From Mr A. Azzopardi

In Malta in the 1960s, mature women were conditioned not to speak openly about their wedding night. Of other nights in bed with other men, they spoke not at all. Today a woman journalist on an independent newspaper, who was born in that era, having learned the language of power as an add-on to her emotional fluency and a skill required for her financial survival, feels free to tell us that prostituted political propaganda has become acceptable for her social and cultural rewards.

Any editor who encourages such morality over political issues is usually a hypocrite in public life and we will find it hard to decide whether he is an apostate or an imposter. On the other hand, this well paid journalist, who demoralises with her character assassinations, is invariably plain and the world looks upon her as someone who has either abandoned her good principles or never possessed any in the first place.

What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Crime and the criminal confront us with the perplexity of radical evil, but only the hypocrites are really rotten to the core.

Administrations between 1971 and 2007

The final financial analysis of these two opposite Maltese administrations will record that, while the labour administration headed by Mr Mintoff started with zero assets and a yearly agreement of Lm 13 million (EUR30.29 million) yearly for seven years from NATO, in 1987 his administration left the Maltese ledger with a credit of over Lm400 million (EUR932 million).

Today, Malta’s EU budget over the next 7 seven years (2007-2013) is EUR855 million. When its yearly membership contributions over the same period are deducted, Malta’s share from the EU will be reduced by 50 per cent.

Dr Fenech Adami’s legacy, on the other side of the ledger, will remain etched in stone. His culture of entitlement, cultivated by his Nationalist party’s administration for the last 20 years, has callously mismanaged all those liquid assets, to the detriment of the Maltese working class. By vindictive and discriminating policies, his government has burdened this miniscule island with another Lm1,500 million (EUR3,495 million) of national debt and guarantees to appease free-enterprising insiders.

Contracts awarded to Mrs Caruana Galizia for Lm30,000 (EUR69,900) have been the norm. Her husband Peter was the recipient of the legal contract with regard to Dar Malta in Brussels. Prostituted political propaganda continues to be well-rewarded during these PN administrations.

In the last budget, according to government statistics, this Gonzi administration collected over Lm600 million (EUR1,398 million) in taxes, auctioned off Lm95 million (EUR221.35 million) of the nation’s assets and had the audacity to add another Lm80 million (EUR186.40 million) in budgetary deficits.

To highlight Daphne’s nauseating propaganda and give credit where credit is due, during the last 20 years of PN administrations, assorted chocolate bars and colour TV’s have been in great supply. But then again, why shouldn’t the Maltese expect such luxuries, considering that Lm2 billion (EUR4.66 billion) has been frivolously borrowed and spent to elevate the artificial illusion of equal political status for Malta within the European Union legislature of 732 seats. This political equality is confirmed by Malta’s five parliamentary seats in Brussels.

Justice

Whatever these PN historical pundits say, and no matter how cogently Mrs Caruana Galizia tries to explain her circumstances of incarceration surrounding the past MLP administrations, there will always be these right wing conspiracy theorists of her ilk, who truly believe that Fenech Adami and his dirty politics and offensive policies are beyond condemnation.

At a time when the next general election campaign is due to start provoking compari-sons, how can any Maltese whose Christian roots remain intact, forget that when the PN was in opposition, no danger was too great, no man too seedy and no situation too dangerous.

Just as long as they got their fix, not one of them was morally accountable or sympathetic to the murder of an innocent teenager who had the misfortune to open a parcel sent to her father who chose to honour his professional responsibility.

On the 30th anniversary of Karen Grech’s tragic death, Mrs Caruana Galizia is asking us to sympathise and remember her teenage arrest for stupidity and civil disobedience.

Does anyone remember Mrs Caruana Galizia writing an opinion on arrests for civil disobedience in other EU states?

Has this bold and no longer young and stupid journalist ever had the professional skills to research past PN administrations of the 1940s,1950s and 1960s and the justice that prevailed against women who worked 70 hours in a seven-day week for a measly Lm2 (EUR4.66), children from working-class families who could not afford an education and had the misfortune to remain illiterate and without social assistance, or teenagers who grew up poor never receiving the children’s allowance or earning the right and freedom to vote?

Women like Daphne Caruana Galizia are most fascinating in middle age, after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. However, since few women ever admit to passing that threshold, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely. At a time when the next general election is so near, Daphne’s prostituted political propaganda once again tries to seduce the virtuous voters.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by irresponsible politicians and deceitful harbingers.

Anthony Azzopardi

Niagara

Ontario, Canada