Saturday, 4th April 2009
In praise of a great man
I have known Dr Eddie Fenech Adami for the last 50 years or so. My father was one of his canvassers during the first years of the political life of “l-Avukat”, as he used to call him.
I remember my father describing him as a reserved man. “Daqxejn misthi meta nidhlu fil-hwienet inkellmu n-nies,” my father used to say. He is. Many years later together with Dr Mary Anne Lauri I presented and produced a programme on RTK. It was an in-depth interview with a difference. As part of our research for the programme we used to ask our guests to fill in the Myers Briggs personality test. This tests several personality traits of the individual.
Dr Fenech Adami definitively turned out to be an introvert. It sounds like a contradiction that such a public figure would also be such a private person, but it is not. Other political and religious leaders in Malta, and overseas, are introverts. Being an introvert, though, does not mean that one does not have a warm personality. Eddie’s public persona is reserved but he can be very warm during informal meetings.
I remember my father frequently coming home late. He would have been with “l-avukat” working on the refurbishing of the house which was later to become the PN club of Birkirkara. Together with my father, Eddie used to do the manual work that had to be done to inaugurate the kazin on time. He never minded doing that. Perhaps he was accustomed to such work as he was the handyman regularly commissioned by his wife Mary on all sorts of manual jobs that were needed at home.
I guess that as he now takes over the tasking role of being full time personal assistant to his grandchildren he would perhaps have less time on his hands to do the handyman cores. Young grandchildren tend to be more demanding than the duties of the state, after all. We also have to wait and see whether Eddie’s new job will frustrate the declared plans of Mrs Fenech Adami’s to coach Eddie as her assistant cook. Since he is a man of many talents and a meticulous organiser he will most probably find time to keep on doing the work of the house handyman and that of assistant cook as well.
The above are not Eddie Fenech Adami’s only achievements during the past few decades. He has some other talents and merits. Eddie helped the nation walk from the shame of Il-Barrani to the pride of Brussels; from the manipulation of broadcasting to its pluralisation; from the arrogance of centralised power to its devolution through local councils, from extreme polarisation to a good measure of reconciliation …. The list is never ending.
There were people who did not believe in his great qualities. I remember talking to a journalist employed with a big German newspaper who was in Malta during the mid-Eighties when the fight for democracy was at its height. He had just met Eddie. “He is not the man that has the ability to take you out of this mess,” he said. How mistaken was his judgement!
Eddie Fenech Adami succeeded in getting us out of the troubled Eighties because he won the trust of the people. He managed to do that because he is a man of principles and values not a man of gimmicks. His principles and values emanated from his Christian faith and are nourished by his Christian faith. There is no dichotomy in the man. His faith is his way of life. In the midst of his busy schedule he always finds time for the daily mass.
I was one of the journalists who accompanied Dr Fenech Adami during one of his visits to China. I fondly remember the daily celebration of Mass in the suites he occupied in Beijing, Xian and Shengen. Celebrating Mass at the heart of the world’s largest communist state is not an everyday occurrence after all! It was always a prayerful and moving experience. I used to wonder what passed through the mind of the Chinese body guards who were some times present in the room where, together with the Prime Minister and the Maltese delegation, I celebrated Mass. For them it must have been strange that a group of men and women sat round a table and at one point eat from what looked like a thin wafer and drank from the same cup!
His Christian faith gave him the strength to forgive those who attacked his home, beat his wife and terrorised his children. Following the attack on his house, I sent him a Martin Luther King’s book, Strength to Love. King had passed through similar and worse experiences; but his faith urged him on his political struggle. I was very happy when Eddie mentioned this book during one of his speeches.
His is a formed and informed faith. I was not surprised that he read a lot about the social teachings of the Church. I remember discussing with him on radio aspects of one of Pope John Paul II social encyclicals. However, I was surprised when he told me that he also read John Paul II’s encyclical letter about the Holy Spirit. Rest assured that the encyclical letter is not an easy document to read.
During one of the Pope’s visits to Malta, Eddie Fenech Adami had the opportunity to discuss the encyclical letter with the Pope himself. From what Eddie told me it seems that also the Pope was pleasantly surprised by the discussion they had on the subject.
Eddie’s great strength lies in the fact that the people identified with the vision he projected and lived in his daily life. What was more important is that the people identified with him personally and not just with his vision. This is perhaps easy to understand as he was and always remained a man of the people. People find it easy to stop him in the street and talk to him. He does not inhibit them. He does not keep aloof. Rasu qatt ma kibritru. He knows that in more sense than one, his greatness is not just his, but theirs as well.
The people who believed in him, loved him and followed him made him great; while he repeatedly made them proud.
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Comments
Thank you Dr. Fenech Adami for showing me that politics can be an honourable calling if that is what one chooses to make it.
I wish Icould have been that generous.
Friend and foe would agree that Eddie was Great! Now, the greater service he gave to "friend and foe" is his belief in the value of reconciliation when finally he was voted in Government. And as all people who work to reconcile one´s country, he must have suffered even within his party! Because reconciliation you bring about with stuborness in one´s belief, even when the odds are against the value you are trying to plant. The first two years or so of government, I imagine, must have been very hard for him, to endure all sort of "appeals" to change one´s policy because it is not going to work out! But for our sake, for the sake of all maltese, he endured the aparent failure! But today politically Malta is a "reconciled country" in such a manner, that his sucessor, Dr. Abela , was chosen by Parliament at the Prime Minister´s request , from the political milieu that accepted reconciliation as a value, by time and due to him! Because of this, he deserves the title of "the Great"!
Fr.John Caruana
Gujarara-Mirim - Rondonia - Brazil