From Dr Edward J. Clemmer

Dear Leo,

As I always pick up the newspapers every morning, I was surprised this morning to see your reference to my book, as the so-called Clemmer Study, on the front page of The Malta Independent (28 November), and so I also read your opinion piece.

If my book, Alfred Sant explained – in-novella ta’ Malta fil-Mediterran, as you assert, has been one of the most unread books on the island, I cannot say. I can only say that I should hope not.

It is true, as you have described from the cover of the book, that I was an American social psychologist; but now I also retain dual American-Maltese citizenship. And yes, I have truly published — it is not a spurious claim — as single and co-author of various research in several of the best professional journals such as: Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Language and Speech, Communication Monographs, Visual Arts Research, and Political Communication and Persuasion. You do these things while teaching full-time in American universities and colleges for 17 years.

It is also true — again not a boastful claim — that over my years in the US, I have presented papers for major psychological societies: American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, Psychonomic Society, and for other organisations, while I had retained memberships in those organisations. But now, in Malta, I have only retained my membership in the International Society of Political Psychology; and I also now maintain the complete collection of its primary journal, Political Psychology 1979-2006.

But it is not true that PIN had commissioned my book, although, indeed, they published it “way back in 2000,” and they paid me Lm250 for my efforts, writing it from January to September, 2000, in my spare time and on my own. The prologue was written between my having contacted PIN, and their decision to publish the book before the 21 September celebrations. They published it, along with my occasional unintended errors of text — without my proofing it.

Having been in Malta then for eight years, and having taught at the University of Malta from 1992-1996, I certainly knew well all of the characters who make up the novella ta’ Malta fil-Mediterran, that is Maltese politics. It is true that the book is an analysis of Alfred Sant, on the basis of the then current MLP leader’s social behavior and communications. I leave yourself to your own political peril to describe it as “tawdry” and “hotchpotch,” however you now may care to spin it.

At least, after an omerta of six years, I know that one intelligent person in the MLP has read page 85, my point number (9), 11 pages before the conclusion of the book, that you quote: “If the MLP should breach a revolt against the current leadership because of the national interest, the long-term chances for the MLP to make an effective national contribution in opposition or in government will improve. If not, the MLP will find itself more estranged from the Maltese voting public in the ‘foreseeable’ future.”

You have not referred, however, to the three footnotes pertaining to that quote: namely, references specifically to the salient opinion of Ranier Fsadni, the commissioned MLP research by Jimmy Magro, and Alfred Sant’s then intransigent position on the EU. But yes, you seem to have identified the central national issue among my points of analysis.

My pro-offered opinion was not given as a PN apologist, but as a prophetic warning, most clearly to the MLP. I am one of those persons who would like to see the MLP, one day, safely in government. But from my personal and professional opinion, I still regard such a government under Alfred Sant as unsafe. The particular “idealism” of Alfred Sant seems, in my carefully annotated point of view, not to lend itself to the necessary and realistic political course.

So, although you seemed surprised, I believe that you are entirely correct in your analysis that the governing party, the PN, seem through my book to be offering the opposition party, the MLP, “advice on how to strengthen itself and reform itself so that it could be in a position to take its place at the helm of the country.” That reform, of course, can only come about on the basis of internal MLP politics and the consequences of national elections.

I am not in charge of how the PN, or how the MLP may make use of my book, or may not do so. But it has always been my hope that it would be understood, well understood, by all of the political players, most of all by everyone loyal to a healthy two-party system in Malta. Perhaps now, after your seemingly latent discovery, you would be honest and ready to circulate the book among all of the MLP and their rank and file, as I should hope.

For the work was not and is not intended only, as you seem to imply, for potentially disgruntled PN members or former members. It always has been intended for the national interest, irrespective of party allegiances — and, if at all, perhaps most of all, for the MLP. I’ll never know, of course, if Alfred Sant has read the book, with or without a state of denial. But whatever my still timely analysis may contribute, everything is in public hands; and at the micro-level of the political world, all is in the hands of individual persons, every one of them, including yours.

Dr Edward J. Clemmer

Msida