When Helena Dalli told me that Dom Mintoff had invited me to lunch, I was delighted, but surprised. Delighted, because I had heard so much about the old Lion of the Labour Party and was eager to meet him. Surprised, because he was not known to harbour great affection for Americans, not even for those self-advertised as critics of US foreign policy.
Dom moved in a flash from idealistic dreams to here-and-now realpolitik- Richard Rubenstein
The year was 1994. Dalli, now a Labour MP, was then my student in a master’s course that I was teaching at the University of Malta while on sabbatical from my home university in the States. I asked her to arrange a meeting with Mintoff if she could, and she must have been very persuasive since she informed me in mid-November that he would give me lunch at his home in Delimara.
I presented myself at noon on a sunny day that illuminated the power plant just across from the Mintoff compound – an eyesore that, he soon told me, had been located there by political enemies for the primary purpose of spoiling his view.
He sat me next to him at a long table around which clustered eight or nine other people, all of them political associates, and almost all men. Moyra Mintoff helped serve the excellent lunch, while her husband told me about the power plant conspiracy.
“So, professor,” Dom began. “How do you explain the fact that US foreign policy towards the Middle East is made in Tel Aviv?”
I was temporarily struck dumb. I am a long-time critic of Israeli policies and strong supporter of Palestinian self-determination, but I didn’t expect the question, nor did I like the way it was phrased. American foreign policy is often short-sighted and destructive, but it is made in Washington DC, not in Israel. While I blushed and stammered, Dom answered his own question.
“The problem is Jewish influence, isn’t it? Especially Jewish control of the news media.”
My blush deepened, now fed by a growing anger. Mintoff had clearly checked me out and surely knew that I was a Jew. Was the question intended to bait me, or to test my loyalty to leftist principles, as he understood them? The audience looked at me expectantly, like spectators at a corrida.
“I’m surprised to hear you talk this way, Mr Mintoff,” I finally blurted out. “The pro-Israel lobby in America is very strong, too strong in my opinion. But the Jews don’t control the American news media, any more than they control the banks or the insurance companies. US policies in the Middle East are supported by big business, including the oil companies. The big companies have a lot more influence on US foreign policy than the Jews. To talk about ‘Jewish control’ is dangerous. It sounds like old-fashioned anti-Semitism.”
All murmured conversations around the table ceased. I waited in the breathless silence for one of Mintoff’s legendary rages to erupt. After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, what erupted, if that’s the word for it, was a good-humoured chuckle. “Well, well,” he said, shaking his head. “You may be right about that.”
With evident relief, everyone began talking again. The rest of the luncheon was a lively interchange of ideas. The lunch over, I thanked the Mintoffs warmly and told Dom that it would be very nice to continue our discussion at some future time.
The next day, as I walked into a classroom to begin my lecture, Dalli intercepted me and whispered a hurried message. “Mr Mintoff would like you to swim with him tomorrow at Peter’s Pool. You are to meet him at his house at 10 a.m. Bring your bathing costume.”
If my first day with Dom Mintoff was interesting, the second proved unforgettable. I wore my bathing trunks as instructed, but I was not prepared to watch a lithe, well-muscled, 78-year-old man dive from the highest rock in sight into the cool, deep waters of the pool. Twenty-five years younger, and somewhat shamefaced, I lowered myself in at the shallow end and splashed about while Dom clambered back up for another plunge.
After a while, we changed into dry clothes, and he led me up to a high ridge commanding a spectacular view of the ocean. For more than an hour, as we walked the ridge, Mintoff talked.
He did not speak about America, Europe, the Middle East, or even Maltese politics. Nor did he tell stories about Malta’s past or his own career. Looking out at the blue-green sea, Dom talked knowledgably and with searing passion about the Mediterranean region. He painted a picture of a vast, multi-cultural, society encompassing North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, and southern Europe, dedicated to peaceful co-operation and social justice.
“The Mediterranean must become a nuclear-free zone,” he said (or, perhaps, prophesied). It must also become a clean air and clean water zone, a women’s rights/ human rights zone, a zone of economic equality, and a zone of peace.
“You are talking about very different civilisations cooperating, aren’t you?” I asked. “What would Sam Huntington say?” (Samuel Huntington’s famous article predicting an inevitable ‘clash of civilisations’ had been published months earlier and was being talked about everywhere.)
“Yes,” he replied, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Huntington is wrong. This was once part of a great Mediterranean civilisation,” he said, waving at the invisible lands across the sea. “It can be again.”
I didn’t agree with everything that Dom said, but certain notions of his that seemed odd to me at the time now appear prophetic. For example, he spoke of his suspicion that great northern powers like Germany might use their economic clout to dominate their southern neighbours. And he predicted that if Europeans did not find a way to share their advantages with Arabs and other Third World peoples, they would end by paying a terrible price.
It was fascinating to note that, when I tried to reframe some of these issues in Marxist terms, and to talk about the need for a militant workers’ movement to unite the region, the old leftist waved the idea away. “Not realistic.” Dom moved in a flash from idealistic dreams to here-and-now realpolitik. Consistency was not his strong suit. He reminded me of the poet Walt Whitman’s self-description: “I am large; I contain multitudes.”
I still think I was right about the connection between socialism, regional development and peace. But that’s what happens when one has been lucky enough to discuss important issues with a person of character – the argument continues long after his death. I spent only two days with Dom Mintoff, but I think of him often, and always with brotherly affection.
Richard Rubenstein is a professor of conflict resolution at George Mason University and co-founder of the dual master’s degree programme in conflict resolution and Mediterranean security offered at the University of Malta.
Mark Anthony Falzon’s column is not appearing this week.