Well, actually, I myself am quite thankful not to live within the same street, let alone country, which Mr J Martinelli inhabits (TMID, 18 November). We have enough people who are so politically immature – now who needs to grow up before it’s too late, Mr Martinelli? – as to pounce on you and try to attack you and claim that you belong to this or that political affiliation simply because you choose to criticise things that are done in Malta, which is after all my own country and the country in which I live, in which I have always worked and in which I have always paid and am still paying taxes.

This mentally-blocked, politically-blinded Maltese-Canadian is so blurred in his outlook and in the way he sees and reasons things out that he can see nothing which isn’t either red or blue – he just spurts out would-be and senseless statements with regard to people who criticise him, such as the undersigned. From distant Canada, this Mr Know-all declares what colour Franco Farrugia is, what his political sentiments are, and to what political affiliation he belongs.

He also knows – and for sure! – where I was on the evening of Friday, 14 November! Of course, I wouldn’t dream of showing him proof where I really was that evening, for fear of being censored by this respectable newspaper. Let Mr Canada continue guessing – apparently, he has nothing better to do.

Now, readers can see for themselves how this writer spends his pension days in comfy Canada, with a comfy pension, a comfy life, and criticises and tells us, the Maltese, how to get on with our lives and how to politically manage our own affairs.

He also, quite as comfortably, affords a month-long holiday in Malta – how many pensionable Maltese can afford such a holiday as that, I ask – and therefore professes to be qualified enough to put his nose in affairs where he has no right to do so.

Mr Martinelli, many who read your comments are simply disgusted at your disrespectful, one-sided, unjust and often senseless diatribes and wonder how come a person who lives in Canada can show such a penchant for stoking the fire which nourishes the worst element which one can find in our political situation, that element which is throttling us and impeding us from moving on.

An element which will keep us from growing further, like that tree whose roots are stuck to an unbreakable pot in the soil, unable to grow any further.

Malta, indeed, cannot grow any further unless this element is destroyed. I am here referring to that mentality of keeping a grip on anyone who dares criticise our politicians-of-sorts and the status quo, and punishing such free-thinking critics by labelling them red or blue, according to our whims and fancies. It seems that this element is not limited to our shores – it emigrates as well!

Well, you can label me in any way you like. I laugh and scoff at your antics.

Franco Farrugia

Pieta