt ma hasbet f'dik vojta.
Francis Saliba M.D.
May 14th 2012, 20:23
@ Ivan Grech Mintoff, today at 10:35.
The Nationalist Party could not have suffered much "hurt and damage where it really counts - with the voters" because it won every general election since 1987, barring the 1996 election, a mistake that the voters rectified promptly in less than two years in the general election of 1998.
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 15th 2012, 13:56
@FS
You forget the COMING election.... which is what I am referring to when I say that this blogger(sic!) and others are doing most harm for the PN.
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 14th 2012, 10:35
my last comment should read:
"PN will keep being hurt and damaged where it really counts - with the voters."
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 14th 2012, 08:39
PM appeals against personal attacks
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120513/local/pm-appeals-against-personal-attacks.419625
Unless th PN publically and categorically DENOUNCES the continual personal attacks by this blogger(sic!) and other 'independent' commentators (like some individual PN MPs have done already on a personal basis) then no one will think the PM is being serious in such statements as these.
Unless th PN publically and categorically DENOUNCES the continual personal attacks by this blogger(sic!) and other 'independent' commentators will keep being hurt and damaged where it really counts - with the voters.
Which is just fine by many for sure!!
Arsenio Ellul
May 13th 2012, 22:31
I would like to ask labour party supporters to stop replying in this blog, just ignore him
W Cassar
May 14th 2012, 13:56
That goes for floaters too!
Joseph Borg
May 13th 2012, 21:08
Xarabank was supposed to be about the film but it wasn't at all. I was hoping to hear a good discussion as to whether the film showed Mintoff as he truly was .... and today am none the wiser about what the panelists thought.
What was clear to me was that the PL played a strategic game. Holding back Yana from appearing on the programme and sending in persons who had nothing to do with the 80s and who if anything were themselves proof of the manner in which Mintoff did politics - since they themselves resigned from the MLP in those horrible days.
What was shameful was that at no point did they acknowledge the wrongs Mintoff did. Whilst standing his ground on the violent legacy that mintoff leftm Beppe Fenech Adami said on more than one occasion that Mintoff did some good things and that the interdict should not have been imposed. However Dr Abela and co were not big enough to admit to the wrongs that Mintoff did. What a wasted opportunity. The sooner are those wrongs acknowledged the sooner can we put that sordid past behind us.
Instead by calling those years the Golden Years and still welcoming in their midst persons who were part of the MLP in those days, the PL insults at least half the population. Acknowledge the past, throw out anyone who was involved in those days, people like AST, Joe Grima, Karmenu Vella, Leo Brincat, George Vella, Charles Mangion, Debono Grech and yes do not permit them to stand on the PL ticket - they are all guilty at the very minimum by association - and then truly will it be a new party that is worthy of consideration.
J. Mifsud
May 14th 2012, 16:59
The PL have more than once admitted that some of the things that happened in those days were to be despised. It is the PN who never acknowledge their wrong doings, a case in point - during a debate about the EU between Alfred Sant Edward Fenech Adami, AS brought up the lie EFA told about him the day before a general election - EFA never said he was sorry, he said he could not remember and he remembered vaguely something about a law case AS had against him. You cannot expect the PL to always condemn what their supporters did while Edward Fenech Adami is not even man enough to say he is sorry for what he did.
The 70s and 80s might not have been the Golden years for you but they certainly were the golden years for people who could build their own homes, who could opt for the mother to stay at home if she wished, who could educated their children up to tertiary level etc etc etc.
It seems Joe Grima, and AST returned to your black books-nothing was said about them when they quarrelled with Alfred Sant, on the contrary they were seen as heroes by PN media. With regards to Charles Magion, he was the only Minister in the past 20 years who resigned because of a mistake done by his subordinates, which is more than can be said about many of the present Ministers including our Prime Minister, these never consider themselves accountable for anything that goes wrong, not even when the mistake was their own.
J. Mifsud
May 13th 2012, 19:18
Pathethic is a good description of the above blog.
You wish you were man enough to do what Dr Mintoff and Dr Abela did - when they exposed their party for what it was. It is now the PN's turn to lose strong charactered people to other parties, it is now the PN who are Jeopardizing democracy in Malta. people like you are helping them.
Ms Maria Vella
May 15th 2012, 16:02
I don't think PL supporters are in any position to discuss democracy
l vella
May 13th 2012, 18:59
the legacy of Mintoff, with all his mistakes and dictatorial stance, was hardly shameful to the thousands of Maltese families who were 'dragged' out of their poverty. But it seems that once again they are slipping further in the poverty trap.
George Azzopardi
May 13th 2012, 13:59
PATHETIC ... DOES THIS MAN HAVE A MIRROR AT HOME!
Andy Farrugia
May 13th 2012, 12:56
Fancy that! According to some dyed-in-the-wool, unrepentant MintoffIAN appartchiks (with regularly paid up membership to boot), anyone who criticises their hagiographies through clear, undisputed FACTS based on personal experience must be either a PN apologist (handsomely remunerated for their efforts) or else something even worse, such as "an unfortunate force-fed gOOse", a "fossil", a "dumbO". Talk about sheer, unadulterated arrogance! There is a famous Maltese proverb which really applies to these "trolls": "Il- qa*** milli jkollha ttik!"
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 13th 2012, 19:25
@Andy Farrugia.
I wonder, do you deny nationalist violence too..?
http://www.maltapolitics.com/vjolenzanazzjonalista.htm
Andy Farrugia
May 14th 2012, 21:18
Oh yes, Mr Grech Mintoff, you are definitely entitled to continue wondering about your hagiographies and craftily set up revisions of history.
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 15th 2012, 21:06
@AF
I notice you did not answer then. Your lack of a proper and direct answer speaks volumes anyway... :)
Andy Farrugia
May 16th 2012, 14:11
@ Mr GRECH MINTOFF
And pray, why should I answer your questions? Who are YOU to interrogate ME? This is the problem with some of you "trolls"! You actually believe that you are some kind of modern day inquisitors. Less of your lip, Grech Mintoff.
Edmond Micallef
May 13th 2012, 11:29
For those writing in these comments concerned about the same labour 'old guard' of the 80's who are still contributing within the PL party lines, I would advise them not to worry about these very few valid individuals.
I'm sure that with all the changes that the whole world experienced in the culinary trends and diet changes (healthy eating and all that), these individuals are no longer in the habit of eating babies alive and feasting on b-b-qued political adversaries.
d. attard
May 13th 2012, 10:12
Equating the revised Mintoff tits and bits to a new labour Government is obviously the plot...so just sit back and enjoy the pathetic spectacle provided by those who huff and puff in this direction...
Eric Soames
May 12th 2012, 10:39
I'm not familiar with the tv show you wrote about, but your disclaimer reminds me of a person claiming he only reads Playboy 'for the articles'. While on 'person'; your referring to 'person this' or 'woman' that says more about you than about the one you're attempting to denigrate - anyone who doesn't feel the same as you politically, it seems. And finally, while on politics, aren't the 80s long gone?
S. Vella
May 12th 2012, 15:34
The 80s are "long gone" but some of the people responsible for those times are running for election under the PL banner again.
Michael Seychell
May 12th 2012, 15:53
Mr Soames I take it you did not see the programme and even if you did I do not believe you understand the Maltese language.
Having said this you are right in saying the eighties are long gone, however the Labour speakers in the programme chose to go back to the thirties - imagine I am 72 and yet they went back some ten years before that.
Finally presuming you are British let me remind you that you still commemorate the peace treaty signed on 11.11.11. in 1918 .
Michael Seychell Tal-Pieta
Eric Soames
May 12th 2012, 16:16
S. Vella: And if these few survivors of those days are reelected wouldn't it be by a democratic process? Surely they're toothless old lions now. Different times, different circumstances - fear will freeze you in a time warp unless you accept this.
Angus Black
May 12th 2012, 19:19
"Surely they're toothless old lions now".
Mr Soames, not only you did not watch the programme; not only you do not understand Maltese but worse, you don't know much about the (Malta) Labour Party.
It has nothing to do about someone else's opinion being different, it simply boils down that if the Labour Party is elected, admit it or not, it will take us back to the 'long gone' 70s and 80s, because that was the period when they really ruled last under Mintoff and KMB, albeit misruled is a better way to describe their abuse of power, and which methods they excelled in. Joseph is proud to embrace that era.
Eric Soames
May 12th 2012, 19:27
Michael Seychell: Nope, didn't see it, you are correct. But my comment was aimed at the Blogger's penchant for being dismissive to the point of rudeness towards anybody he doesn't agree with. The fact that he was talking about the show was incidental and I only mentioned it because of the way he back pedaled about watching it. As for the past, there are way too many episodes of history that look positively ugly under the scrutiny of the present and with the 20-20 vision of hindsight. A treaty looks to secure the future, while an action becomes the past immediately it takes place.
Denis Pace
May 13th 2012, 10:47
The 80s are gone but the Socialists from those times still run the Labour show...AST, Karmenu Vella,JDGrech...etc.....
To make matters worse, the Mintoffian ghost is back as well......
We're in for a bright future under Labour
Eric Soames
May 13th 2012, 15:52
Denis Pace: Scary that so many are so afraid of persons who may or may not come back to power, may or may not even be the baddies, in what is a rock-solid democratic federation as the EU.
Mr ALBERT LEONE GANADO
May 12th 2012, 08:42
Yes ABC I fully agree with you that the programme was disgusting and pathetic. I switched on to Peppi's programme hoping to watch an interesting debate on a controversial historic figure who still raises passion one way or the other in his supporters or detractors. I was expecting to hear the sort of arguments and historic assessment one gets on serious media like the BBC or the History channel. Instead I had to watch the most pathetic and disgusting performance, primarily from the PN side, of biased partisan politics which turned the programme in the sort political battle which harks back to the ugly times of the seventies and eighties. Of course the PN representatives who came to the programme fully armed with the hardware to tackle a Mintoff sibling found themselves outwitted in having to face the two best examples in local politics of persons who sacrificed their political career in the interest of a more conciliatory and dignified style of politics. Both Toni and Wenzu suffered more in those times for their courage then the overwhelming majority of PN supporters many of which were either acquiescent collaborators in French Petain occupation style or who demonstrated their courage by reporting sick in Mnarja style. It is clear that in the most cynical way the PN side in their "at all costs strategy" to cling to power is trying to raise the tension, instill fear, being regressive and raising the ugly head of violent confrontation rather than promoting the spirit of reconciliation and North European style of doing politics in the interest of promoting a ossible democratic transition of power. This is truly disgusting and bigoted and makes me seriously wonder about the true reasons of why the events turned so nasty in those troubled times.
Andy Farrugia
May 12th 2012, 14:09
"Both Toni and Wenzu suffered more in those times for their courage then the overwhelming majority of PN supporters many of which were either acquiescent collaborators in French Petain occupation style or who demonstrated their courage by reporting sick in Mnarja style."
Don't be ridiculous! What sort of suffering did they go through? Were they beaten up by gangs of hoodlums? And how dare you belittle the suffering and courage of those who did not go to work (I repeat, some of us did not report sick but simply decided to exercise their right of non-cooperation with the regime ( acquiescent collaborators, indeed; but perhaps you are speaking about your attitudes)? You should have seen the number of times we were ordered to report in front of the Public Service Commission and the repeated threats of being dismissed from work and the number of times certain gits ordered us to kiss and take solemn vows on the Crucifix, though it was clear that they held no particular affinity with either the symbol or the belief. Continue to amuse us with your fanciful reconstrcutions of history and your offensive inanities leone ganado!
Mr Lawrence Mifsud
May 12th 2012, 15:25
Some of those who were in good health , but reported sick on Mnarja, were sick on the following day: because they were beaten up by their Labourite colleagues. This is a fact.
Mr ALBERT LEONE GANADO
May 12th 2012, 19:50
@andy farrugia
I ask dear andy who disguises inability to debate historic issues by resorting to the usual style of insults we heard yesterday in Peppi's programme to tell us where you were on that day and whether you got sunburnt in Mellieha.. I suspect given the way you speak you might have been a toddler. I know all the facts first hand for I was one of those who did not report for work and in your own words I deserve not to be belittled for my courage or suffering. Yes I suffered some consequences of three months without work even if penniless at that time, nothing really compared to what y some of my foreign friends had to go through because of their political opposition . Yes, I do remember being hauled in front of a disciplinary tribunal or kangaroo court composed of three lackeys who as events turned out later were acquiescent PN collaborators and I remember the disdain some of us showed them as they posed the most silly of questions to presumbly be seen as doing their duty. Subsequently you might like to know ,after they had recommended our dismissa,l they all got their just deserts by being appointed to senior positions by the PN government ( if you have any doubts just check historical records of the tribunal members for Univ lecturers). Yes I remember also being asked to sign an act of contrition by the Univ authorities ,following directions given by the PN which of course I refused to do. I also remember being invited to a party for the so called "Mnarja heroes" one year later at the PN headquarters where we were treated with a glass of the cheapest of wines and a sandwich whereby our palate being offended a group of us immediately left and went to celebrate in true camaraderie at a proper drinking place. I would like to amuse you further but perhaps you should carry out some research of the true events of that period yourself besides wearing a blue badge of courage if you deserve it..
@Lawrence Mifsud
Yes it is true that some of those who reported sick were beaten up by their own work colleagues. Shameful, disdainful in true Maltese worker solidarity style and to be condemned without reservation as Toni and Wenzu did yesterday. However just reflect on the fact that if they all had joined the protest the outcome would have been very different.
Andy Farrugia
May 12th 2012, 22:22
@ Mr ALBERT LEONE GANADO
First of all, kindly address commenters in the appropriate manner rather than by using their first name - I have no idea that I ever made your acquaintance and have no wish to do so. Secondly, your ludicrous conjectures about my age and my experiences on that "eventful" day and long aftermath constitute clear evidence of your infinite capacity to amuse and entertain. Thirdly, I do not require any insights into manifestations of courage (of any coloured variety ) from the likes of you and your ilk. Hope I have made myself absolutely clear, Mr LEONE GANADO!
Ivan Grech Mintoff
May 13th 2012, 10:54
> Thirdly, I do not require any insights into manifestations of courage (of any coloured variety ) from the likes of you and your ilk. Hope I have made myself absolutely clear, Mr LEONE GANADO!
Arrogance and intolerance to anyone telling PN apologists that "MY VERSION" of history is not as they will want others to believe. Truly, the hallmark of PN apologists throughout, who like those unfortunate geese have been force fed the very successful PN propaganda for decades on end...
let us repeat (and be ignored once again):
1) Violence (both physical and mental) where NOT just restricted to one side of the political spectrum as PN apologists and bloggers(sic!) will have us believe. Until the PN apologists admit (at least to themselves!!) that violence was definitely a two-way street, then they will not be taken seriously. You can deny as much as you wish but the FACTS are there for ALL to see:
http://www.maltapolitics.com/vjolenzanazzjonalista.htm
2) Nor was it restricted to just a certain period of time only. It was there DECADES before these events and REMAINS DECADES after.
3) the REAL image that is repeatedl coming out is that those involved in violence 'on behalf of' the MLP seemed to be REWARDED by the PN as soon as PN came to government. How does one explain THAT..?
4) the PHYSICAL (MLP) violence came to an abrupt end as soon as PN came to power. Surpise, surprise...
5) Finally more and more are coming to the conclusion that as PN CANNOT DEBATE ITS PRESENT RECORD nor (it seems) be able to present a CREDIBLE future, using 'independent' bloggers(sic!) and commentators (who receive tens/hundreds of THOUSANDS of Euro in direct GOVERNMENT orders for the 'other' work), PN will forever try to SCARE voters that a vote for LP = a vote for PHYSICAL violence.
From my side, I sure hope PN will NEVER revert to the tactics it reverted to in those SHAMEFUL, SHAMEFUL years (including links with FACIST movements and working AGAINST Maltese interests).... I'm quite convinced that LP will be protecting itself well from provocation and being so neatl "set up" again.
Finally, unlike this blogger(sic!) and other "fossils", I hope that this generation and the next generation of voters are not as DUMB as they are made out to be and can see through this well worn record and DEMAND that their FUTURE is what its all about and who can offer them the BEST version thereof...
Ultimately its all down to the voter and his judgement. What's it to be? Am I happy with what PN is offering me and my loved ones TODAY? Am I happy with the FEW chosen ones - the oligarchy? - arrogantl, controlling everything and to hell with the rest of us?
Is that the future that I want? Or should I tell them where to get off..?
Please choose the reason of your report below: