A ceremony organised by the daughters of former Prime Minister and leader of the Malta Labour Party Dom Mintoff to mark 100 years from his birth was well attended by many of those who worked and followed the great leader throughout his political career.
The event was held under the patronage of President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who started her political career under the stewardship of Mr Mintoff and acted as the party’s Secretary General during the 1980s.
Also present were the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who did not address the event, the Speaker of the House Anġlu Farrugia and former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici besides family and friends of the late Mr Mintoff.
The simplicity with which the organisers of the event went about portraying the achievements Mr Mintoff made for the country were indicative of his way of doing things throughout his life, but what was equally striking throughout the ceremony was the sheer attempt at covering up those moments which have scarred Malta’s political history under Mintoff’s tenure.
This can only be described as an attempt at rewriting history. After watching a forty-five minute video of the event (below), one can only deduce that rather than marking a century from Mr Mintoff’s existence, the intention was to launder those dark moments in recent history that occurred mainly due to his staunch opposition towards the Western world and European values.
The audio-visual features and distinguished speakers did well to highlight the compassion Mr Mintoff engaged to lift those in society who barely had with what to make a living, but the speakers, if not the script writers of the features, could have done much more to present a factual and credible image of the political life of Mr Mintoff.
Had the organisers chose to celebrate Mintoff away from the political controversies he loved to stir back in his fiery days, we wouldn’t have spilled one drop of ink on this matter, but to use such an important milestone to further propagate the same issues which divided this country for almost half a century is nothing short of being rich.
During the inaugural audio visual feature, the producers presented the stand taken by Archbishop Michael Gonzi against a Labour Party led by Mr Mintoff as a ‘spoke in the wheel’.
Later during the same ceremony, Professor Ray Mangion, who sat on the organising committee of the event, described Mr Mintoff as a devoted Catholic and a champion of democracy without an effort to hint at the dark 1980s when a Mintoff-led party governed against the will of the majority and when the ugliest political crimes committed in this country took place.
Instead, Professor Mangion went on to claim that the national reconciliation process which took place after the 1987 elections won by the Nationalist Party was only possible thanks to the efforts of Mr Mintoff.
In the meantime, Eddie Fenech Adami’s name seems to have been censored from the event just like the old days of Xandir Malta when the leader of the Opposition’s name was de facto ignored.
These are indeed strange tactics considering that the communications organiser of the Mintoff’s centenary memorial event was former Times of Malta journalist Malcolm Naudi who, by the way, also failed to add photos of Strickland House torched to the ground by Labour thugs under Mr Mintoff’s leadership of the party and the country on 15th October 1979.
But the highlight of the event was reached when former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici took the stage to tell those present that it’s not Mr Mintoff that Malta should be celebrating at this moment in time but ‘Mintoffianism’. He went as far as stating that Mintoffianism should be studied by students in classrooms.
That Dr Mifsud Bonnici adores Mr Mintoff is no secret to anyone, but that he stands in front of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and states that the type of socialism preached by Mr Mintoff ought to be taught to school children without uttering a word against the current capitalist policies, from privatising Enemalta and Air Malta to the sale of Maltese citizenship, by a Labour government that can be described anything but Mintoffianism, is very hard to accept.
It was also hilarious to see the host of the event, Dr Joseph Chetcuti, repeatedly stating that Malta is great only thanks to the Socialist era of Mr Mintoff followed by the current administration. But a Freudian slip exposed his thoughts when he mistakenly said ‘previous’ administration, then quickly twisted his tongue to correct himself before anyone of those present recollected when Prime Minister Mifsud Bonnici closed our church schools and a young Joseph Chetcuti had to hide in house basements with other children of his age to finish off his secondary education.
Or when Dr Muscat, whom he admires to bits, fought tooth and nail alongside former Prime Ministers Alfred Sant and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to keep Malta out of the EU. Oh, now that we mentioned him, was Dr Sant invited to the event given that the organisers made it a point to never mention that Mr Mintoff brought down the Labour Government led by Alfred Sant in 1998?
Unfortunately the centenary event to mark Mr Mintoff’s 100 years turned out to be more partisan than anything this current slick and media savvy Labour administration tries to be.
It could have been an ideal moment to heal old wounds that continue to fester in society till this present day. A combination of Mintoff’s achievements and a humble apology for decades of political vindictive strategies as experienced during the Mintoff reign would have been ideal. Clearly this was not on the organisation committee’s mind, at all.
A clip from one of Mr Mintoff’s speeches in the 1970s used towards the end of the ceremony revealed the real intentions behind this charade. It was when Mr Mintoff emphasised to a cheering crowd that a son is proud when people tell him how his physical features make him resemble his father or mother but would be offended if he’s told to have someone else’s face, not his father’s.
The reference was a clear and personal offence to his then political adversary and former Prime Minister Dr Ġorġ Borg Olivier.
While the context in which Mr Mintoff chose to say those words pertain to the political scenario of the 1970s, it is unacceptable for those marking his 100 birthday to bring back such a clip from the past in today’s world, unless it was intended to remind us of the bullish manners used by Mr Mintoff throughout his political life.
It is with great regret to note that an opportunity at true reconciliation by Mr Mintoff’s closest allies was lost and an attempt to rewrite history was made.