Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/248536
25 Opinion 'Malta' as referring to the current administration, quite a departure from the 'Malta Taghna Lkoll' electoral mantra. People resent this attitude as well and by adopting this stance, Labour is unwittingly playing into the PN's hands. Why should disagreeing with something the government is proposing or doing be described as adopting a position that is essentially 'anti-Maltese' – against Malta? This was an attitude that I could never stomach during the bad old Mintoff days. This is no original Maltese creation, of course. Nor do you find this mindset only in countries saddled with dictators, as avid PN supporters would argue. In the late 60s, the youth of the US who were my age were protesting against the war in Vietnam. They were branded traitors as if they were 'siding' with the enemy in the war. Many of them suffered imprisonment or had to flee their country because of their belief that the war was wrong. Today history looks at them more kindly, extolling them to the levels of heroes. In short, 'my country right or wrong' has never been part of my credo. Yes, my country could be wrong and the right thing to do is to say so when it is. This does not make me either a traitor or less of a patriot and the sooner Labour cuts this sort of crap in its arguments about the IIP, the better for all the country. On the other hand, the PN is insisting on personalising the issue, so that they practically do not talk of the IIP, per se, at all but of Muscat himself and his stubbornness. This is also a blast from the past, of course; although demonising the current Labour leader is far from easy. The game started with Dom Mintoff who was exceedingly vulgar and who rode roughshod over anything that stood in his way. He was such a fiend that he was the perfect candidate for being demonised. The PN propaganda machine had no problem then: many perceived him as the devil incarnate anyway. Following the old pattern, we are now being told that the vote in the European Parliament was a vote of no confidence in Muscat, a practical impossibility; and that in her address to the EP, Commissioner Viviane Reding lambasted Muscat, as if she had attacked him personally. The PN voter needs an enemy to be galvanised into action and depicting Muscat as a re-apparition of the old devil incarnate fits in with this idea. To be fair, most of the troubles that the IIP finds itself stems from the superficiality with which Muscat proposed it and Labour is now finding that its thinking needs to be deeper before it embarks on something like the IIP. Yet this still does not justify the undue depiction of Muscat as the be all and end all of that is going awry in the government side. Demonising Manuel Mallia was easier: he gave out too many irresistible opportunities. But the big prize is the leader himself! What this really means is that this is no new way of doing politics, as we had been promised by the latter day leaders of the two main Maltese political parties. It is back to square one with the language of yesteryear. This, of course, leaves that chunk of the electorate, who had opted for Muscat's movement because they believed it promised a new beginning, in quite a maltatoday, SUNDAY, 26 JANUARY 2014 quandary. Whether come June they will be voting – and for which party – will depend a lot on how much the two parties manage to forgive those who trespass against them and avoid falling into the temptation of reacting in the same old shortsighted manner as they have always done. Michael Falzon is Chairman of the Malta Developers Association and a former Nationalist infrastructure minister (micfal@ maltanet.net) 'Following the old pattern, we are now being told that the vote in the European Parliament was a vote of no confidence in Muscat – which is a practical impossibility' V ASSILIADES & CO. (MALTA) LTD documents, etc