I am not writing to judge in any way Mr. Mintoff’s personality. Like all of us, he had his good and bad sides and now that he has passed away, I commend him to God’s love and mercy in the same way that I will have need of that same love and mercy when I myself pass away. No one is perfect. He certainly did believe in what he was doing and probably did it in the best way he thought possible. He was one of the founding members of the welfare state and for that I am grateful to him with his concepts of social welfare that mitigated where possible the blows that life deals to all of us, especially the poor who do not have the resources to compensate.

I like to think of Dom Mintoff philosophically as Hegelian. Like Hegel he idealised the state to the point that it superseded all else, even to the deference of the common man. Hegel’s idealisation of the state gave rise to both Fascism and Marxism. It was to the latter that Mintoff obviously leaned and when he was Prime Minister, he was indeed the State. Very little else remained to counter its dictates. Many say that Mintoff’s prime target was the Church’s influence on Maltese society but it was not only the Church that was targeted, as the whole of Maltese civil society was dismantled to a practically non-existent level. All that remained in the political equation was the state. He also seemed to apply Hegel’s dialectic in his arguments as he often chose very forceful styles to put forward his own views. Unfortunately, often, very little synthesis ever came out of these confrontational dialogues, which often ended unpleasantly for the other party in the debate in one way or another with the suspension of many civil liberties in the process.

His vision of setting up social welfare programmes was indeed commendable, but social programmes need a strong working economy to sustain them and it was on the latter programme that perhaps his concept of state did not work as well. In yesterday’s (and today’s) world, a solid economy could never be built up without the aid of a well established civil society helping to shore up any state aided economy. Unfortunately, the absolute dismantling of this sector at the time rang the death knell of any hope of a vibrant and flexible economy. Since the state took over most of the functions in banking, commerce and business, health, energy, communications, and individual initiative was not encouraged, it was evident that the state was not going to be able to sustain its welfare programme for any long foreseeable time.

The state also saw to a severe weakening of civil society due to the lack of proper educational opportunities for all. The state, at the time, was not very supportive of education as a whole (and I suspect that this was primarily an ideological concept), especially in the post-secondary sector. Many post secondary institutions of learning were closed or dismantled and it was this weakness that led to a very low turn-out of graduates, as they were limited by the very low number of courses available strictly tailored to the state’s immediate short-sighted need. With this low turnout of post-secondary graduates, working opportunities for citizens suffered and unemployment grew with many ending up being employed by the state on a fixed minimum wage. As working opportunities suffered and graduates were in low supply, so did the economy, which ended up implementing an import substitution policy that saw many Maltese leaving the island to find employment abroad and also buying their goods abroad as they were not available for purchase here. The attempted dismantling of Church’s educational institutions, had it succeeded, would only have made things much worse.

The state also saw that our foreign policy also suffered with the playing off of one side against another, and the tendency to place foreign policy as a betting card in the interests of countries with which we had very little socio-cultural affiliation. In fact, the state’s biggest failure here was the inability to recognise the importance of building a foreign policy consonant with our very own socio-cultural interests with like-minded countries.

It is partly due to the force of his personality that constitutional amendments were passed before the 1987 election that allowed the party with the majority of votes to govern, which was a measure of his statesmanship. I believe that in his later years he was able to retire from politics with the peace of mind that the country he struggled to serve, was moving in the right direction albeit with less state intervention and the building of a greater role for civil society. Maybe he could have concluded that had he used more tact than force in his dealings with others, he would have arrived at the same destination with many less enemies and more efficiently. He might also have had insights to the fact that his Hegelian view of state idealisation may not have been necessarily the best or only one to use in order to attain progress. Whatever one’s views, the fact remains that he dedicated and served the nation in the best way he knew possible and for this political contribution he ought to be shown the respect due him as an ex-Prime Minister who helped form the composition of present Maltese society. To his family and friends, I offer my sincere condolences.

Michael Asciak MD, PhD.