Last week Germany commemorated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Rightly so, because if there was one event in the 20th century that brought a happy ending to so much carnage, terror and fear of the previous decades the fall of the wall was it.
An essay published at the time, penned by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, spoke of the 'End of History'. That's 'History' with a capital 'H' - Fukuyama was no fool to think that the end of communism was the global event to end all global events - signifying an age where ideologies that had held sway in politics for the previous one-and-a-half centuries, in particular communism, had lost their tight grip.
After the end of history
Apart from Romania, the transition from communism to liberal democracy in Europe was remarkably free of violence. This is far from saying that it was painless: there was a price to be paid for the reforms needed. Did those reforms pay off in the long run?
They certainly did. Most of the countries that were behind the 'iron curtain' until 1989 (including some that were behind the Soviet border) are doing well. And while they are functioning market economies, they still have social policies in place that ensure a reasonable degree of equality and emancipation: "social market economies" to use a term popular some time back for those Western European countries that chose the middle path between capitalist lack of restraint and communist rigidity.
Labour before the fall of the wall
In the days when Europe stood divided, our Labour Party was not immune to the seductions of the other side. Nobody, from Hoxha's Albania or Kim Il-Sung's North Korea, was considered too extreme to avoid politically flirting with. They belonged, after all, to what Mintoff, in a speech at the Council of Europe (no less), had called "the Europe of Abel" in contrast to "the Europe of Cain". Theirs was the model to emulate as, after all, "the sun rises in the East" as Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici once reminded us.
Bad habits were picked up along the way. A piece of news that surfaced only recently was a reminder of darker times: for the last six decades, the Labour Party Club in Qormi has dictated the conditions of rental of the privately-owned premises it occupies. How's that for democratic respect for a basic rights such as the right to enjoy one's private property?
Labour after the fall of the wall
Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Labour has changed its political garb. Not through conviction but, just as times change, fashion changes too. And my, what a change! Old Labour can claim to have had led in developing the country's social sensitivity. But starting with its brief stint in government under Alfred Sant (last heard of lambasting the European Parliament for ignoring the European social model) it is now definitely the party whose only consideration is the making of a quick buck, regardless of the social price to be paid.
As Labour's second year in government draws to a close, it can boast another string of examples where the social consequences of government policies are ignored. Funnily enough, these are the same people who, in Opposition, regularly took the government to task whenever the risk of poverty went up.
The double injustice of the Qormi Labour Club saga
Readers may not have heard of the latest case. Government press releases have become Orwellian in style and are now reserved for two-cent deductions in the price of fuel. But, as matter of fact and press conference or not, the government has suddenly, and very sharply, increased the rent paid by people living in social housing. Social Housing serves the purpose of combating poverty and its tenants are mostly those families that have encountered difficult life situations. Most of these people fall into the severely material-deprived or at least at risk of poverty categories, which Labour pledged to eradicate in its 2013 manifesto.
These thousands of tenants have seen their annual minimum rent go up to €197 for a small flat: a two-fold or four-fold increase for some of them. Others, also in social housing, could be paying much more than that amount already but the ones about whom we are talking are probably at the lower end of the social housing tenants' category. They will be among the 24,000 who cannot afford to keep their homes warm in winter and those who cannot afford basic things.
Still not much, you say? But it's still more than the amount paid in rent by the rich Labour Party for an Qormi cinema turned Labour club, unfairly taken away from the rightful owners. The only thing is that the Labour Party is far from being poor and vulnerable. It just wants things for itself on the cheap or at expense of someone else.
The fall in wages, pensions and the willingness to eradicate poverty
On the day Europe celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a group of Maltese left-wing activists, including a former party leader, a former dock yard union leader and other left-wing intellectuals, were busy writing an open letter to Labour leader Joseph Muscat to steer the party back to its roots.
The left wing group lamented Labour's apparent loss of social conscience. It noted a fall in wages and pensions and in Labour's determination to eradicate poverty once and for all, as promised. Indeed, these activists and intellectuals have accused Labour government exponents of using discourse diametrically opposed to Labour's fundamental values.
New Labour is no Labour
It is now amply clear to one and all: Labour's metamorphosis was not only about blue ties and nice smiles. The 'taghna lkoll' battle cry was definitely not about social justice and an aversion to inequality. Labour has become the party of the 4th floor fat cats turning our country into a place where everything and everybody is for sale. The commoditisation of citizenship and the prostitution of Maltese identity for cash are symptomatic of its newly-discovered capitalist streak. New Labour is no Labour.
Mr Puli is the Shadow Minister for the Family & Social Solidarity