Oh my! Oh my!

I had other things in mind to write about this week other than the University debate, but it was so tempting I could not resist. The Right Honourable Harvard Doctor, who speaks French fluently, has been booed. Oh my! Oh my! What an affront! What a shame! How dare the student body freely express its sentiments in such a way? How dare the Prime Minister stand there smiling? The Prime Minister should have strutted through the hundreds of students and rebuked them for disagreeing with and totally disapproving of his fellow onorevoli Doctor. And how dare the Prime Minister smile at all?! The Harvard Doctor has accused the Prime Minister of using his smile to mislead the electorate. The Doctor says that, although he himself does not smile so much, he does not mislead. He may not smile convincingly, but, mind you, his eyes could kill from a mile away!

What a fuss! What ado about nothing! What a cover-up for a failed performance, where the Prime Minister had to answer all the Harvard Doctor's questions for him.

The reality is that the students present (and I have been told that the Sir Temi Zammit Hall was never so packed - not even on graduation day) do not approve of Alfred Sant and his policies. They do not believe that he and his party are credible. In a nutshell, he does not have the trust of students (and they have been through him before and they know what his deceit is all about) and students reflect all youth in general (17,000 new voters, you know!).

Booing is the most decent and civilised way of expressing one's disapproval. It is the bare minimum. I can think of other ways of showing one's disapproval. Of course I can. Some could be pretty vulgar. One lady who happened to be the daughter of a former Prime Minister (guess which party), even threw cow dung into the House of Commons in order to express her disapproval at something or other. But then I could take a leaf out of Labour's 1970s book. One could express one's disapproval by leaving the hall - as the late President of Malta, Anton Buttigieg, and the former Minister of Education (if you please) Philip Muscat, did during the 1977 graduation ceremony in the same hall because they objected to Michael Frendo's exultation of democracy during his oration.

One could express one's disapproval by bursting into the hall and accosting and beating up students and academic staff, as Labour thugs did during the same graduation ceremony referred to. One could express one's disapproval by firing a bullet into the students' common room on that famous day, as one Labour thug did. One could express one's disapproval as the then Commissioner of Police sive Colonel sive Commander of the Task Force did by allowing a group of no more than 20 ħamalli/marmalja (apologies, Dr Sant) to hang around the campus, threatening hundreds of students, and advising us students (the Commissioner, no less) that he could not guarantee our safety and that we should, accordingly, escape out of washroom windows and flee across the fields towards the Regional Road.

During the last Labour government, which was able to govern (although illegitimately between 1981 and 1987), disapproval was expressed throughout the country by special terrorist (not anti-terrorist!) police squad members shooting at unarmed civilians (after having been driven up to the Rabat Saqqajja chanting socialist slogans in their official police vans), by assassinating a young Nationalist Party supporter, by officially disrupting political manifestations (like Żejtun's Tal-Barrani) in total defiance of an order by the highest courts of our land, by planning a coup d'état in disapproval of a Nationalist win in 1987 (much more about this some other time).

How dare the Malta Labour Party and all its "holier than thou" officials and disciples criticise students (the mind and energy of any democratic country) for disapproving of defunct and uninspiring and tired policies, such as are being proposed for them by the same MLP? What did they expect?

Why did Dr Sant attend the debate when he has nothing to offer to the University, or to education, for that matter, besides a repeater class? I think he would have scored more points, or at least remained at "zero" (remember his predecessor?) had he not attended at all. And then, because of a few boos, he was whisked away through the hall's side door. Why not face the students? Surely, there were no physical threats. How does he expect students to respect him if he gives them his back and flees? What is he afraid of? A few boos?

He must realise that students are not what he disparagingly calls ħamalli and marmalja but young energetic children of ours with minds. Yes, they still have minds to think with, even though they did not go to Harvard!