From Mr M. Tabone-Vassallo
Judge Giovanni Bonello’s contribution to The Malta Independent on Sunday of 4 March was brought to my attention by several acquaintances. I read it with great attention and respect, as befits a contribution from an eminent judge, who is frequently quoted and referred to in the international “broadsheets” I read everyday and who, last month, was presented by his fellow judges with a specially commissioned and printed book of his dissenting opinions, something that has never happened before in the 50-year history of the European Court in which he now serves – at least to my knowledge.
No one bothered to bring to my attention an earlier contribution to your newspaper, to which the eminent judge alludes in his erudite contribution. That may be befitting but in any case, I must admit that it totally and irretrievably escaped my attention. If I deduce correctly from the contribution by said eminent judge, your earlier contributor had written against the proposal by the Deputy Prime Minister to erect a monument to celebrate those altruistic Maltese patriots who were illegally deported to Uganda during WWII. Of course, it is to our shame that they do not have one yet. But that, luckily, is remediable. It is, however, to the eternal shame and dishonour of all those who voted in favour of this crime against humanity, particularly the Maltese among them, that they did so.
One might presume to deduce why some felt reprehensibly and shamefully inclined to promote such a vile crime against humanity at the time. But at first, I was at a loss to fathom out why anyone nowadays should survive in a time warp and, in any small way, give them credence. But then I recalled Oscar Wilde being concerned that: “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” It behoves those who will disappear into oblivion with the lightest sprinkling of the dust of time, to say something outrageous if they want to be talked about, for however fleeting a moment. As to the patriots who suffered this ignoble crime against humanity, they already have a living monument in the hearts of all true Maltese, in our Independence and in our full membership of the European Union. The outrageous fact that there is not as yet a physical monument to their memory, is to the shame of all our politicians.
I did not have the privilege of knowing many of these patriots in person. I know most of them through the documented history and the recollections of my father and uncles. The few I had the privilege of knowing personally, foremost among them Dr Herbert Ganado, make me search in vain nowadays for people of their calibre and integrity. It would be presumptuous of me to try to add to the measured and precise exposition of the eminent judge. I shall just borrow the words of an Englishman to say that I stand four square with him on this matter.
Mario Tabone-Vassallo
ST PAUL’S BAY