Some people doubt that studying literature is useful and wonder whether it should be discontinued. I dislike utilitarian defences of learning but if I were with my back against the wall, I would say that one reason to teach literature is for intelligent students to learn how to analyse complex real-life situations, such as politics and its dramatis personae – the characters who inhabit its theatre-like world.

If we were to consider the current developments in the local political scene as a tragedy (or a comedy, or even a tragi-comedy), we could then apply literary criticism methods to look into, dissect and, ultimately, understand what is really happening. Politics is – more often than not – a sort of stage, with actors wearing masks. Many people just accept the action at face value, simply accepting what the masks tell them. But a few others look behind the masks.

Let me elucidate. Theatre is a simplified explanation of real life; masks and make-up are meant to simplify and bypass long explanations. Real life, on the other hand, is complex in that the actors on the political stage wear masks for the public, make-up for their colleagues (on both sides of the House) and beneath all that – if anything actually remains – there is their real self. Very few politicians manage to bring their real self before the people and those who do establish an incredible rapport, an unbreakable bond, with the people. Some of the most beloved politicians were/are beloved because of this. The others were/are simply actors wearing masks and make-up.

So, we who comment on politics have to present our analysis on three levels. One: we try to explain the mask; two: we invite readers to look behind the mask, to see the make-up worn for the other politicians and, three, we try to ascertain if there is anything beneath the make-up. Sometimes we find nothing – it would be just an empty vol-au-vent.

Thus, we could say that studying literature at school prepares tomorrow’s intelligent voters for this tripartite exercise.

Let us take a recent statement made by Robert Abela, a Labour MP who is also a consultant to the Prime Minister. This consultancy was described last June as “fundamentally wrong” by Commissioner for Standards George Hyzler. In a sense, Robert Abela was given the same post as his father during Alfred Sant’s stint as Prime Minister.

Let us analyse whether there are a mask and make-up in the case of Dr Abela. It is common knowledge that, like his father before him, Dr Abela is ambitious. He is one of the hopefuls who aims to fill the vacancy once the incumbent (The Invincible) decides to do the honourable thing and call it a day.

But whereas other hopefuls do not carry much political baggage, Dr Abela is a politically complex figure and his role in the play (this pièce de théâtre, this teatrin) that is the current political situation requires some analysis.

Last week, this newspaper reported that Dr Abela asked an important question: “Are we living our socialist principles, or do we feel ashamed to even mention them?” The “we” refers to the Labour Party.

The question was most probably rhetoric. Is it not common knowledge that Labour, in its current incarnation, has thrown away its last vestiges of socialism? It has unashamedly distanced itself from social democracy and brazen-facedly striven to achieve neo-liberal objectives. The poor and the vulnerable have been swept aside and their place has been taken by a certain category of businessmen, opportunists and proponents of identity politics. I argued as much in my 2016 book L-Aqwa fl-Ewropa, and I quoted numerous Labour exponents to support my argument. The fact that, only now, has Dr Abela felt the need to ask his question raises a number of issues.

His political conviction is not one of them. I actually believe that, like his father, Dr Abela Junior truly wants to be a socialist politician. So I certainly do not view him as a hypocrite. Drs Abela – father and son – are both socialists: there is no doubt in my mind about this.

The salient political characteristic of Robert Abela, as a character in the play we are analysing, is another. It forms part of the political legacy bequeathed to him by his father, George.

George Abela, known as “The Switch” in his University days, was always popular, mostly because he is endowed with two qualities: charisma and cold-bloodedness. But the admixture of these two qualities must have created in him a sort of recklessness, a sort of belief that he can get away with anything.

Let me take you back to 1998: Dom Mintoff is quarrelling with Alfred Sant who, despite the advice he is being drip-fed, cannot find how to appease his feisty predecessor. The quarrel escalates and Dr Sant sees an early election as the only way out; to many in the Labour Party it is as clear as day that this is suicidal.

I can still remember two old-school politicians arguing in the Executive Committee against such an unwise decision: the thunderous Joe Debono Grech and the suave Freddie Micallef. Their styles were different, but their message was the same and, deep down, everybody knew that they were right. Theirs was a position based on commonsense and long years of political experience. But, ultimately, they were echoing the mood among the grassroots. The electorate had decidedly turned against Labour, mostly because of the water and electricity bills and, more importantly, because the people felt betrayed that the cash registers introduced by the VAT innovation had not been removed. It is true that Labour had promised nothing of the sort but, on the other hand, it had done next to nothing to dispel the ‘misunderstanding’. Playing such games with the electorate is like playing with fire – you are sure to burn not just your fingers, but more.

George Abela also opposed the idea of an early election: but he went a step further. His self-confidence was boosted by his undeniable charisma and his misguided cold-bloodedness which led him to pronounce the fateful statement that if Labour went for an early election he would “stop there”. That statement broke the unwritten holy rule of loyalty. From a stalwart who disagrees but is loyal, he suddenly transmogrified into a stalwart who disagrees and stopped being loyal. He failed to foresee the consequences of his actions, to understand that his decision would – in the final analysis – be viewed as a contributing factor to the ensuing defeat at the polls.

This is the political legacy that Dr Abela Senior bequeathed to Dr Abela Junior and this situation makes me suppose that Abela fils is haunted by the political ghost of Abela père. To my mind, the political legacy of the father conditions the political action of the son.

If Dr Abela Junior really believes the question he asked about Labour’s distancing itself from socialism – and there is no reason to doubt the sincerity and relevance of his question – he should either have not contested the general elections with Labour or else he should now leave. It’s an almost universal verdict – one that was emitted quite some time before the last elections – that socialism and social democracy are the North Pole to Joseph Muscat’s Neoliberal South Pole. My analysis is that Dr Abela Junior cannot leave because of the long shadow Dr Abela Senior’s political history casts on him.

Dr Abela Senior left Labour in 1998 for strategic purposes, which came to the fore 10 years later when he ran for Labour leader and lost to The Invincible. In 1998, Dr Abela Senior did not leave Labour on a point of (political philosophy) principle. His mistake had far-reaching consequences, and he paid dearly for it in the Labour Movement (though he was handsomely rewarded elsewhere). Had Dr Abela Senior been more realistically self-confident and less cold-blooded, he would have expressed his doubts about the wisdom of an early election but kept his position at the frontline, as did George Vella, the other deputy leader. Dr Vella wisely garnered everybody’s respect; Dr Abela foolishly squandered it.

Fast forward to 2019: Dr Abela Junior should have left on a point of political philosophy principle, because really The Invincible is a shameless Neoliberal for whom the vulnerable mean very little, if anything. Instead, Dr Abela Junior has decided to stay on, opening his (undoubtedly sincere) philosophical statement to justified accusations of opportunism.

Knowing and having studied literary works of art helps to understand the dilemma Robert Abela is facing. To me, he is philosophically motivated but experientially blocked.

He probably understands that he will be perceived as an opportunist who is pandering to the old-school socialists in the Labour Party and I am sure he does not like to be perceived as an opportunist. On the other hand, if he distances himself from the Neoliberal Prime Minister, he is afraid he will be compared to his father, with all the bad memories such a comparison would evoke. So he stays on, criticising the Prime Minister for abandoning the vulnerable but not doing anything to help the vulnerable for whom his heart bleeds.

This is the tragedy of Robert Abela on the stage of Maltese political drama. But Robert Abela would make a compelling secondary character in a play called The Invincible: the Tragedy of Lust for Power – a secondary character because he would not be as compelling as the main character: The Invincible.

Now even Neoliberal Martin – writing elsewhere in the printed media – has made the effort (politely) to remind The Invincible that, because of his tactical mistake of pre-announcing his own political death to the four corners of the world, he now has to leave – and by not later than six months from today, underlined Neolib Martin. If even Neolib Martin is saying it, then it means that yours truly and many others are right: for the sake of the nation, The Invincible must go.

(By the by, that is the modified version of a verse borrowed from Jesus Christ Superstar, one of the lines sung by Caiaphas.)

For The Invincible it won’t be easy. Admitting (even implicitly) the tactical mistake carries a price he cannot psychologically afford. On top of that, it is clear that he enjoys taking the nation for one ride after another (probably more than he enjoys governing). His mindset is such that he enjoys being the sharpest knife in the drawer, the smartest kid in Form 2C, and so on. His Cheshire-cat grin attests to this.

It will not be psychologically easy for him to get down from the political rollercoaster that has provided him with an endless supply of kicks. But he needs to come to terms with the fact that all ego trips end one day. As his wife tells their children – and clearly Mother Michelle is endowed with more commonsense in her head – he will not be Prime Minister forever. She is self-evidently right. But her mistake is to limit her words of wisdom to the children

who are, for the record, two adorable girls who must really make their parents proud. It is the husband who does not make the wife proud, because he should pay heed to her words. It is not for his own sake (though also) – it is mostly for the sake of the nation which, as I have previously written – and Neolib Martin has echoed me – does not need a lame-duck Prime Minister.

My Personal Library (68)

If you are interested in theatre and masks, why not read about the commedia dell’arte? Two good books on this Italian tradition are Allardyce Nicoll’s The World of Harlequin (1966) and Pierre Louis Duchartre’s The Italian Comedy (1963). I bought them second-hand when I became fixated on Sergio Leone’s movies. As Leone’s first Western was inspired by an Akira Kurosowa movie which in turn had been inspired by a Dashiell Hammett pot-boiler novel, itself inspired by Carlo Goldoni’s Harlequin Servant of two Masters, I read these two books before going to Milan’s Teatro Piccolo to watch Goldoni’s play.