Last Wednesday, I was invited by my friend, Brian Hansford on his programme Realta'. The topic chosen by the presenter was the issue of the publication by the press of the telephone recordings between the RIU and Minister Mallia's driver. The same issue cropped up again on Dissett, a State television programme where the new Police Commissioner was asked whether the telephone conversation leaks,which are now being called by the Malta Independent the Malliagate affair, are going to be investigated. It should be noted that such a debate is not happening haphazardly but in concurrence with the Labour Party. At the moment, there is a strong fundamentalist force within the Labour Party to use the Data Protection Act to literally 'crucify' the person who leaked these recordings.

On my part, I would like to use this blog to express my gratitude to the person (or possibly persons) who did leak these recordings. Since these were made public in different newspapers and electronic media, it is not clear whether this is the work of one or more persons. Nevertheless, the leak was instrumental in bringing to the attention of the public the unprofessional manner in which the police conducts its daily business. Undoubtedly the publication of these recordings was instrumental in revealing the truth (or part of it) behind this whole lurid affair.

These conversations were published in MaltaToday, The Times and The Malta Independent as well as the media of the Nationalist Party. During the TV debate mentioned earlier, I opined the idea that Government itself could be behind these leaks. Saviour Balzan, the editor Malta Toda ypersonally assured me that his source was not the Government and I would like to thank him for bringing this to my attention. While the name of the person or persons who passed over the information are irrelevant to the real issue, it is also no business of the Commissioner of Data.

I augur all the free media to continue in their strong defence for freedom of the press and carry on publishing similar stories. This is how democracy is strengthened. What is happening now, unfortunately, is that Labour is going diametrically contrary to its promises and commitment before the election. The argument that the person who divulged such information is a criminal and should be prosecuted goes to show that the recent enactment of the Whistleblowers' Act is a farce. Was not the individual/s who leaked the information a whistle-blower?

We now have the Commissioner of Data and the new Commissioner of Police committed to a witch-hunt to find who broke the law by leaking these telephone conversations. The secular state has succeeded in creating an updated and more brutal version of the inquisition. It is obvious that there is real pressure within the Labour Party for the Government to return to the Eighties thus running the risk that Malta will have a repeat of sorrowful tales when innocent persons were crucified for actions that they had not committed. Immediately to mind is the story of the prison guard who was found guilty for aiding and abetting the escape from prison of the murderer of the Labourite criminal and stalwartil-Fusellu, when in fact he was innocent.

We now have a second attack again reminiscent of the Eighties. This times it is the GWU. The GWU issued a statement in support of MUT and accusing the Curia of concocting a policy document that discriminates how staff is to be recruited in Church Schools.

Honestly, I do not think that the GWU has the credentials to speak about recruitment of staff in Church schools. It should be remembered that the GWU was part of the Government apparata in the Eighties that fully supported Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in their attempt to close down Church schools in Malta. For the GWU, these schools were, and still are, an anathema; an object of hatred. They are not Muslim schools and therefore Church schools have no right to their Catholic identity. GWU joined the chorus which ultimately aims at repeating the 80s experiment but this time in a very subtle way. Yet the scope remains the same;destroying these schools by annihilating their Catholic ethos. In the Eighties, the attack was frontal. The Church and her schools werea hindrance to the Labour Government of the day that intended to make Malta part of the Muslim world, to be exact a colonial extension of Libya.

Gaddafi was invited to Malta and, at a meeting in Bormla, he stated that his grandmother was our grandmother, implying that we were blood brothers. Our passports became green coloured and Arabic was imposed in all Government schools together with Church and Private schools. It became a compulsory entry requirement for University. At Government schools, we were taught (erroneously) that geologically, Malta was now part of the North African Continental Shelf and Tunisia was the nearest land to Malta. In other words, geographically we were part of Africa. A mosque was opened and eventually a Muslim school. It is incorrect to say that the Maltese employed at this Muslim school were Catholic. It was a simply a cover-up. First and foremost, those Maltese employed to teach there were Labourites: inclusivity and diversity my foot.

The Arabs in Malta remained recognisant to Labour primarily because Mintoff brought them over. They saw and still see in the Labour Party, the fulfilment of their dream that one day Malta can reunitewith the Arabic and Muslim World. It should be remembered that Malta was and still remains a lost land of Islam, having been under Shiite rule for 300 years (a longer period than Frenchand British rule!)  Therefore there is a covert desire to have this land back as part of the Muslim world.

I would like to state that by this argument, I am not expressing reservations or attacking the rights of Muslims or any other Faithsto have their own schools. Muslims have a right to their confessional schools and I have no problem with their recruitment policies. But what holds good for the Muslims Schools and our Political Parties should also hold good for all other schools or organizations that are governed by a different political ideal or a different confessional creed.

Politics is also a form of a system of beliefs.  Members supporting a political party unite behind a political creed. It is a known public fact that the GWU is an extension of the Labour Party. I would like to ask the General Workers Union, how many non-Labourites work at Union Press or in one of the Unions' subsidiary companies? The old adage that charity begins at home still holds or does it not? The GWU should lead by example and start employing individuals who do not vote Labour or who agree to be members of another union. I will let the readers of this blogconclude what the answer of the GWU would be. Therefore, all discourse about employment in Church schools by this Union is wrapped in political hype. Like MUT, the GWU is using the argument of political correctness as a cover up to push forwarda hidden agenda.

Contrary to what is normally claimed, State financing of Catholic schools is not automatic here in Malta. The Labour Prime Ministers, Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici were the first to start messing about with Church schools and until then, Catholic schools did not receive any subvention from the Government of the day. They were auto-financed by the parents of the pupils. Mintoff and Mifsud Bonnici next wanted these schools to start offering free education, which was practically impossible. It was a mere excuse to close them down. When, in 1987, the Nationalist Party got elected, instead of returning to the old system where Church schools ran on the same lines of the private ones, the Nationalist eyed the property of the Church. Like Labour before them, they wanted to take it over. Labour did not want to offer compensation. The Nationalists were more intelligent. They found the support of the Nuncio of the day, a certain Celata, who was the protégé of the Secretary of State at the time, Agostino Casaroli.

Celata bungled the issue so badly the he managed to ruin the Catholic Church in Malta. I will not go into the detailshere; this is a separate issue. But, nonetheless, the Nationalist Government ended up taking the property of the Church. In return, the Government removed Civil Marriage for Catholics, whichhad been introduced by Mintoff in 1975. This was a big mistake. More importantly, the Nationalists agreed that Church schools would be free but financed by the Government in lieu of the Church's property. Therefore, any bone of contention made that the State is financing Catholic education is totally false. The present Government (as previous ones) is giving money to the Church school solely as compensation for the property that the Authorities took away from the Church. Incidentally there remains still more Church property to be passed over to the State. Thus the present administration can continue to lap up the cream as the remaining property is still worth billions of euros. 

Thanks to Catholic schools, Government is saving a lot of money, as economically a student in the Church schools costs less than one in a Government school as parents in Church schools support their respective schools through donations and teachers at Catholic schools are shown more respect than their counterparts in State schools. This is one of the reasons why students in Church schools usually fare better than those in State schools.

Marlene Farrugia is right in accusing the Labour Party of being hijacked by extremists, who want the country to return to the Eighties when press freedom was under threat and religious freedom for Catholics was under attack. Labour fundamentalists always considered those belief systems that are natural enemies to Catholicism and/or to European culture and values, as their sacrosanct allies. In the Eighties, physical violence ran the show. Today, the tactics are subtler and done in a refined waythrough the use of pseudo-legal claims. But at the end of the day, the result is the same. We can start talking of a new cultural form of legal violence. This is the new weapon discovered by the Labour Party in power.The Data Protection Act is serving them well. But its use will lead this Governmentto a political implosion. Such tactics will play into thehands of the Opposition as they expose the Labour Party and the Government's political hypocrisy while the claim made, by Dr Joseph Muscat - prior to the general election - that Labour is safe, is fast vanishing into thin air.