Opinion • February 29 2004

Teflon Icon

Dr Harry Vassallo explains that our Prime Minister has been wearing a special protective coat that has something to do with frying pans…confused? Read on…
Durable, friction free, unassailable: teflon has been a wonderful invention. It has turned our frying pans into wonders of modern technology and provided us with super efficient bearings in many unseen places. It had never crossed my mind that it has also given us a Prime Minister.
In eulogising his outgoing leader, Dr Louis Deguara has come up with an outstanding metaphor: nothing sticks to Dr Fenech Adami. His omelette may be burned on the edges but it flips out of the pan like a dream.
As a longtime opponent of Dr Fenech Adami I cannot but admire the imagery. In 27 years he has had all sorts of political mud thrown at him. He has always come out resplendent, ready for the next omelette.
Political mud fights are not my favourite pastime. What good does it do? There is so much real ammunition, why bother with mud?
Dr Fenech Adami's teflon coating is likely to preserve him as a PN icon far into the future. He will be a teflon shield for all his highly vulnerable successors.
Louis Galea cannot complain. Teflon technology has allowed him to survive in politics against all odds. Years after his personal omelette should have been burned to a crisp, he has the bright blue eyes to stand for election as our future Prime Minister. Teflon works.
Teflon has an aura. Modern technology may not yet have noticed but Maltese politics makes it clear. One teflon Prime Minister can give a whole cabinet non-stick protection. All the pots and pans have had the joy.
Not a single Maltese politician has ever been jailed for corruption. The system is teflon protected. In the early days of AD, we did battle with windmills. We provided proof of corruption time and again. Nothing happened. Absolute zilch.
We clamoured for a proper trial of Lorry Sant. We had the omelette thoroughly burned. We spelt it all out about Louis Galea and ended up paying hundreds of liri in libel damages for describing his Fawwara retreat as a villa. The magistrate found that the construction was not big enough to be so honoured. The rest of the allegations about his part-time farmer proclivities met a teflon barrier.
The BICAL business was wrapped in telfon. In 1987 everybody expected the truth about everything. It was not to be. Dr Fenech Adami's teflon aura protected Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and the other BICAL Controllers. Some cracks must have showed in the teflon in 1995 when the PN gave retroactive legal immunity to all past BICAL Controllers. It is only in recent months that MaltaToday have discovered why the telfon protection was necessary.
National Bank shareholders may also be getting some answers even if the teflon coating prevents them getting results. It has not been hunkydory for everyone in the teflon era.
Pacification has been Dr Fenech Adami's greatest merit. He has indefinitely postponed the unearthing of our dangerous past: teflon wrapped and buried. There has been no Truth and Reconciliation process about the pre-1987 socialist era. South Africa and Rwanda have managed a worse history much better than we have managed our own mess. The cost of our unresolved past is our future.
It has given us Alfred Sant. The clean new face in politics in 1996 has his own teflon coating. If Dr Fenech Adami was erected to confront the Easter Island status of Dom Mintoff, Dr Sant has been bestowed with a teflon coating to match Dr Fenech Adami's. Modern Labour has nothing to do with the 1980s we are told. It has been thoroughly scrubbed and it's non-stick too. The future is made of teflon. It will allow any political leader to slither through U-turns and S-bends until we are dizzy.
For Dr Fenech Adami a recoating is in process. It is seen to be too ungracious to criticise a man who is bowing out of politics. He is about to gain the status achieved by Dom Mintoff who prior to his re-exhumation from the backbenches was honoured by his poltical foes for longservice in parliament. Dr Fenech Adami is on the way to a place beyond the reach of mud and other missiles.
Meanwhile he has the best of both worlds and allows his party better-than-ever protection. He will be around for the next few months while his successor gets his running in. Dr Fenech Adami will be around to ‘win’ the EP elections for the PN on the strength of his record: a giant, silver retirement clock from a grateful PN. More Teflon. The iconisation will be most thoroughly carried out.
To his credit Dr Fenech Adami has been honest enough to give credit to his opponents. He has publicly acknowledged the invaluable contribution of those who opposed him madly and badly making him and his party seem like a much better option than it actually is.
There can be no doubt that Dr Fenech Adami has many merits of his own and deserves the gratitude of the nation for many things. Still he does not qualify for beatification in my book. The latest news on Teflon is that when it does burn, it emits carcinogenic fumes. Old-fashioned scrubbing has its merits.