Some people believe that history is relentless in its judgement. It does not allow you to colour your actions to the shade you choose. Spin, in time, will sink you.
On the other hand, a different theory states that the winners always re-write history to suit their own agenda.
We’re living in trying times so it is hard to think straight without needing to dip into history – to see what happened and how people with a spine or lack thereof acted in desperate times such as ours today.
If we go back to the late 1940s, the firebrand Dom Mintoff took over the Malta Labour Party – actually carried out a kind of coup. His main rallying call was for integration with Britain. In other words he wanted our country to be literally taken over, lock, stock and barrel, by Britain, our own mummy coloniser.
He was close enough to achieving his aim as he did win the referendum but somehow the Brits still refused. Sad day for democracy, albeit an immense relief for our country. Mintoff then changed his tune and turned against Britain.
In the 1960s, he was in opposition and, as a true opposer of anything he didn’t initiate, he was fully against independence as desired and negotiated by the PN.
Labour were once more on the wrong side of history and yet the people, the labourites, loved Mintoff and few opposed him from within. Because that is the way to be – a true Mintoffjan follows a leader and party blindly no matter what.
No one from within the ranks of Labour speaks up, no one wakes up to shake the core of the movement
1971 was when Malta turned really red. Mintoff was returned to power and, though he might have set out with good intentions, once in power he took the slippery slope down to the brink of democratic meltdown.
PN clubs were systematically attacked; pluralism was non-existent in broadcasting, with the only local TV and radio station spewing government propaganda; the media was not allowed to function properly and the ultimate attack came when Labour supporters set fire to the building which housed the Times. The Leader of the Opposition’s house was ransacked and his family attacked and terrorised; judges were moved and removed at the minister’s whim; a Foreign Interference Act prohibited the use of the word Malta without official permission and high-calibre foreign politicians were not allowed into Malta or hounded out of the country. Unions were attacked, workers’ rights diminished and violence was rampant. Private schools and private hospitals, including that run by nuns, were attacked and Church dignitaries vilified.
In 1981 a gerrymandered election was won by Labour, leading to widespread opposition to this unconstitutional state of affairs. Under Mintoff and subsequently Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Labour went from bad to worse as violence went unchecked, with police and army heads made into government stooges. The Police Commissioner at the time subsequently served a jail sentence for being party to the death of a man being questioned at Police Headquarters.
No one, or hardly anyone, dared say anything against the leader and so the Labour Party trudged on as directed by the great leaders. Did anyone care to truly put Malta first, before the party?
This was Labour from 1949 to 1987 – a party led by supposedly socialist leaders who actually set up a semi-cult within which their supporters had to exhibit rabid acceptance of all that was told to them. Dissent was practically unheard of and all the ills were never denounced. No Labour MP or stalwart ever spoke up about the gerrymandering, corruption, violence or police crimes.
From 1987 till 2013, when Joseph Muscat won power, Labour were in the political wilderness except for a 22-month stint under Alfred Sant. The latter managed to clean the party of its violent past but went all out against joining the EU and froze Malta’s pending application to join the elite group of European countries. A slight déjà-vu of Labour’s behaviour regarding Independence; if it isn’t our initiative then it must be bad.
That was before 2013, when Labour started proving themselves true winners, a party that could win election after election by margins undreamt of on this island.
Yet, once again Labour are in dire straits, facing a crisis of credibility and questions about whether they are a force for good in this country.
An unassailable majority should have seen the Labour Movement revamp the country. But all they have managed to do is put our country in the international spotlight for the worst of reasons.
Today the name Malta – this island whose government is led by the charismatic Joseph Muscat – has reverberated all around the world. But instead of evoking charm, it is mired in corruption and international investigations are being conducted into the shocking assassination of Malta’s top investigative journalist and the alarming stories she uncovered.
This is Malta now, infamous worldwide, with institutional meltdown slowly killing democracy and rule of law.
Yet, sadly and just as happened in the past, no one from within the ranks of Labour speaks up, no one wakes up to shake the core of the movement, so that it may ditch its past, denounce its leaders and shake itself out of its stupor of accepting at face value everything the party says is right or real.
Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and Chris Cardona won’t go of their own volition. That no Labour minister, MP or party man wakes up and points their finger at these four men says a lot about this party.
Serving the party first has been the Labour mantra for too long. It is about time some men and women of goodwill decide to serve their country instead and vote their leader out.
Otherwise, Labour will once again be judged as a party that has missed all its historic calls.