In George Orwell’s Oceania in 1984, the party in government has control over all sources of information to citizens and, since individuals are not allowed to keep records of their past, such as photographs or documents, their memories fade and become unreliable, so they start to believe whatever the party spouts.
By having full control over the present, the party is shown as being able to manipulate the past.
In controlling the past, the party can justify all of its actions in the present based on the new past it has created.
Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to alter historical records to fit the needs of the party at any particular time. While altering the records to support the party’s claim that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a war against Eurasia, Winston has a vague recollection that this is not at all true but, in fact, quite the opposite.
Enough time had passed, however, for his memory to become unreliable, so while he has lingering doubts he starts to accept the party’s version.
We are living in Malta in 2019, supposedly quite a far cry from 1984 Oceania but, in reality, the similarities are getting more pronounced on a daily basis. While not having control over all sources of information, the Labour Party in government supplements what it already controls with an army of trolls and commentators, whose job seems to be reinforcing whatever the party has planned for its future strategies by altering public perception of the past. In our case, the equivalent to the Eastasia/Eurasia blurring is the achievement of Malta’s independence in 1964.
Fortunato Mizzi founded the Partit Nazzjonalista (Nationalist Party) in 1883 with that aim in mind. In the 1950s, Dom Mintoff’s Malta Labour Party in government wanted integration with the UK.
It is no coincidence that the names of the two parties were in Maltese and English respectively, maybe in a subconscious association with what was perceived as their vision for the future.
After Mintoff’s integration proposal only garnered 45 per cent support in the 1956 referendum, the way forward was clearly independence. It was the Partit Nazzjonalista, under the able leadership of George Borg Olivier, that pushed hard for this and managed to achieve it notwithstanding Mintoff’s many shenanigans and U-turns. And there lies the heart of the matter and the prod that provided the motivation to write this article.
The tragedy is that there are those who know the truth, but allow themselves to be gulled into believing otherwise
In one of his most recent revisionist blogs, Charles Flores went so far as to allude that Malta’s independence “… had seemed so difficult and impossible when Dom Mintoff first cunningly introduced the word as an alternative to integration with Britain”.
This was no isolated episode of fake history being slipped in subtly. In these past few weeks, I have come across various comments and references by the usual suspects on comment boards and their anonymous trolling sidekicks, in one twisted way or another, attributing the Nationalist Party achievement of independence to Mintoff and his Malta Labour Party.
Flores’s was, so far, the most blatant in the total exclusion of Borg Olivier, falsely giving all the merit to Mintoff.
It is no secret that Mintoff was fiercely jealous of Borg Olivier’s achievement, hence the hollow Jum il-Ħelsien (Freedom Day) non-event, which, in reality, marks nothing more than a five-year extension to the 10-year base-leasing agreement of 1964.
Few people still alive today have first-hand clear memories of the political developments of what Flores referred to as “those heady days in Malta” in the same blog. Therefore, the presentation of historical facts in the written equivalent of photographic negatives, substituting black for white and vice-versa, becomes easier to do when first-hand memories are being phased out and replaced by second-hand information. Oceania/Eastasia/Eurasia all over again, in reality this time.
Very soon, we shall probably be having Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party occupying the Floriana granaries, left vacant for this year’s independence celebrations by the Nationalist Party, to celebrate someone else’s achievement and claiming it as their own.
Accession to the European Union is still fresh in people’s memories, so it is still too early for Muscat to lay claim to that for himself but if he manages to poach independence for Mintoff he will eventually want to be remembered as having made Malta part of the EU. The total disappearance of any footage or records of his notorious Farage-like, harbinger of doom, transmission named Made in Brussels on One TV in the pre-accession referendum is perhaps the first shot fired in this particular battle against the truth.
As I wrote earlier, changing the reality of the past will justify the actions of the present and the future. The rot has established itself and the outbreak of mould in the new Muża museum is perhaps symbolic of what lies beneath the apparently shiny new façade in that part of Valletta, Castille being just around the corner.
It is said that mushrooms thrive best when they are kept in the dark and are fed manure. The mushrooms in Muża, the artistic showcase for our modern art, is perhaps the metaphor for our society.
The tragedy is that there are those who know the truth but allow themselves to be gulled into believing otherwise.
Hiding behind the shiny façade of apparent economic success, from which there are various levels of inclusion and exclusion (just like the Inner and the Outer parties in 1984), Muscat’s government has taken Malta down the path of self-destruction. The first to feel the pinch are those who should be at the heart of a so-called Socialist or Social-Democrat party, the lower-income earners. They are the first but, the way things are going, they shall not be alone for long.
It is not only modern art that is susceptible to the ravages of mould but also modern bubbles, however well-blown they may be.