J’accuse feels obliged to be its usual cynical self. The news from home is that everybody with a keyboard or a pen has been worked up into a frenzy about the Malta – Libya relationship now that the Mad Dog has exhibited evident signs of the late stages of rabies. The fog of war – or the blinding light of international attention – seems to have turned our collective media machine into an exhibitionist three year old eager to show the dinner guests its latest development in potty training.
Where do we start?
Chapter 1: The “I told you so” brigade
No you didn’t. Forget partisan divides, forget the finger pointing to Mintoff’s or Tonio Borg’s cuddling up to the Michael Jackson lookalike. We’ve been living in the shadow of Muammar for as long as he’s been there. He’s been a permanent fixture in the World Constellation so inevitably his proximity to our tiny nation could not have been ignored. Our leaders chose invariably the option of kowtowing to the Libyan threat via at first enthusiastic then reluctant cooperation. I do not recall anybody yelling “foul” at the different depths of government strategy of coping with Ghaddafi.
Not until the Egypt revolution was almost over did we hear the first yelps of anti-Ghaddafism – yelps that could be translated to let’s do something to stop encouraging the leader. Until then we had all remained mum about the flow of investment and collaboration between successive Maltese governments and Ghaddafi. After all, since the end of the US embargo it HAS been a free for all.
Of course there were a few tut-tuts and mellow barks along the way (last one was when Ghaddafi awarded Mintoff his eccentric prize) but on the whole one can confidently state that the Maltese people were quite content to settle down around a system of forgetful appeasement. Brothers in Libya my arabic back side.
Now we are divided between those in who one corner practically wear the revolutionary hat while plotting complex evacuation plans and calling for the government to save the businessmen and the brains in the other corner who stare a democratic uprising in the face and can only see the threat of immigrant invasion.
Forgive us if we’re not that carried away.
