We were at a party recently - no, not at Consuelo Scerri Herrera's house. After a few bottles a usual suspect embarked on his impersonation routine.
The hit of the evening was when he took on the character of a young North Korean woman singing 'Ma taghmlu xejn mal-Perit Mintoff'.
He had us all in stitches no matter how many times we forced him to repeat it.
For those who don't get the political inside joke, our impersonator was going back a couple of decades. When Dom Mintoff visited North Korea's communist dictator Kim il Sung the latter got a choir and dance troupe to sing his party song for him.
Here is the original in all it's perfect separation of party and government glory.
15 comments:
Irrespective of whether this type of honour is being given to a Blue,Red ,Green,or whoever.It makes me feel proud to see our cuntry's representatives given such wellcomes.
http://www.re-vu.org/?p=1984
Silvio, allow me a personal question. Are you naive or just plain . . er..'simple'?
I can tell you one thing though. Mintoff certainly wasn't representing me or, to use what has now become a cliche, 'not in my name'.'.
silvio, isn't it sad that the person representing the country gets 'HIS' mandra song instead of some other more appropriate national 'song', like the anthem perhaps?
This makes me deeply embarrassed not proud. But stuff like this are/were expected in communist countries.
Imagine today hearing something similar with Gonzi's name. What would the reaction of everyone be? I bet everyone would be shocked, not least Gonzi himself.
I tend to agree with you about communist countries.They all make it a point of building a personality cult.
This is found in dictatorship countries.
I'm afraid the same thing is happening with GONZIPN.
It sounds just as stupid as if we were to have MUSCATPL.
@Silvio
Kim Il Sung was a mass murderer and a dictator. It is no honour to be greeted by a mass murderer and a dictator.
Of course, when your only friends are mass murderers, it says a lot about you.
Mintoff's other friends?
Ceaucescu, Gaddafi, Mugabe.
Ma min rajtek xebbahtek.....
Kim Il Sung's brat who is currently dictator and tyrant of North Korea used to spend his summer holidays when young, at Dom's villa in Delimara at the same time that young Ghaddafi relatives were hosted by "safe" families in Malta.
This topic is now bordering on the ridiculous.
Which country's leaders did not befriend,
MUBARAK.
BEN ALI,
Both are being charged with killing their own people.
How about Chirac accused of embessilment.
Clinton and Berlusscni,both charged with sexual offences.
The list can go on forever.
As we say in Maltese,
WARA KULLHADD BRAVU.
Silvio, you need to be able to make two important distinctions. I'm going to number them for your convenience.
1) There's a huge difference between accepting bribes or committing adultery (not even a crime) and torturing, maiming and killing people - thousands of people.
2) There's also a huge difference between having normal diplomatic and economic relations with another country and the kind of hero-worship Mintoff always displayed towards the worst political criminals.
And, by the way, let me reiterate that, whatever you say, Mintoff was NOT representing me when he was sucking up to Kim il-sung.
Anonymous: It was apparently Kim Jong-Il's half-brother who was for while a student of English in Malta in the 80's, and not the current dictator.
Anonymous: While Mintoff's political cronies did include some unsavoury characters (notably Gaddafi and Kim-il Sung, Ceaucescu despite having been awarded an honorary degree by our University was never particularly close to Malta),people like Bruno Kreisky and Willy Brandt were also pretty close to Mintoff. It's rather unfair to present only part of the picture.
Allow me to interfere in this discussion as, although I laughed my guts out when I saw Korean citizens singing and dancing to the tune of 'Ma taghmlu xejn mal-Perit Mintoff', the discussion is getting completely out of hand. Mintoff, although I am not one of his very big fans, made the best out of the international scenario Malta made part of, by lobbying with both countries of the free world and those coming from the eastern bloc. At the time, Malta's survival as a country and an economy depended from this - a leader being able to put both communists and westerners in his pocket.
In Foreign Policy there is not much space for ethics and philosophical arguments about other countries domestic behaviour, otherwise we would be in deep shi*.
If we apply your thinking we should immediately give up and investment coming from that economic giant called 'China', as its human rights credentials are not top-notch! This also applies to Smart City (whether it will materialise or not is another thing) as the UAE also infringe human rights with regards to immigrant workers and sometimes, their own people.
Even the case of Libya is clear ... Both Labour and Nationalist governments tried to get on the good books of Gaddafi, and there is nothing wrong with that, as he could have provided us with funding, oil and other investment opportunities - just look at the Italians, the French and Americans!
If we are going to try to turn this discussion into a political battle and try to be 'whiter than white' we are going to end up bankrupt and isolated, and might also miss out on investments coming from different countries. Hell, the majority of oil comes from countries with dubious human rights conduct!
Should we give up oil? Should we give up China? Should we give up Smart City? Should we ban Emirates Airlines from our soil? etc... etc... etc... and the rest of the nonesense you are all saying!
This is addressed to the anonymous commentor who 'interfered' (sic) in the discussion.
Sorry to be blunt but you're either a Laburist in disguise or a presumptuous youngster who doesn't remember the Mintoff years but thinks he is, oh so very wise and 'balanced'. And mature too, of course.
When discussing Mintoff-KMB and Gaddafi we're NOT talking of normal relations between countries. We're talking of a dictator who dictated in Malta as arrogantly as in Libya.
We're talking of a foreign tyrant who insisted that he didn't want Malta to be close to NATO, much to Labour's delight.
We're talking of a dictator who used to be the main speaker at MLP meetings and who clearly said that if the Maltese voted for the PN, oil supplies from Libya would dry up (24 May 1976 - Cospicua). L-Orizzont proudly carried this threat on its front page, in huge letters.
Incidentally this is what interference means. Do you think you could get off your high horse long enough to think about it?
Sorry, it should have been "addressed at" not "addressed to".
@ Antione Vella:
1) It's a pity you do not seem to be aware of the meaning of the word 'interfere'. Just to enlighten you here's a definition found on dictionary.com: 'to take part in the affairs of others; meddle (often followed by with or in ): to interfere in another's life.'
On a sidenote I really abhor presumptuous individuals going about the internet trying to correct everybody else's english ... trying to tone down other people's arguments through their, illusive (apparently) correction of other blogger's english. Anyway ...
2) I was not speaking about Mintoff's behaviour in Malta, as you seem to have missed my point when I said that I was not one of Mintoff's biggest fans. I never mentioned the police state created, and administered, by Mintoff, in my post. I only highlighted the fact that Mintoff made the best of the foreign policy situation he was faced with.
3) You seem to be mixing up dealing with Kim Il Sung, Mao and others as a form of 'failure' in International Relations, when in actual fact that was to be considered a success. The way they behaved when they hosted Mintoff was not up to him, as they used to receive every world leader in the same way so as to expose the 'best' of their culture, showing off. The same reception was reserved to Nixon in China.
My main point, which you apparently seem to have completely missed, due to your inability to see beyond other people's English 'mistakes', was that we cannot be philosophical in our international relations policy. We cannot pick and choose countries we deal with according to ethical considerations. We should not forget that up until the mid 1970s North Korea, for example, was looked at as an economic success, whereas South Korea was considered a failure.
Anyway, apparently for you it will be impossible to understand such arguments, as you are unable to look at things in an objective manner.
@Antoine vella.
Leaving Mubarak and Ali aside (yes they are being accused of Murder etc)
The problem with Chirac and Clinton was not as minor as you would want us to believe, when you have world figures placing themselves at the mercy of others,yes that is very serious,because it could influnce their decisions,which in turn can effect millions of people.
Back to whether Mintoff represented you or not,I'm afraid that you have to accept it,whether you like it or not.
Just one question (and we will have this matter closed}
Do you mean to say that Gonzi is not the primeminister of ALL Malta,and thus is our legal rep.whether the P.L.supporters want it or not?
Would you expect P.L.supporters not to pay VAt because it was intoduced by the P.N.
There is nothing wrong in admitting you are wrong,it is a sign of maturity.
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