Mintoff’s hypocritical funeral

It seems that there is no end to discontent within the Nationalist Party. Dom Mintoff’s state funeral provided another occasion to highlight the division within the party. The behaviour of some Nationalists was considered too conciliatory, if not downright humiliating.

This culminated in the reaction to the comment made by former PN leader Eddie Fenech Adami, namely that Mintoff’s positive record outweighed his negative one. This irritated many of those who were victims of Mintoff’s misdeeds. Dr Fenech Adami will have a hard task explaining this to the thousands of Nationalists who suffered so much under Mintoff’s iron-fisted rule.

There is no doubt that the whole episode was a huge propaganda exercise by the Labour Party ably assisted by the Nationalist Party’s media/spokesmen and the ‘independent’ media. They succeeded beyond their imagination, considering that Mintoff just 14 years ago was labelled as a traitor by Labour and did not even set foot inside the new party headquarters in Hamrun.

In my opinion the ceremonial state funeral given to Mintoff was against his wishes and lifestyle.

Surely Mintoff would never have entertained any idea of having a religious funeral with his body carried shoulder-high into St John’s Co-Cathedral. He would never have allowed rosary beads being placed around his hands (he once famously said he “did not kiss Madonnas”). Nor would he have allowed the Archbishop to sprinkle him with holy water.

Mintoff was against all formalities and pageantry. Even his wearing a jacket and tie seemed strange to many, as rarely was he seen wearing them. So it seems that all that Mintoff was against in life was imposed upon him on his death. Mintoff, as we know him, was sacrificed on the altar of the party propaganda.

Even the Church, which for many years was Mintoff’s main target, seems to have forgotten the past and we heard Archbishop Paul Cremona showering praise on him.

All this will be over soon but the hypocrisy of many will be remembered for a long time. Many tried to make a saint out of a politician whose policy and tactics were always those of confrontation, provocation, and division.