I am forced to reply to a letter, The indomitable ‘Dom’ (TMID, 16 August) since while commenting on Valerie Borg’s opinion, Mr Edward Torpiano of Floriana chose to mention me. Mr Torpiano’s argument is unfounded since he mentioned my book Mexxejja, Hassieba u Deputati Laburisti 1920-2000, out of context and might also have given your readers a wrong opinion about this book.

Mexxejja, Hassieba u Deputati Laburisti 1920-2000 is a book in which I compiled the curriculum vitae of all those who have been elected in the Legislative Assembly, later Maltese Parliament for the Malta Labour Party since the formation of the party, and those who in my opinion had a major public role in the party and so merit to be considered as front-liners and veterans. I have written two other political history books, Ma’ Sebh is-Seklu and Is-Sedizzjoni, in which I have been very careful not to be politically biased while being historically correct. I had no difficulty while working on Mexxejja, Hassieba u Deputati Laburisti 1920-2000, because I was only writing short biographies with the basic essential information about a group of Labourites, including their photograph.

In Dom Mintoff’s and Alfred Sant’s short biography in this book, I have written what is necessary to be known so that the readers can have a clear image of each particular person. In fact in the 214 pages, I crammed no less than 160 biographies and this book is by no means focused on the history of the Malta Labour Party or its leaders. Allow me also to make it clear that I was never censored or forced to write in any particular way or subject by the publishers Sensiela Kotba Socjalisti, so again, Mr Torpiano is wrong in stating that this was “another left wing attempt to censor information”.

Finally, I wish to add that I contributed to the book Maltese Biographies of the Twentieth Century published by PIN, in which one finds the biographies of over 60 Labour MPs, including Mintoff and Sant, and there was no one, not even Michael Schiavone (co-author of this book) who had this biased mentality of Mr Torpiano.

For me this story stops here since I have no time to waste on senseless arguments.

Francis Galea

by email