It is not often that life and death combine to produce irony of the most dramatic form, but that is what happened at the funeral of Dom Mintoff.
What he had not managed to achieve during his lifetime, unifying the Maltese people, was largely achieved in death.
The thousands of people who thronged Valletta and St John’s Co-Cathedral on Saturday could not all have been Mintoffians.
Yet they gave Mr Mintoff a most remarkable send-off, uniting in good feeling for the man who had been as divisive as could be in his lifetime.
The respect shown was palpable, from all quarters in Malta and from abroad too, notwithstanding that Mr Mintoff has been out of active politics for 14 years.
Domestically, the tone was set by Eddie Fenech Adami. Mr Mintoff was for years his implacable foe and he had suffered personally at the hand of misguided Mintoffians who stooped so low as to raid the sanctity of his home.
Nevertheless, inevitably asked to give his assessment of the former Labour leader and harsh adversary, Dr Fenech Adami fairly opined that, despite his at times unacceptable methods, Mr Mintoff had done more good than harm for Malta.
This is the unadorned truth and those who seek to forget it, picking only on the man’s negatives, show a shallowness that is hard to beat.
Dom Mintoff is now gone, the mourning is over, Malta gets back to normal.
Before it does so I would like to enter a plea: let the political class savour the experience of the past week and even learn from Mr Mintoff’s past.
The past week saw a readiness to forgive, if not forget. It saw an awareness to see things in the round, rather than concentrating only on actual or perceived negatives and positives.
Among other things it saw the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition acting like two decent human beings sharing a common moment of importance.
My plea is, let that spirit prevail in our politics. Politics is an adversarial practice – opposing sides have to confront each other.
But they can do so with dignity, setting a good example to our society by not going for the jugular beyond the necessary political point – by concentrating on the issue, not on the person.
It is possible to do that. Mr Mintoff showed it in his relationship with the first Nationalist leader he confronted, George Borg Olivier.
The two men were top antagonists. Yet they never descended to the pits when they debated each other. I witnessed that in my first term in Parliament between 1962 and 1966.
Those were the harsh times of the politico-religious dispute.
Yet Mr Mintoff and Dr Borg Olivier were always gentlemanly towards each other, as they had been in the 1950s, when as an adolescent already attracted to politics I followed the parliamentary debates as excellently reported in Il-Berqa, The Times’ then sister daily.
Also, within the Labour parliamentary group of 62-66, I never heard Mr Mintoff utter a single deprecatory word regarding Dr Borg Olivier.
Sadly, times changed. Mr Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant never established an easy relationship with Eddie Fenech Adami, or he with them.
Mr Mintoff initially viewed the much younger Dr Fenech Adami with disdain. Dr Mifsud Bonnici seemed to have a phobia of appearing close (above the conflict) with an early colleague. Dr Sant and Dr Fenech Adami, with the age gap reversed, never could hit it off.
With both Mr Mintoff and Dr Borg Olivier gone, giants in their own right, I hope that their example influences today’s politics.
I urge Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat to tackle each other without any political holds barred – but to make it a point never to attack each other personally, and to ensure that their followers act in the same manner.
They should work to stamp out extremism in their ranks. That way we can have a mighty political struggle between now and the election date. But without the shameful antics we have seen so far.
It can be done. Dom Mintoff’s funeral proved it. Let that be a legacy for all to share.