Truth be told, today very few people would be really interested in the lawyer Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici (1933-2022), a one-time prime minister of Malta for a few years between 1984 and 1987. Some who can recall those years might not care to bother about him. Others would do the same simply because they are too young, too old or maybe too busy.

This perhaps is a pity. People like me who knew him closely would not only be somewhat unhappy by such indifference but also slightly agonised. We would not see it quite apt that a person such as Mifsud Bonnici (henceforth Karmenu) be relegated to oblivion or reduced to something of an afterthought in history books.

All the same, one has also to concede that that might be exactly what he himself would have preferred, citing a favoured verse from Luke 17:10: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”

Indeed, duty – in the very strict Kantian sense a duty unconcerned with personal happiness or dire consequences – seems to have constituted the very essence of Karmenu’s actions, both in and out of politics. In this sense he was as uncompromising as much as comprising, for it had to be others who bended to his moral standards and surely not the other way round.

This might have formed the moral core of his personality; really the only one which he understood, and which also made him popular with a few and quite the opposite with many others. Besides, it is certainly not a code which attracts many consciences nowadays. It never did and possibly never will.

In a way, all of this might be the main reason why, in publishing Karmenu: Il-verità, xejn anqas mill-verità (Karmenu: The truth, nothing but the truth), the editorial branch of Malta’s Labour Party, SKS, chose to gather an assortment of opinions rather that commission, as in Mintoff’s case, a single, more integrated biographical study. In any case, perhaps a more apt title to the volume could have been: Duty, nothing but duty, even if it might be acknowledged for sure that for Karmenu duty and truth coincided perfectly.

Nevertheless, the editor and SKS director Joe Borg did not give in so easily. In fact, some of the people he invited to contribute to the volume are clearly very critical, and perhaps opponents, of Karmenu. Others are more sympathetic, though not less critical, including me.

The end result of the entire effort is perhaps less in the line of a celebration of the man and more of a commemoration. It is certainly not a “positio”, as a collection of documents in favour of a person’s canonisation is called in the Catholic Church, and neither does it come close to a hagiography.

Its principal asset is that it leaves the final judgement in the hands of the reader, who may not come out with a categorical answer at all but with a mixture of pluses and minuses.

Karmenu’s views are still very pertinent and should be taken into consideration by any political observer worth their salt- Fr Mark Montebello

Karmenu himself might have been pleased with this and approve of it entirely. I was fortunate enough to know him well and conversed with him innumerable times. I only say this here because I can positively state that he certainly did not consider himself a perfect person or a saint, even if others, I included, could clearly see that he was a person of the highest moral standards, much more, in fact, than most people one might know. In this sense he was quite unique.

However, whatever the personal integrity of the man or of his intentions, the great majority of the public would be more drawn to Karmenu’s politics, including of course the time of his premiership and later. It is in this ambit that most will find objection or fail to stomach the man at all.

The cover of the new book about Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici

While I shall not offer any explanations here (I have my own contribution in the book), I might point out that in this respect the book Karmenu does offer interesting insights by people in the know. Their views might not serve to justify or explain away past political actions but they do offer alternative readings to well-known local historical events of the second half of the eighties and later.

It is not surprising that much comment in the book is dedicated to this latter part of Karmenu’s life, not least his take on the European Union and Malta’s accession. This is the part which is still directly relevant to the local political scene and to the party-politics involved.

In this sense Karmenu’s views are still very pertinent and should be taken into consideration by any political observer worth their salt. It “should” because his voice is still one which is shared by very few others, if any, most of whom prefer to sell themselves out lock, stock and barrel.

Not Karmenu, of course. If anything, he continues to be, as the saying goes, a voice in the wilderness; a voice nonetheless, and one which does not betray itself, its bearer or its country. Although this does not go a long way today, it certainly merits respect and heed. One day it might indeed earn greater deference and perhaps even admiration by generations who are less tainted, and less blinded, by the sordid affairs of realpolitik.

To these Karmenu: Il-verità, xejn anqas mill-verità will be a precious source of reference. In the meantime, may we all give ourselves a chance and weigh our recent past, including Karmenu himself, with less partiality, if not also less chauvinism, and more judiciousness. It will benefit us more than it could him.