Man of the people

In a nation so often viscerally divided along political lines, former President Vincent Tabone - popularly known as 'Censu' - will be remembered and missed as a rare specimen of conciliatory national figurehead.
A cursory glance at the wave of tributes to have flowed in the wake of his passing last Wednesday, at the age of 99, will attest to the lasting respect for man who enjoyed genuine respect on both sides of the divide.
Past and present Labour Party exponents joined forces with their Nationalist counterparts in heaping praise on the late Dr Tabone: from Opposition leader Joseph Muscat, who lauded his "humanity and humility"; to former Prime Minister Alfred Sant, who hailed the President Emeritus as "a cordial interlocutor, wise, prudent and energetic in listening to the viewpoints of others, while making his opinions obvious on matters which he considered to be fundamental".
But it wasn't always that way. Like all local political figures, Tabone also courted his fair share of controversy over the years: especially towards the beginning of his term as President of the Republic (the first appointed by a Nationalist Administration, since the office was created in 1974) when he found himself personally boycotted by the Opposition between 1989 and 1992.
And yet, in a pattern that has repeated itself in various ways throughout his lengthy career, the gregarious and highly charismatic "eye doctor from Gozo" somehow always managed to overturn such tribulations: ultimately regaining the respect even of his most ardent political adversaries, to emerge as infinitely more unifying than divisive a character.
So not only was the boycott eventually lifted by Dr Sant soon after succeeding Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as Labour leader in 1992; but as Prime Minister the same Dr Sant even tried (unsuccessfully) to amend the Constitution so that Dr Tabone could stay on as President for a second term.
Clearly, Censu Tabone possessed a unique quality that enabled him to communicate across even the most thorny and impassable of political frontiers. Sadly, there are indications that this same quality may well have died with him last Wednesday.
Tributes from across the world
Among those to illustrate this possibility was current Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, whose reaction came directly from London (where he was busy promoting Malta as a hub for foreign direct investment).
Pointing out how Censu Tabone's 50-year career had brought drastic changes to Malta's political landscape, Dr Gonzi went on to single out the achievement of Independence in 1964 and Malta's quest for EU membership, culminating in accession in 2003.
And yet it is widely known that Tabone, while a staunch advocate of Independence, was initially sceptical about EU membership: in fact it had taken the combined (and formidable) persuasiveness of both Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami and the late Guido de Marco to eventually convince him of the benefits of accession.
Furthermore, Dr Gonzi also seemed unable to resist the temptation to take a quick potshot at the Labour opposition: claiming that Censu Tabone's 'greatest achievement' was to "regain Malta's credibility on the international stage when appointed foreign minister in 1987 under a new PN government..."
The indirect reference to Malta's questionable foreign policy under the Labour government of 1971-1987 - while admittedly not at all out of place in an assessment of Dr Censu Tabone's overall contribution - is at best unfortunate, given the man's evident genius for mediation.
Tabone did indeed work to regain the confidence of Western countries; previously shaken by a perceived closeness to the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War.  But his many notable achievements as Foreign Minister also included strengthening relations forged by the previous government with countries like China; and besides, when still in Opposition Dr Tabone had stood up to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Malta's Parliament, where the Libyan leader had been invited as a guest of former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff soon after the birth of the Republic in 1974.
Contrasting sharply with the later, enduring images of both Gonzi and Fenech Adami embracing Gaddafi in his Tripoli tent, Censu Tabone had taken the opportunity to politely but firmly criticise the Libyan leader directly to his face over his country's human rights record.  
Besides, political issues played arguably a lesser role than other aspects of the man's long and often extraordinary life: a life studded with purely apolitical achievements for which he is to this day far more widely known.
People in the medical profession, for instance, are likelier to cite Dr Tabone's ground-breaking work in ophthalmological surgery: where his pioneering post-war efforts have since been acknowledged as instrumental in the development of a cure for glaucoma (which Dr Tabone went on to eradicate from his own home island of Gozo), and later for the treatment of trachoma, especially in the Far East.
In 1948 - 14 years before contesting his first election with the PN, and almost 40 years before being appointed foreign minister - Dr Tabone found himself selected to spearhead an international campaign to treat trachoma in Taiwan, Iraq and Indonesia, under the auspices of the World Health Organisation.
These and other career achievements are still vividly remembered in some of the places which directly benefited from his expertise: including China, where The Xinhua news agency this week reported a resounding eulogy for Censu Tabone by none other than President Hu Jintao.
Malta, the Chinese Premier said, had lost "an outstanding statesman and respected medical expert...  an old friend of the Chinese people (who) had contributed much to the strengthening of the friendship
between the peoples of the two countries."
Elsewhere, former local Prime Minister (also President) Eddie Fenech Adami likewise highlighted the "worldwide respect" enjoyed by Dr Tabone precisely for his medical achievements.
Asked what had impressed him most about Dr Tabone, Fenech Adami recalled an incident in 1978 when the two had travelled to China on an official visit.
"I remember that we had visited a hospital, and I was surprised to see that the Chinese had known about Censu's great contribution to cure trachoma in Taiwan, and the staff there had organised a reception for him in gratitude..."
'Bedside manner'
Professor Henry Frendo, of the University of Malta's history department (also Dr Tabone's biographer) explains how the man's success in medicine was itself instrumental in paving the way for future successes in politics.
"A medical doctor and an eye specialist who had worked internationally, Censu Tabone brought to his ministries and later his presidency what one of his colleagues (Joe Psaila Savona, also a medical doctor) called 'a bedside manner'."
Frendo points out how a glance at social legislation passed during his term as Labour Minister from 1966 to 1971 will reveal Dr Tabone helping the blind and disabled, widows and orphans, pensioners and the elderly.
"He sought means whereby to ensure industrial peace without any resort to wild-cat strikes which could be politically motivated... hence his emphasis on wages councils, arbitration and conciliation, as well as his proposal for secret ballots among unionised workers perior to strike action.
"Dr Tabone prompted the law that no employer could sack a worker without a just and sufficient cause, and would be obliged to give preference to re-employing earlier workers if no further cause for redundancy resulted. As Foreign Minister after 1987 and then President, he was host to the Bush-Gorbachev 'end-of-the-Cold-War' Malta summit in December 1989, as well as visits by Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II."
Nonetheless, life in politics is rarely all champagne and roses. Was it a coincidence that Dr Tabone took the political plunge (as it were) precisely in 1962: a year of great political tension in Malta, when Dom Mintoff's Labour Party contested the election under threat of hellfire and the yoke of an ecclesiastical interdiction?
Prof. Frendo contends that while Tabone was undeniably a profoundly committed Catholic, his decision to contest with the PN had less to do with religion than with purely political matters.
"Tabone was not a supporter of the episcopal 'interdict' against the MLP, and was both pleased and relieved when this ended through the intervention of the newly-arrived bishop Emmanuel Gerada," Frendo recalls, adding that he went on to disregard protocal by welcoming Gerada (a family friend) at the airport upon arrival, and asking him home to dinner.  
But while Tabone was plainly uncomfortable with the ongoing open hostilities between Mintoff and Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi, he soon found there were plenty of other, non-religious issues upon which to disagree with the Labour Party's leonine leader from Cospicua.
"In the 1950s Tabone had successfully led the doctors' strike against the then administration's policy, and he was a leading and strident opponent of Labour's policy that Malta should become part of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (a policy also known as Integration); as well as of the ensuing political violence which saw precious little police protection of the opposition..."
The violence and mayhem that ensued after the resignation of Mintoff's government in 1958 were further galvanising factors in the ophthalomologist's decision to muscle into the political fray... a decision that was certainly not prompted by any career considerations; in fact, his stint in politics was financially far more damaging than rewarding to the successful doctor in the long run.
Instead, Dr Tabone's interest in politics - an interest that came to fruition significantly late in life - could clearly be traced to general concerns with Malta's troublesome road to self-determination, at a time when the island's future was by no means certain.
In the 1950s, his choices were somewhat limited. A sworn opponent of colonialism, Tabone was naturally inclined to oppose Mintoff's rather radical policy of integration with Britain. For the same reason, he was drawn as though by force of logic towards the Nationalist Party's declared aim to pursue Independence within the Commonwealth.
However, Tabone's otherwise cordial and friendly relationship with the equally affable PN leader Gorg Borg Olivier remain somewhat enigmatic to this day.
Like Eddie Fenech Adami who would eventually take over the helm of the party, Tabone publicly aligned himself with the Christian Democrat movement: then a newly formed political movement founded by the iconic Italian thinker and statesman, Alcide de Gasperi.
Borg Olivier, on the other hand, was disinclined to consider himself a Christian Democrat, and was variously heard stating that while he was both a 'Christian' and a 'Democrat', he did not feel at home within the international political family known by those combined names.
Instead he preferred to project himself as what Prof. Frendo describes as an 'old-time liberal'... and there were also internal disagreements regarding party administration to reckon with.
"Tabone respected Borg Olivier; but did not like his cavalier way of running the party, which he himself tried hard to get organized on more professional lines," Frendo observes, with reference to Tabone's stint as PN secretary general between 1962 and 1972.
"After a second successive defeat for the PN in 1976, Tabone was not the only one to feel that Borg Olivier's time was up, and that his crowning moment had come in 1964 when Malta obtained its independence from Britain, followed by an economic renewal..."
In this respect Frendo describes Tabone as "blatantly honest" but also a "somewhat fastidious and punctilious character".
In his seminal biography, Censu Tabone: The Man and His Century, he also revealed how Tabone had twice drafted letters of resignation to Borg Olivier in 1968 and in 1959, mainly because he felt slighted or bypassed within the party structures.
It was also widely known at the time that Borg Olivier himself publicly described Tabone as his "own personal leader of the Opposition", on account of the procedural and occasionally policy-driven arguments that would characterise many parliamentary group meetings at the time.
All the same, it was none other than Censu Tabone whom Borg Olivier chose to accompany him to London for Independence negotiations in 1962; and the same Tabone was afterwards entrusted with the highly sensitive 'Labour, Employment and Welfare' portfolio, at a time of high unemployment and burgeoning social problems.
Unlucky strikes
Apart from the three-year Opposition boycott between 1989 and 1992, Tabone's most controversial political moment came soon after his appointment to that ministry in 1966, whereupon he responded to a wave of industrial unrest by tentatively proposing legislation that would make it a crime to go on strike (even though, paradoxically, he himself had successfully led the first major doctors' strike barely a decade earlier).
Frendo however points out that while Tabone had indeed made this proposal, he was very easily persuaded to drop it: "In his proposed industrial relations bill, he had initially proposed penalties if the terms were not observed by the union, but he back-pedalled on this point soon enough. Mintoff had threatened 'a civil war' if it became law. It was a tense time, when the union strong-man, especially in the docks and harbours, was Lorry Sant..."
Even after the pivotal 1987 elections - won by the Nationalist Party, which had previously been prevented from governing despite obtaining a majority in 1981 - Dr Tabone distinguished himself from his PN colleagues by occasionally daring to question the policies of (the generally unquestioned) Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami: particularly when it came to foreign policy, of which he was appointed minister for the first term.
Frendo confirms that Minister Tabone was "initially reticent and suspicious of Malta joining the EU so soon after having finally achieved Independence.
"He was also worried by the boycott of parliament after the 'perverse' 1981 election result, when the PN won, for the first time ever, an absolute majority of the popular vote under universal suffrage, but was left out of office because the losing party had more seats as a result of gerrymandering...."
Typical of a man also known for his intense energy, Tabone was nonetheless quick to cultivate enthusiasm for the European project once he was convinced of its benefits for Malta.
In fact, from harbouring private misgivings regarding EU membership, he suddenly expressed disappointment and surprise that Malta had 'missed' an early opportunity to apply for full membership in the late 1980s... thus jeopardising the entire project (a fear which would in part prove prophetic, as the application was indeed temporarily frozen by an interim Labour government in 1996).
But for all these and other private doubts, Censu Tabone nonetheless proved a team player within the Nationalist Party: limiting dissent only to internal discussions within the party.
The full extent of his views and feelings only became public years after retirement from politics; and even then mainly through the work of historians such as Prof. Frendo.
Public bickering and remonstration were clearly not the Tabone way.