If Lawrence Gonzi wants to learn something about people-people relations, in which he seems to be wholly deficient, he should watch that highly entertaining American civil war film ‘Friendly Persuasion’.
That is, of course, if he is a poor communicator, which he seems to be and which would make him to blame for the sorry state of his relations with his MPs in the last parliament.
If those poor relations, however, were due to his falling into the clutches of the soulless party strategists, I do not know what he can do. If Dr Gonzi accepts to be led by the nose, no one can help him but himself.
I do not know if actor Gary Cooper, playing Jess Birdwell in the film, was thinking laterally, but the way he managed the falling-out he had with his Quaker Minister wife was certainly ingenious, and productive. Had Dr Gonzi been as innovative, he would not have had recalcitrant MPs making him seem such a vain, pig- (and big-) headed man.
Dr Gonzi might also learn something from the scene where the young Birdwell son, “Little” Jess, tells the cavalry officer offering him a rebel bullet for keepsake if he would go away, that “it is not right to take a bribe”.
Dr Gonzi should look around him – Malta is sinking in the filth of corruption. Even the judiciary is tainted.
Where is Dr Gonzi’s morality? He has sunk so low as to not think twice about trying to pull wool over our eyes – about a Brazilian company, for instance. And about Aviation Cosmetics. Or about local government elections. Is that how he believes people should deal with their problems? If we are to lie our way out of our difficulties, who is going to believe us when we need to be believed?
If he lies about his ‘achievements’, he must lie about everything that is inconvenient, or which would be convenient, to him. I do not subscribe to the Maltese courts’ view that it is alright to call someone politically dishonest, but that it is libellous to call that someone dishonest. If someone is politically dishonest, that someone is dishonest. If someone cannot be trusted politically, that someone cannot be trusted at all. Not with one’s money, or with one’s wife (or, maybe, husband?).
No one has a smidgen of integrity. One either has integrity, or not at all.
When Dr Gonzi voted in parliament against the clearly expressed will of the people in the divorce referendum, he was standing by his anti-divorce stand. How does that compare to his stooping to deception, as minor as he sees that to be, when he needs to? Where is his uprightness? Does he believe in his principles, or is he unprincipled?
He wants us to believe he means all of us well, while his lackeys and admirers (some people admire every damn thing) are wallowing in government favours and the rest of the country can hardly deal with their hardships. He does not even hand out cake.
He means well, he assures us, but voted wholeheartedly (for him) and heartlessly (for us) for the steep utility tariffs that he proposed. Now he is subsidising Enemalta, to keep the tariffs down, he says. Does he believe in subsidies, or doesn’t he? He has said he does not believe in subsidies. Maybe he does not know what his beliefs are.
Of course, he himself does not find it hard to make ends meet. That is left to parents who feel humiliated at being unable to grant their children’s wishes, and to all those who have barely enough to eke out a meal. Christmas is to them just another day, if not the worst day of their year, for having more demands on their pocket than at any other time of the year.
Go tell that to Angela Merkel.
Dr Gonzi promised us a tax cut five years ago, making a promise which he did not mean to keep. After that promise helped him win the government, he ditched it and voted behind our backs for a €600 weekly increase for himself and his ministers. And the utility bills had not yet hit the ceiling. Now, having dug ever so deeper into our public debt hole, he has promised the tax cut again, because an election is again round the corner.
Does he know there is a Corrupt Practices Act? He cannot be taken to court on what he is doing, of course, for how can anyone prove such an argument in court, but if he has a conscience and that conscience is sound, he must know he is doing very wrong. He should stop pandering to those leading him by the nose, and start putting the country’s interests first. He should learn to believe, unlike the other Gonzi who came before him, that ultimately it is better to lose an honestly fought campaign, than to try to win and dishonestly have your way.
Roger Mifsud