Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/989894
OPINION 25 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 JUNE 2018 European Union. There were natural limits to how far he could impose his own will on the country... something that was not the case with Mintoff at all. If you close an eye at pressure from the Opposition – of which he probably faced more than any other prime minister – and resistance from within his own party.... there was nothing stop- ping Dom Mintoff in any shape or form. No higher power to intercede if (or when) he over- stepped certain boundaries; and not even the Law itself... for an- other of Mintoff's well-known habits was to tweak Malta's laws to the utmost extent that was legally permissible, in order to achieve his desired objective. And – Maltese legislation being what it was at the time, and (more pertinently) Mintoff's le- gal advisor being who he was – there was very little he couldn't (and didn't) get away with. This, on the other hand, I do admit to bringing up as a form of criticism. I may have been too young to appreciate the background nuances; and in any case, enough time has elapsed since then to reas- sess many of my own earlier prejudices against Mintoff himself, and 'Mintoffianism' in general. Certainly, I don't feel as angry about it as I once did. But the things I refer to now – the dispossessions, the ruthless crushing of adversar- ies, the oppression of dissent, the abuse of virtually unlim- ited political power... those things did not take place is some forgotten century, or in another space-time continuum. I haven't forgotten – or, to be more precise, I cannot forget – that the Malta of my childhood was overshadowed by fear: the fear of Mintoff, which – though probably unfelt by roughly half the country at the time – was very, very real to the people who had cause to fear him. But like I said earlier: this is how I remember Dom Mint- off, and I don't expect others to agree or care. Even then, it still remains only one facet of a many-faceted personality. Mintoff also had a sense of hu- mour – which counts for a lot, in my book – and quite frankly bucketfuls more charisma than all his successors put together. His vision for Malta may have been questionable; and his methods often unacceptable (at least, by today's standards. We all accepted them at the time, for the simple reason that we had no choice...) but I can still appreciate the logic of what he was trying to achieve. Perhaps the single most compelling reason to revise one's historical assessment of the Mintoff years, however, is the hindsight of the 30 or so years that followed. I hate to say it, but the contemporary political climate is – at certain levels – uncomfortably remi- niscent of the same era. Only today, the source of this totally unnecessary hate-mongering is less clear-cut to me than it appeared back then. I see com- plete, no-holds barred hostility on either side of the political frontier; but how much of it is a genuine expression of political frustration... and how much just a deep-seated 'hatred of the political other'? In the 1980s – when anyone who stood up to the govern- ment was almost literally mown down before your eyes – it was easy to justify political enmity in the name of 'justice and lib- erty'. Or so it seemed, anyway. Watching history repeat itself, however... you start to wonder. By the same token... how much of my own mental image of Dom Mintoff – as an irascible, hamfisted authoritarian who brooked no dissent whatsoever – arose from his own character as a human being... and how much of it was a persona he was forced to cultivate by a na- tional culture of sabotage and political guerrilla warfare? I'll admit it's not a question I can answer myself. But watch- ing today's political milieu in action, you do get the impres- sion that people may also be pushed into adopting extreme positions; that even a mild- mannered and timid politician – let alone Mintoff, who was most emphatically neither of those things – could be baited into becoming the very mon- ster he is portrayed as by his adversaries. But let's go back to that monument, and see how much it reflects of the Mintoff we all individually remember. I won't be crass and say 'none at all': that statue certainly does capture something of the man's sheer bulk as a political heavyweight. Its outrageous proportions (for an effigy of such a tiny man) do indeed accurately reflect the enormity of Mintoff's influence on this country. And as I've already indicated: the posture is ac- curate... Mintoff really did lean back and thrust his paunch out when speaking in public. (I al- ways suspected that he did this to make himself appear taller to people standing immedi- ately below the podium. Again, it tells us something about his personality...). But in terms of depicting a historical figure who – for better or worse – divided pub- lic opinion irreparably, and who left such an impossibly convoluted political legacy be- hind him... sorry, but I don't see any of that conveyed by that statue. What I do see, though, is a historical reinvention of Mintoff to add to all the oth- ers... akin to that astonishing moment when his casket was carried shoulder high into the Cathedral, to chants of 'Mint- off! Mintoff!' (See? I told you I'll get back to that detail...). It is a monument to how roughly half the country would like posterity to remember Dom Mintoff.... even if they themselves know, in their heart of hearts, that he wasn't like that at all. All that remains, naturally, is for the other half to commis- sion a competing monument, representing its own distortion of past reality: and hey presto! We'd be landed with another example of historical revision- ism, this time complete with horns, pitchfork and a pointy tail. I mean, honestly. How long before we all realise that both reinventions are equally il- lusory... and that maybe – if we really do ever want to get to the bottom of this meaningless political divide of ours – we should finally start discussing Dom Mintoff in terms of who he really was, instead of what adulation and hatred inevitably turned him into? Another lifetime, I would guess... probably as long and eventful as his own. I haven't forgotten – or, to be more precise, I cannot forget – that the Malta of my childhood was overshadowed by fear: the fear of Mintoff, which – though probably unfelt by roughly half the country at the time – was very, very real to the people who had cause to fear him