PL celebrates Iftar

Joe Xuereb

Aug 11th 2012, 21:59

Quoting myself (second paragraph of my penultimate comment). '(under Sharia Law) Maltese homosexuals will have to migrate'. Now homosexuality is much more upfront in Malta than previously. Not unlike single mother father unknown reality, now common but not so once upon a time. With homosexuality the feelings of antipathy let us say, persists, and some would say 'good riddance'. Except that even oppression is hierarchical and the 'good riddance brigade' could look closer home and discover that as free heterosexuals - for instance - they and what they stand for are similarly under threat. And even the Maltese who are all pious and holier-than-thou who condemn every behaviour under the sun will not be left of the hook.

@ Mr J Xerri (Today, 13:53). Mr. Xerri, and which is my 'So most of your comments are applicable to your dear Government too'. Which part of my comment says anything about what you are saying? I never mentioned GonziPN, I was critical of JM and I live abroad so I have no true affiliations any which way. Can you elaborate please (for all it is worth)?

In my very first comment I wrote that the Imam - this one here or someone called El Sadr? - told his Maltese listeners that EVEN Jesus was itinerant so why not him and his followers. Implying that there is only one god to worship, he insidiously had the Maltese eating out of his hands. Patronizing but not everybody is a gullible idiot.

Colin Stanley

Aug 11th 2012, 21:33

I was thinking of voteing for PL but now I am confused

Joe Xuereb

Aug 11th 2012, 14:22

Where are OUR religious leaders when we need them?

I wonder if Fr. Joe Borg - http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090509/blogs/should-there-be-more-mosques-in-malta.256177 - is lurking somewhere in the background, off the photo-frame, not knowing whether to smile smugly or weep.

I wonder who the guy in the centre is, in the charcoal suit? The Joseph Calleja lookalikey,but it can't be, smirking all over his mug, looking so pleased with himself. Maybe enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame? Not forgetting the guy 'what-a-profile' on the extreme with the latter part of his bonce lopped off. But thank god for small mercies, JM is shown in glorious technicolor, in entirety if lacking some necessary ingredients.

Kenneth Galea

Aug 11th 2012, 14:14

Dr Muscat should have told the Imam of the Muslim community that he is disgusted about what is happening right now in Northern Mali. Islamists want to impose Sharia law out there and they started chopping off hands of thieves. Encouraging the Muslim community to flourish and give them more power is a recipie for total disaster. Look what happened in Bosnia when the Muslims declared independence back in 1992. OMG who wants to live under Muslim rule????

Mr J Xerri

Aug 11th 2012, 13:53

Joe Xuereb, Alfred J McEwen, Antoine Zammit, and the rest: Please note that the present Maltese Government has helped the Mariam al Batool Muslim School in the last few months to enable it to pay the teachers’ salaries and to run the school.
So most of your comments are applicable to your dear Government too.

Joe Portelli

Aug 11th 2012, 13:46

This is yet another to proof that there is no finer example of a useless proposition, just like saying, something is identical to itself - perhaps only connection is the play on imagination by a politician, a new low indeed.

Nobody is threatening any religious schools, be they Muslim, Jewish etc. the mind boggles !

Joe Xuereb

Aug 11th 2012, 12:35

@ Claire Busuttil (Today 09:06). Ms. Busuttil, I am really surprised at JM. This is the last thing he should say if he wants to garner votes. Unless, of course, he is appealing to traditional Labour voters who have converted to Islam. Anyhow, this is political suicide. I spoke to a diehard labourite relative who passively told me 'we have to accept them'. I do not read the Labour Press so maybe this is what is being told Labour voters. This is disappointing; is this forward-looking secular Malta? Is the Imam the same one who said that the Earth belongs to everybody, and everybody is free to roam? And to convince his Maltese listeners - this was an article in the ToM some two years back - he added that EVEN Jesus was an itinerant.


An extreme religion like Islam has no place in Europe as our lifestyles are incompatible with it for very obvious reasons. Maltese homosexuals will have to migrate. Women, including JM's wife, will have to cover up so as not to offend. Women in UK are in no mood to appease Muslim sensitivities and this is what I mean when I say that Islam and Western styles are incompatible.


The Maltese identity is diluted at best - a dying language, the young wanting to leave, religion the 'asset' of our own brand of fanatics and getting fewer. So integration with what exactly? When the Maltese are not integrated among themselves nor have they ever been. I do not see integration into Malteseness on the books and JM should see this. He is playing what to me is a dangerous game. Unless he is one of those individuals who adopts a laissez-faire attitude, hopes that any teething-problems will be smoothed out and in the end, everything will be sorted out. Yes, but to whose advantage? Most certainly, he is risking alienating his followers, usually unshakeable 'la Maltija'. Maybe this will really test their resolve.

I speak as someone what has lived with this for years. Institutions like Speakers' Corner, Marble Arch - a truly impressive British Institution symbol of hard-won British freedoms and freedom of speech and being - these days showing any Western opinion risks a kick on the shin (happened) and vilification. If one does not understand Arabic, one may as well no bother going. The only passive participants are bemused 'American' tourists, who are here today and gone tomorrow.

Like everywhere else, one gets their poor and their influential. The 'poor' beget children, loads of them, and benefit from our Benefits System. The influential use their money to influence. Like for instance, the financing of the latest Renzo Piano creation, The Shard, financed to the tune of 95% provided no alcohol/gambling outlets are on site. The newly-inaugurated cable-car 'Fly Emirates' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Air_Line_(cable_car) - with sky-high tickets-to-ride, a hefty percentage of which goes into Qatari coffers. The tourists, and the blinkered, flock to this exhilarating experience ignorant of the connotations. The names of new Tube Stations in the ever-developing East of the capital (London) that have the word 'Emirates' incorporated in them. And other examples to numerous to mention.

Integration?! The poor, with their 'football teams', rub shoulders with everybody else at the doctor's surgery, the hospital, the offices of Social Security, and everywhere else. That is where it stops as preferably, the kids are sent to (their) Faith Schools. The rich play in the playground of the moneyed rich. The British guys nowhere to be seen but British gals seem to be very popular and even allowed inside exclusive nightclubs without paying entrance fees. A kind of upper class(??) Paceville.

It sounds ironic to talk about integration and ' the Mariam al Batool Muslim School's' guaranteed functioning in the same breath. Does any thinking person fail to see what I am getting at? Double irony is that I understand many of the pupils there are the children of Maltese converts. Meaning that this integration talk will come at the cost of Maltese integration - already fragmented for a hundred different reasons - among themselves. Maybe the solution to Maltese disintegration is to demolish the whole, start on a new slate, albeit with a different culture.

Sadly, even this new setup will disintegrate in new time because the 'them and us' will always exist in any culture, any religion. All one needs to do is look around one not a million miles from our shores. And of course, it's all the fault of the USA and the Western powers. Welcome to a new Word Power - unfolding at this very moment in countries like Syria. Tribal mentality?! Bring it on, in Malta!

@ Claire Busuttil (Today, 09:05). 'as long as the muslim community respect our law and traditions.........' Claire, people everywhere break laws. Why would these newcomers be the exception to the rule? A head-count in Corradino will prove this. Plus at least one horrendous murder case currently being processed, the one where an attractive young woman, a lawyer to boot, who fell for the wrong man and paid the highest price.

I note that not one single comment here 'goes along' with Muscat. OK! they may be NP supporters - doing what the 'none-too-integrated' Maltese voter does best of all - but I choose to think they are sensible comments, from the heart, like!

I love the picture with everybody smirking all over their mugs from ear to ear. Oh! happy, clappy occasion! Like not. It is a PR exercise, but transparent.

And that, in a typical biggish nutshell, is it! And no apologies to the guys who resent my long input because of their deficient attention span. As we say in the corner of the woods - tough titties!!

Alfred J. McEwen

Aug 11th 2012, 12:21

Alfred J. McEwen

I think Joseph Muscat is paving the way for more Muslim schools and mosques to be built here to accommodate the vast number of migrants from Africa and other countries, maybe that is probably why he is so much in favour of land reclamation so that there will be room for all and to live in harmony with our African brothers. Now that is what I call forward thinking.

Antoine Zammit

Aug 11th 2012, 12:05

Yes, kissing the islamic's seats is a way of being progessive and liberal. yeah right.. coz Islam is a progressive and liberal religion, why not!!! Keep on criticizing!! I am having a good time! :)

VOTE GONZI, the ONLY guarantee for a Catholic Malta!

Frank Portelli 2BFRANK

Aug 11th 2012, 11:45

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091119/local/whats-wrong-with-chopping-off-thieves-hands-imam-asks.282341

Joseph Aquilina

Aug 11th 2012, 11:14

So let me see if I understand this article completely ... the same labour, who back in the 80s wanted to close Christian schools and incited so much hatred against the clergy that labour supporters attacked the curia ... now their leader dear Joseph is offering state financing to help a Muslim school. I guess this is a prime example of VOTES first CREDIBILITY last!!

On the other hand we there is PN, who supported EDUCATION regardless if offered by the STATE or RELIGIOUS institutions!! NOW THAT IS CREDIBILITY!

Joseph Aquilina

Aug 11th 2012, 10:57

I love how Joseph Muscat stayed SILENT while Gaddafi was killing thousands of Muslims (while Gonzi was working hand in hand with other world leaders to save as many lives as possible), and then has the face to go and celebrate Muslim feasts. I would and I am insulted by such DOUBLE STANDARD from a person who wants to become the PM of our country... but then again this is labour, and double standards, statements with no meaning and flawed ideology is the business of the day for them!! I hope the Muslim community does not fall for the usual Socialist tricks!!

joseph saliba

Aug 11th 2012, 10:47

But who's threatining the Muslim School?

Robert Farrugia

Aug 11th 2012, 10:40

It's as if Dr.Muscat is trying to rekindle the Muslim-MLP relationship there was in Mintoff's time. I am not aware that the Muslim school is on the verge of closing and surely the Maltese government wouldn't let this happen because it's its duty that all children receive a basic education. So I don't know where Muscat's trying to get with his 'guarantee'.

Joe Degiorgio

Aug 11th 2012, 10:25

Malta is constitutionally a Roman Catholic country. If a Maltese person decides to join the Muslim community it is his / her choice and I respect that. However this latest news looks like vote fishing and sounds like it might be introducing Islam as a second religion officially.

mark johnson

Aug 11th 2012, 09:53

Doesn't the constitution say that Catholicism shall be taught in all state schools? If the teachers are paid by government then I expect them to follow our law.

Andrew Abela

Aug 11th 2012, 09:46

Political correctness

Claire Busuttil

Aug 11th 2012, 09:06

tiskanta, dawn il politici, kollox jaghmlu ghal erba voti.....it`s the game wara kollox!

Claire Busuttil

Aug 11th 2012, 09:05

as long as the muslim community respect our law and traditions.........

Francis Zammit

Aug 11th 2012, 08:54

Did he (Muscat) tell the Imam that he (Muscat) was amongst the last few remaining politician in Europe who condemned the Gaddafi regime?

By the way, was Alex Sceberras Trigona at this party?

Maria Caruana

Aug 11th 2012, 08:52

How very progressive, and modern, madoff!

A. MICALLEF

Aug 11th 2012, 08:50

Very important that no members of this community will ever have a say in politics or in the
running of our local councils or any other Maltese authorities.

Ivan Mizzi

Aug 11th 2012, 08:47

How very secular! Well done!

Julian Borg

Aug 11th 2012, 08:30

Since when was the Mariam al Batool Muslim School in any danger of closure? Obviously he had nothing to say.....

Barney Camilleri

Aug 11th 2012, 07:58

Dr Muscat
Will you please tell Imam Mohammad El Saadi (a fine gentlman) to please tell his Muslim friends in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria, Iran where you find them in majority and elsewhere that we do prosecute, stone or hang Maltese who turn Muslim, and neither make Christians second class citizen as they do although they are locals.

Jay Oatmon

Aug 11th 2012, 07:02

I see no problem with this provided they integrate fully, obey the laws and respect the Maltese customs, and learn English or Maltese, and live the Maltese lifestyle.

The problems start with a failure to integrate, only speaking their home language and attempts to change our lifestyle and culture to theirs. If they are not willing to integrate we will get separate tribes in Malta which isolate themselves and expand until we have no go areas and eventually ghettos - just like they have in France, Italy and Holland. The above are known facts and not racialism.

D Bonello

Aug 11th 2012, 02:37

So now we have to accommodate other cultures with our taxes.

Tony Mangion

Aug 10th 2012, 23:57

I take it from Joseph that under a labour administration, everyone, irrispective of his believe, will be secured.

Marco Galea

Aug 10th 2012, 23:25

oh DIVERSITY!!! Like wishing Malta would "do like Italy" and send immigrants back hom on the same boat they came with at the risk of their life ... not impressive JM! not impressed!