![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
OPINION | Sunday, 27 January 2008 Panic in Bazuzlustan RAPHAEL VASSALLO Looks like The Smiths were right. There is panic on the streets of Lija… Mosta, Hamrun and Birkirkara… and I wonder to myself: could it possibly have anything to do with the sudden prospect of a change in government? More specifically, with the clean sweep of every single government department, agency, authority, commission, council and concomitant conclave that invariably comes with such a change? Ah, me. Look at them panic, the citizens of the Glorious People’s Nepotistic Republic of Bazuzlustan, as they awake to the possibility of losing all they have amassed over 20 years of assiduous back-scratching. Watch in unparalleled amusement, as one by one they fall over themselves in their desperation to convince you and I how to vote in the coming election… all the while unsuccessfully trying to pass off their own private worries as some kind of genuine concern over the country’s uncertain future. Even though I can now laugh out loud at the increasingly hysterical rants and raves of party apparatchiks, I have to admit I can also partly understand their terror. Panic, you see, is a contagious disease. And I know because I caught a bout of it myself some five years ago, at the prospect of losing out on EU membership simply because some selfish political bigot evidently wouldn’t take a referendum “Yes” for an answer. I know it seems a long time ago now, but it may be worth remembering why EU membership was considered such a big deal way back in 2003. Euro-sceptics might resent the idea, but many of us wanted to join the EU precisely because it would limit the ability of political megalomaniacs like “you-know-who” to actually screw the country up if elected. But back to the fun and games. Over the past weeks and months, I have detected a note of panic creeping into Bazuzlustani rhetoric: mainly coming from “concerned citizens” whose entire livelihoods seem to exclusively rely on the Nationalist Party retaining its present stranglehold on Parliament… forever. How perfectly hilarious. For isn’t this the same Gonzi who has passed up opportunity after opportunity to prove once and for all that he is, in fact, averse to all things corrupt and nepotistic? Among other things, by turning down a ministerial resignation he should really have accepted; and accepting a ministerial resignation that now looks as if it were engineered in the bowels of the Stamperija itself? Besides, our VolksKaiser also seems to share the view, popular among certain sections of the Diplomatic Corps, that “chairs are better left vacant than occupied by Laburisti.” And yet, this is also the same “VolksKaiser” who rose to power on the promise of a “new way of doing politics”: a promise made shortly after the April 2003 elections, when PN general secretary Joe Saliba had moaned and groaned about a “network of Laburisti” ensconced within the Civil Service. But no matter. It seems that Gonzi himself is also succumbing to the occasional bout of panic, as evidenced by any number of astonishing howlers over the past week. Well, I listened to Dr Mangion’s speech that day, and there was indeed a name the Labour Deputy leader dragged through the muck in front of foreigners. Of course! It was back in 1982: you know, the dark days of Mintoffianism, when failure to fall prostrate at Is-Salvatur Ta’ Malta’s feet was deemed a crime against humanity, punishable by instant transfer to some dingy government department of Wistin Abela’s choice. At this juncture, with the air thickened by Old Labour memories, a vague murmur of doubt makes itself felt. OK, so the “bazuzli” have their own vested interests in trying to keep the same old government in place for the next four millennia at least. But... might they not also have a point in warning us about the possible dangers of electing a Labour government? The answer is simple: OF COURSE THEY DO! After all they are blue-eyed boys, not blue-eyed blockheads. Their panic is perfectly justified, and even if this doesn’t make it any less hilarious to watch, it does give us pause to think. For there is a very real danger that the incoming Labour Party will be just as nepotistic, equally prejudiced and every bit as discriminatory as the Government of Half the People, by Half the People, and for Half the People, that Labour may or may not be replacing soon. Now honestly. Who on earth ever said that Maltese politics was boring? One last thing
Any comments? |
![]() |
MaltaToday News
|