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THE REMARKABLE thing Dom Mintoff accomplished apart from effectively turning a good part of our lives upside down, was the ‘good name’ he gave to our miniscule insular Island.
When youngish and backpacking across Europe the one thing anyone would say when I explained that I was not Irish but a sort of Latin blonde Maltese, was a stereotyped answer “ah yes, that Mintoff.”
Not once in the 17 years of Fenech Adami and in my trips abroad did any common folk from France, Germany, Italy and England know that there was a man called Eddie.
Only last January, a British yachtsman in his sixties said he would not return to Malta so long as Mintoff was still Premier. I laughed and then gave him the latest about our premiership, it sounded very boring so I changed subject and talked about something infinitely more exciting; the weather.
Which brings me to Europe and to the elections in June.
The socialists or Labourites are contesting and so are the Greens and I jolly well hope that they score some political points.
Now that the Labourites have converted to Europe, as the Nationalists had long wished, they are being verbally abused by the Christian Democrats of being unworthy of a vote. In politics you can never get it right, unless of course you happen to be a Nationalist with God on your side.
The one that kills me is Dr Gonzi’s slogan insisting that a vote for the PN candidates is a vote for Europe. Here we go again, he will soon be saying that because we have God on our side, the June elections are his for the killing.
I would just like to see the PN, when Europe starts breathing down its necks over untouchable ‘electoral’ issues.
Last March it was crucial that we get into Europe, not for the sake of all the blue-eyed boys and girls, but for this insular mediocre republic. I felt somewhat strongly about it and knocked on the door of the loosely formed group better known as IVA, offering my services.
When the time comes I will tell the story of IVA, it will make for some good bedtime reading and will include the time I insisted that all the top activists declare whether they were interested in a job in Brussels. There were those who agreed, but many more who did not.
For obvious reasons, the Nationalist contestants including the two former IVA members, have been endorsed by Mr Saliba.
In his presentation of the contestants, Dr Gonzi talked of the value that each one gave to Christian Democratic values. I am not sure if Dr Gonzi was joking or taking us for simpletons. It depends of course what definition one gives to Christian Democracy. I have always said that many a Nationalist lives a life of a pagan moribund libertarian that puts to shame all the champagne socialists.
In the long years of Eddie’s reign, Christian Democracy was a dirty word, thanks to the Italians Catholics who reigned Italy for a little longer than Dr Fenech Adami. Now its back in fashion, for two reasons, primarily because of Gonzi’s entourage going all soft and watery in the eyes over the writings of the ideologue padres from neighbouring Italy and secondly because of Herr Poettering of the German conservatives. The German parachuted into Malta and then marched to Pieta, promising everyone that the Christian Democrats would be the biggest party bloc in the June EU parliament. He forgot to factor in Raffarin’s and Aznar’s disasters at the polls and the public disenchantment for Berlusconi in Italy. Poettering seems to think that we Maltese do not follow European news, and spend our weekends pottering.
Back to the candidates, I was under the impression that one particular PN contestant was a professed agnostic or something of the sort. I could be mistaken confusing my own state of inert Godliness with the upright, spiritual, transparent, steadfast, family-oriented contestants.
With Joe Saliba’s tainted political menu for June I will be doing one of two things, either not voting at all or else taking a good look at the socialist and green candidates.
One thing I am sure of, in a year any of the contestants elected will be earning more than the Lm50,000 the Labour party struggled to collect in a day.
A Happy Easter to all.
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