The recent sham apology for the political violence perpetrated by Labour thugs is probably Joseph Muscat’s biggest strategic mistake since he took the helm of the Labour party. No apology is really needed. What is needed is a declaration that the MLP no longer considers violence as a legitimate political tool. There is a lot to say about violence and politics. Indeed, there are rare circumstances where violence is justified if the basic human rights are being ignored. Recent historical examples are the way that Hitler treated the Jews and other minorities he deemed unfit to live, and more recently the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
In our island scenario, political violence is closely intertwined with the fortunes of the Labour Party. The justification of the use of violence in certain circumstances was even the sixth of Dom Mintoff’s famous ‘six points’ about which he disagreed with the 1964 Independence Constitution.
By 1974, when the Constitution was amended and Malta assumed Republican status, the other five points – all considered innocuous by true upholders of democracy – did find their way into the Constitution. Not so the sixth point that dealt with violence.
Dom Mintoff may have not ostensibly insisted on this issue, but the Labour administrations under his helm did use violence as a strategic tactic whenever he wanted to get one of his ‘far-sighted’ reforms carried out. Probably, Mintoff felt that since he had the support of the majority to enact his reforms, the end justified the means.
But then things started to get really out of hand – a situation that was exacerbated with the results of the ‘perverse election’ in 1981 when Mintoff lost the support of the majority but was legally elected prime minister. It is well-known that he did not relish this situation but it seems he was practically a lone voice among his Cabinet colleagues. He eventually resigned from the premiership, passing on this unhappy buck to KMB. Subsequently, Mintoff played a very important role that led to the 1987 Constitutional amendments that gave the right to govern to the political party obtaining over 50% first count votes.
Little is publicly known on the internal debate within the Labour party regarding the challenge to accept the principle of majority rule and, therefore, ultimately democracy. From hints in Lino Spiteri’s published political reminisces, it is evident that the great majority of the Labour MPs at that time wanted to hang on to power at all costs but a small group – probably of not more that half a dozen – led by an indomitable Mintoff wanted Malta to remain a democratic country. In fact it was Mintoff who shoved the necessary constitutional amendments down the throat of the Labour party.
Meanwhile, while this was going on, the ruling clique within the Labour party continued to indulge in political violence on an unprecedented level. During those years, which we can hardly forget, Malta had to decide whether to be a Democracy or a Haiti led by our own version of Papa Doc. It was simply a minority terrorising a majority with brute force in order to retain power for ever and at any cost by espousing the ‘pleasures to come’ to all and sundry.
Indeed, the use of violence as a legitimate political tool, and abetted by a politicised police force, was so much a characteristic of Labour administrations that even when Labour was back in opposition in 1987, it continued under the leadership of a prominent Labour MP who has now passed on to another world.
Joseph Muscat understands the importance of this very well. He knows that he cannot reform the Labour party before he airs this skeleton out of its dark cupboard. He knows that he can never attract any substantial Nationalist votes unless the Labour party puts this era well behind and moves on. In fact, he had apologised for Labour violence very early when elected to lead the Labour Party: but at the same time he had to backtrack – probably under the pressure of those who did this dirty job for the Party – by insisting that Labour was ‘provoked’.
The historical truth is that there was never any policy of ‘provocation’, physical nor moral, against the Labour party supporters under the Nationalist administrations. No doubt Labour party supporters suffered badly at the hands of the Catholic Church in Malta led by Archbishop Michael Gonzi, but the Church of Malta is not the Nationalist party. Far from provoking the Labour party, George Borg Olivier and Dom Mintoff were implicitly allies in Malta’s struggle for independence.
Both suffered the onslaught of the unholy alliance of the British Colonial Office and the Catholic Church of Malta, which was determined to maintain the status quo that had been negotiated more than a century earlier, with the Church retaining its mediaeval privileges and the British retaining their military base at the lowest cost possible; even if this meant that the Maltese had to emigrate in their thousands to Australia. In fact it was probably the British that ‘enticed’ Toni Pellegrini to split the Labour vote and it was Archbishop Gonzi who encouraged the then President of the Catholic Action, Herbert Ganado, to split the Nationalist vote in a subtle attempt to undermine Malta’s quest for independence. The historical line-up was in fact Dom and George versus the Archbishop and the British (Protestant!) Colonial Office.
Archbishop Mercieca’s eventual apology to Labour supporters was clear and unequivocal, unlike Joseph Muscat’s recent sham apology that included – in the same breath – a rewriting of history that led him to demand for a similar apology from his political opponents. To do this, he unjustly equalised the Nationalist and Labour parties by putting them in the same basket as far as political violence is concerned. Incredibly, Muscat would like us all to believe that it was the thugs that used the Labour party, and not the other way round.
Like everybody else, Muscat knows the truth but he is afraid to say it because it offends the perpetrators – still active in the Labour party – of the same violence that he is trying to apologise for. They elected him, and he still needs them.
This means that Muscat is still very far from his goal of reforming the Labour Party and that, unfortunately for Malta, after a quarter of a century in opposition, this same Labour Party is still not yet ready to be entrusted with power.
Muscat’s shake-up of the Labour Party can lead to the desired trust of the majority of the Maltese electorate only if he sends a clear and unambiguous message that Labour is determined to govern this country very differently from the way they did in the past. But this would hardly be music to the ears of Labour’s traditional grass-root supporters. Muscat’s much touted ‘national movement’ attempts to unite those who hanker for a Labour government repeating the methods of the past with those who want to be assured that Labour will never repeat its past mistakes.
Therein lies the contradiction in Muscat’s stance: a contradiction that keeps surfacing too often and that has the potential to upset Muscat’s carefully assembled applecart.
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There is a lot to say about violence and politics. Indeed, there are rare circumstances where violence is justified if the basic human rights are being ignored. Recent historical examples are the way that Hitler treated the Jews and other minorities he deemed unfit to live, and more recently the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
