I will not tire to argue that Lawrence Gonzi’s real problem, notwithstanding what happened on Wednesday and whatever may happen or not happen this evening in Parliament, is not in the House of Representatives but out here, in Maltese society. What has been happening to the Nationalist Party in Parliament merely reflects what has been happening to the PN out here, in society as a whole.
It is when the going is not good... that dormant distinctions rear their ugly head- Mario Vella
To understand the disunion in the Nationalist camp it is necessary to understand what has been going on in the country. Inasmuch as the PN’s social base reflects Maltese society, what happens in this society will be reflected in the PN’s social base. The clusters of social conflicts and the tensions, of cultural distinctions and prejudices, of the tastes and the styles that divide us and that, paradoxically, unite us as a unique national society, are inevitably reflected inside the PN camp.
When I speak about the Nationalist camp, I mean much more than the PN’s parliamentary group and more than the PN’s party machine centrally and in the districts, towns and villages of Malta and Gozo. I speak about the Nationalist camp to refer, to start with, to all those families that identify themselves as Nationalist and have done so for decades, many going back to before World War II and not a few to much earlier than that. It is these that constitute the historic core of PN’s social base.
When I speak about the Nationalist camp, I also refer to families of later political vintages. These accumulated around the original core over a period of 50 years and more. They include a strong element that came over to the PN when the Strickland family lost its political significance and when other smaller political groups became extinct. They also include those supporters of humble social origins that make up much of what some sociologists refer to as the “mass base” of a modern popular party.
Now, pro-Italian pre-World War II PN notables invariably cultivated a following of what they would have openly considered as “lower class” supporters to accompany them to meetings and to generally do what a crowd was expected to do in periods of political ferment, be a crowd. These crowds could, given the right circumstances, be unruly. The attack on the offices of the pro-British Daily Malta Chronicle in Valletta on June 7, 1919, is a case in point, as Herbert Ganado candidly testifies.
It was only with the transformation of the PN, after the replacement of George Borg Olivier with Eddie Fenech Adami, from an association of notables (albeit popular with their own crowds) into a mass popular party declaring itself to belong to the family of the mainly European Christian Democrat political parties that the PN’s mass base gained in political importance.
The descendants of the original historic core of the PN and of the elites that joined later with the fall of the Strickland dynasty had to pay a price to survive politically in the face of Labour’s threat to their power and privileges. The price consisted in allowing persons of a social origin that they considered to be “low” to participate in politics in the PN’s name.
The old and new PN elites never quite swallowed this bitter pill. I have just re-read Edgar Soler’s The King’s Guests in Uganda: From Internment to Independence 1939-1964, published in 1986. It is an intensely personal account of one man’s political passion and, as such, it should be appreciated.
It would be unfair to judge it in terms of analytical rigour, style or the ethnic and gender prejudices of its author. It is in its sincerity that lies its value as a historical document.
Well, a recurring theme of this document is the social conflict among the Maltese internees in Uganda. Soler notes: “My fellow workers and I were unwilling to be the servants of those who wanted to pose as a superior caste in front of other internees” (p.133). It was this superior caste’s attempt to distinguish themselves from the rest, Soler argues, that “brought disunion in camp” (p.151).
When the going is good and money is no problem, the distinctions are muted. This implies that there are sufficient means with which to finance a politics of panem et circenses (bread and circuses), whereby all components of the PN camp are kept reasonably happy – albeit not equitably, some get contracts and caviar and others have to make do with a soggy take-away at the Festa tal-ħut or a Notte Bianca. It is when the going is not good, when money is a problem, that dormant distinctions rear their ugly head.
In trying to explain to themselves how a Franco Debono could have at all happened to them, the cruder PN apologists are attempting to attribute his rebellion to his individual psychology. What they are basically saying is that the guy is mad because only a madman would risk taking us to an early election and, very possibly, a resounding defeat.
But read carefully some blogs, some columns and listen closely to the whispering and you will note another narrative, tightly interwoven with the “madman” one. “Consider the man’s social background…”, recommends one such blog. The (not so) sub-text is clear. The man’s low class, chav. What can you expect?
What is taking place under Dr Gonzi’s watch is the coming apart of what the late Fr Peter Serracino Inglott advocated.
Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .