Malta’s political divide is a myth

Once, not too long ago, I was introduced to some random Norwegian guy – employed in the gaming industry, of course – in the course of a conversation at a bar. He had only just arrived in Malta, and seemed interested in getting to know more about the place. The first thing he asked me was: “So what are you, Nationalist or Labour?”

My instant knee-jerk response was to shoot back a question of my own. What year were we in? 2016, or the mid-1980s? For you see, that is roughly how far you would have to go back in time, to apply that question to someone like me. That’s how long it’s been since I felt there was any real difference between those two political labels. For what it’s worth, my answer in the 1980s would have been ‘Nationalist’. And the question would have made sense… around 30 years ago. 

Today, however, it makes no sense at all. What does it even mean to be a ‘Nationalist’ or a ‘Labourite’, anyway? Yet there he was, this newcomer to Malta… barely here a week, and yet already contaminated by what can only be described as a unique indigenous malady: unable to perceive any reality at all, beyond a tribal bipartisan polarity which no longer has any meaning or currency.

I’ll admit that I found that stranger’s question depressing at the time. If even someone so disconnected from our political realities would be willing to accept this perceived status quo as a fact… why shouldn’t all the locals born after the age when such labels actually meant something? Doesn’t this explain why Maltese political tribalism has not subsided, even among millennials with no actual memory of the political turmoil of yesteryear?

But then, after giving the matter some thought, I realised that the opposite may well be true. There was, after all, an element of facetiousness to that Norwegian’s question. He may as well have asked me what football team I support. Who cares if I replied ‘Manchester United’ or ‘Inter’? Or, for that matter, Xghajra Rainbows or Dingli Swallows? (Note: no offence to the Dingli football team or anything… but was it really necessary to include an allusion to an entire town’s sexual proclivities in the name? We really didn’t need to know…) 

By the same token, why should anyone care if I replied ‘Nationalist’ or ‘Labour’? Just by asking the question, that Norwegian fellow placed his finger squarely on the very pointlessness of the political divide. Any answer I gave would have been irrelevant. If there is no real difference between the two parties in political terms… it doesn’t actually matter whether you identify with ‘one’ and not ‘the other’.

Ah, but this is where I usually get pounced on by others. You know, the ones who do still identify with the ‘Nationalist’ or ‘Labour’ divide… who still base all their value judgments on this self-same dichotomy… and who, as a rule, react aggressively to those of us who happen to see things slightly differently. How can I assert with such confidence that there’s no difference between the two, they invariably want to know? Can’t I see that… that…

Well, I’ll let them off the hook for never actually coming up with any examples. It’s not easy to substantiate a thesis, when absolutely all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

But tell you what: maybe it’s my fault for not spelling it out enough. Maybe these people can’t see the naked reality staring us in the face, simply because I did not make it visible enough in 25 years of writing about the same issue.

So I’ll try again. Let’s pick out any story at random from this week’s newspapers. Like this one here: “European Court: Government’s handing of  €230,000 house to squatter breached owner’s rights.’

The case goes back to 1987, when a sizeable house belonging to the Montanaro Gauci family was requisitioned by the government. The report states that: “a certain Carmelo Caruana had broken into the house [and] proceeded to make it his home without title.  The Montanaro Gaucis had instituted judicial proceedings in order to evict him from the premises, but in the meantime, the Maltese government, empowered by the Housing Act, had issued a requisition order on the property on the 14th April 1987, outrageously assigning the property to the person who broke into the house…”

Now: remember when I said, a few paragraphs up, that the Labour/PN divide made sense in the 1980s? This story spells out why. You could almost take that scenario as a blueprint for much that was abhorrent about the Labour government at the time, and that the Nationalists had promised to rectify. The Montanaro Gaucis were not the only victims of outrageous abuse of government power. Another recent court case – which dragged out no less than 30 years – finally established beyond doubt that the National Bank of Malta had likewise been appropriated illegally. 

But this case stands out for a different reason. Consider the significance of the date – less than a month away from the May 1987 election that would usher in a Nationalist administration for the next 25 years. How many of these injustices were actually rectified by the PN in the course of all that time? At a glance, I would say… none.

Just look at how the Montanaro Gaucis’ case panned out.  “On 8 June, 1988, pending a judgement by the ordinary court concerning the eviction, the Maltese government again requisitioned the property, under an order carrying the same reference as the first requisition and once again assigned it to the [same] occupant.”

8 June 1988. That’s just over a year AFTER the change in government. Now, we are talking about the Fenech Adami administration… no longer the ‘bad old days’ of Mintoff/KMB. Yet not only was the property not restored to its rightful owners, but the Nationalist government forced the Montanaro Gauci family through the exact same ordeal again. In the end, the victims were left with no option but to take the case to the European Court to reclaim their own property. And what is that, if not another way of saying that justice was denied them – in identical ways – under both these supposedly ‘different’ parties?

Meanwhile: did the owners of the National Bank of Malta get their rightful property back after the change of government in 1987? Were they adequately compensated for the illegal nationalisation? Erm, no. The ‘different’ Nationalist administration went on to treat them exactly the same way as its Labour predecessor had… and actually compounded the theft, by selling shares in BOV to the public. This way, even after the local courts decided in favour of the original owners (30 years after filing the initial case, by which time some of the plaintiffs had long passed away), it remains impossible to ever rectify the injustice.

And that’s just one example, concerning unlawful requisition of private property. Let’s take another story at random. OK, this one is relatively trivial insofar as the actual issue is concerned… but remember that it’s not the individual issue that counts; it is how the issue was handled by these supposedly ‘different’ parties.

Over the past week or so, the General Workers' Union has been banging its fist about a decision taken in 2008 by the Lawrence Gonzi administration, concerning public holidays. You may remember how Gonzi effectively cancelled any public holiday that fell on a weekend, by discontinuing the practice of adding that holiday to annual leave. You may also remember how the Labour Opposition – by then already under Joseph Muscat – had promised to restore those ‘stolen’ public holidays to their rightful owners… i.e., the Maltese workers, which Labour claims to represent.

In any case: for some obscure reason, sections of the press went back to Gonzi for a reaction, asking him, the perfectly ridiculous question: does he regret that decision now?

Unsurprisingly, the former Prime Minister stuck to his guns. He believed he was doing the right thing at the time – for reasons related to Malta’s competitiveness in a globalised market, etc. – and, oh look: he still thinks so now. 

What I’d like to know, however, is why no one bothered asking today’s Prime Minister for his reaction. Wasn’t it Joseph Muscat who harshly criticised this measure back in 2008? And hasn’t he already had three whole years to deliver on his aforementioned promise of reversing it?

Well, did he? Evidently not, for public holidays are still subtracted from annual leave when they fall on weekends, just like Gonzi decreed. So what happened, folks? Could it be that Joseph Muscat, once occupying the hot-seat himself, gradually came round to Gonzi’s way of thinking? Does he now agree that increasing Malta’s annual public holidays would harm the economy? And – more pertinently – does this justify what can only be described as a complete and utter volte-face?

Think hard before answering, all ye who still identify with the old ‘Nationalist’ and ‘Labour’ dualism. If the answer is ‘yes’ on all counts… what does it tell us about the intrinsic difference between those two parties? The difference you all still believe exists? And if it’s ‘no’… then how do we account for the change of heart? 

You can extend the same reasoning to all the other cases. It was for the same reason that the Fenech Adami administration re-requisitioned that Montanaro Gauci property, and also refused to restore the National Bank to its rightful owners. They might say different things while in Opposition… but once in government, you can rest assured they will invariably carry on with the same policies that they had fought against tooth and nail before the last election.

And there, in a nutshell, you have incontrovertible proof that Malta’s political divide is just a myth. Not even the two parties themselves believe in it any longer, for crying out loud. So why should the rest of us?

Why, indeed…