The quiet revolutionary

Lawrence Gonzi has stepped into the roll call of a group of men who can be best described as true gentlemen. Fortunato Mizzi, Enrico Mizzi, Ugo Mifsud, George Borg Olivier and Eddie Fenech Adami. One can argue about their policies and their action but there is no doubt that all of them had a clear vision of what the country needed and their love for our country led them to lead the Nationalist Party through difficult times indeed.

Dr Gonzi clearly fits into the pattern of these characters. Yet, he will have a hard time being better than the last leader, the quiet revolutionary who saw Malta rise from its lowest point ever.

The story of the 1970s and 1980s is too close to be called history and yet we have electors voting today who were not born when most of it was happening. To understand those years is important because in the action of those years lie the problems that the country is still facing nowadays. How can one appreciate the freedom and normality of today if we do not understand this background?

Dr Fenech Adami has been too modest to remind us of where and when his quiet revolution started. He was always playing down the negative aspects, hoping the country looks forward to a brighter future. The events of the dark years affected him and his family personally, like it did many of us. The scars could be easily seen. Yet he worked hard to normalise the country, to bring out even the Labour Party of its policies of violent suppression of who did not agree with them and, above all, to give the country the future it deserved, anchored once and for all with Europe.

He always had a clear vision, even when he was little known. As the 18-year-old founder of Studenti Demokristjani Maltin I immediately saw that this quiet but determined politician was what the country needed and we supported him in the best way we could. I saw in him the perfect continuation of the party's political creed and, yet, he had a freshness in his speeches that we were dying to hear. I admired Dr Borg Olivier yet it was in Dr Fenech Adami that I envisioned a brighter future.

He was always present, even in the darkest hours. As a journalist working with Stamperija Indipendenza in 1976 I witnessed one of the worst mob attacks on the PN headquarters. When the attack subsided after a false alarm that the door was electrified, the eight employees shocked to our core, who were literally expecting to be beaten to death, were relieved when the first person that arrived on the scene (abandoned by the police) was Dr Fenech Adami who started to answer all the telephones ringing and which we did not have the steady hand to answer.

I can recall other incidents like these when he was in the forefront of the defence of the workers and the party activists. Before and after he was elected leader he was always there and that made an enormous difference on everything.

He was also an amazing manager, leading the party through great difficulties, enlarging the headquarters, establishing more newspapers and just frankly turning the party from a frightened group of determined followers to a modern one with a great vision.

The vision of course was in all the former leaders yet it was Dr Fenech Adami who successfully won the elections and led this country to Europe. His success lies in the fact that his actions even normalised the opposition party.

Our country turned its back on the years of political violence, on intimidation, on personal vendettas, on short- term economic policies, on militarised work groups, on third-hand equipment. The change was truly revolutionary.

I recall very well the day we entered Castille in 1987 and were confronted by empty cupboards, antique telephones, enormous torca chandeliers and the most rundown furniture possible. Dr Fenech Adami sighed and set to work. Nothing stopped him from working hard to fulfil his mission.

And work he did all those years, definitely altering our country, modernising our country, giving it the hope that he had lost.

What a man of his word! He stated that he would step down on his 70th birthday and this is what he did! Dr Gonzi will lead the government into Europe, the last great gift of Dr Fenech Adami, the quiet revolutionary who achieved the ultimate for his country, making this small nation proud to be one and equal with the giants of Europe, a small dot on the European map that has all the privileges and rights, and obligations, of nations hundred times bigger.

What an achiever. What a revolutionary. Eddie, history will judge you well.