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Karol, the purveyor of faith
There are few words to describe the high emotions Karol Wojtila fires in all those who have lived on through his long papacy. Unlike many of his predecessors the Pope had the great advantage of being a communicator in a media-hungry world. His charisma and his strong faith overshadowed his conservatism on the choice of saints, women’s issues, birth control and gay rights. His strong faith, that mystical requirement for any believer, injected an immeasurable energy into Catholics the world over.
And despite all the insinuations of his close ties with the US, not an occasion failed him when he did not speak out against the warmongering notions of that superpower.
From a historical perspective his greatest feat was his impetus in tearing down the communist oligarchy in his home country and eastern Europe as a whole. And not to be forgotten is the apology to the Jews for the interminable number of years when Christianity portrayed Jews as underlings.
When Gonzi is compared to Sant
There are many ways to describe a government crisis. There are many words one can use. But this is not an opportune time to mince words. Everyone on the street and in political circles – and I am not referring to the Labour party – talks of a government that resembles the Alfred Sant administration. Indeed many Nationalists make a direct comparison between Alfred Sant and Lawrence Gonzi.
Many unkind words have been spilled in the last weeks about Joe Saliba, the secretary-general who will be re-elected first as a member on the executive and then as secretary-general in an electoral process that is archaic to say the least. Yet the blame, as Dr Gonzi has rightly said in an ill-timed interview in a daily newspaper, is not Saliba’s.
The stark truth is that the fault is Gonzi’s.
Now everyone will say that what follows are not my words but someone else’s – but the kind souls can continue saying what they have always said, for I have always spoken my mind and anyone who knows me well enough will confirm that.
The fault lies with the complete lack of reconciliation from Lawrence Gonzi.
Instead of unifying the party, his unilateral decision not to coerce Tonio Borg not to stand for deputy leader led to a situation where his main adversary in the leadership contest was effectively left out in the cold.
As Eddie worked with Guido, in a tandem that offered stability, Gonzi and Dalli should have worked out a future together, if it was common sense that counted.
Apart from the fact that Tonio Borg is simply not the right material for deputy leadership, the sheer absence of a magnanimous Lawrence Gonzi is very telling.
Many of Gonzi’s staunchest supporters, including some prominent ministers, refer to John Dalli as yesterday’s man.
Surely if they go on thinking like this, come the next election the PN could well become yesterday’s party. Can they afford to go to an election with a time bomb waiting to explode any minute?
Another comment one comes across in common parlance is the reference to the people around Lawrence Gonzi.
Everyone whispers about his total lack of ‘men’ who can guide him through the thorny path called Premiership, reference is undoubtedly made to his personal assistant Edgar ‘musical chairs’ Galea Curmi, and his user-unfriendly PRO Alan Camilleri.
They all lament the disappearance of Richard Cachia Caruana from the centre of things and though they all agree that RCC was not exactly Florence Nightingale, they argue that every PM needs someone who will, for example, advise him not to appear on some silly Borg Bonaci burlesque afternoon show on NET TV in the role of a tourist guide at Castille.
Lawrence Gonzi need not worry about what people are thinking. Everyone is under the impression that the PN leadership is in serious s***.
Cabinet ministers who whisper in my ears confirm this too. Even backbenchers who get to appear on glossy one-minute-read magazines before an election are sounding the same alarm bells. Gonzi’s decision to brush off the latest electoral results was an arrogant move and the cherry on the cake for many Nationalists, and what I would call Nazzjonalisti tal-passa, the voters that have always led the PN to win elections.
Many of the latecomers such as Joe Saliba will not know what a Nazzjonalist tal-passa is all about.
In 1976 and then again in 1981 and 1987, many labourites and many labour-leaning families deserted Labour and crossed over to the PN.
They were sick and tired, disgusted at the antics of a giant who in his supposedly twilight years was interviewed with love and devotion by Pierre Portelli on NET TV in the summer of 1998 over a project called Cottonera. That man was Dom Mintoff, an arrogant, intolerant and destructive politician who forced many labourites to do the thing they had never wished, migrating to a party that was never their home.
They moved to the Nationalist Party, the party that had looked the other way when Archbishop Gonzi effectively excommunicated them or blocked the burial of their loved ones in cemeteries in the early sixties; when holding a copy of l-orrizont effectively meant labelling oneself as a baby-eating communist.
But Mintoff’s excesses of the seventies and eighties, idolised by the Fusellus and arrogant ministers like the Karmenu Vellas, the Lorry Sants and Joe Grimas, were so intolerable that multitudes departed in silence. When Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici appeared on the scene anointed by Mintoff, many were glad to know that their decision had been the right one.
I recall that in my student days, my mates would be warned by their parents not to talk to me about politics. I was marked as a Labourite. Little did they know that politics was a no go subject at home, as serious as saying Haqq ****, and that I did not even know the politics of my parents. Parents in those days protected their children by avoiding political discussions at home.
Today many of those Nazzjonalisti tal-passa are in their late fifties and sixties. They number in their thousands. They owe nothing to the PN, they owe nothing to no one.
They never criss-crossed the Fosos hoping to be seen by all. Or popped up at mass meetings, or phoned up Clyde Puli to tell him prosit tal-programm, or stopped Simon Busuttil in the street smiling cosmetically down at him and turning all wobbly at the knees. Or asked favours from ministers.
They did nothing of the sort. They owed it to themselves and their children and the country they loved to do the one thing that Joe Saliba denied to the citizens of Marsa and Zejtun: to vote.
For those Nazzjonalisti tal-passa, whether Lawrence Gonzi reacts or not to the red lights beaming in his direction is not a matter of life or death. It is a question of principle. It is not their concern if Alfred Sant finds himself at Castille by default.
They have come to understand that reason is not always on the side of the victorious and that the political parties continue to feed their co-existence through ‘yes’ men overly preoccupied with their political future and the income that flows their way from the consultancies and contracts awarded to them as a consequence of their political allegiance.
Pullicino and being
correct
George Pullicino comes under considerable scrutiny and flak from this newspaper. He should. He is after all minister of the hottest potato: the environment. But for two reasons, he should not be castigated but applauded. The first was his politically correct decision over imposing an enforcement notice on a Mosque.
The Malta Environment and Planning Authority may be wrong not to take action over a Mosque, but Pullicino was correct to look at the matter from the spy glass of a politician who has always preached against intolerance, Islamophobia and for political correctness.
The other theme, is hunting, and here again, George’s tough stance has to be commended. He does not take it lightly, not solely for reasons linked to EU compliance but because he believes that hunting’s excesses have to stop.
On other issues, I find his decisions frankly incorrect, such as his decision to leave out certain printed media from advertising campaigns organised by his ministry on ‘Maltese agricultural products’ even though the funds for this campaign are funded by the European Union.
Well, that is George, a man of contradictions, but essentially a politician who wants to get things done and does certainly have some vision for the future.
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