Some days ago, a news segment on Net TV dealt with Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. It centred around the speeches that MPs had delivered about the former prime minister. These contained nothing but eulogies and effusive praise for the man.

Malta’s parliament, as it is today, is full of hogwash. This whitewashing of a politician’s life is further proof that in that chamber there is not truth or a search for truth but it is just an edifice, beautiful on the outside but rotten at the core.

Granted that such revisionism happens all the time. But just because it is the practice does not mean it is right or something that should be encouraged.

The more we let history be rewritten, reinterpreted and revised, the more we will commit the same sins as yesterday.

If parliament – with all its dishonourable men – is happy to do it, we on the outside should see to it that it is not continued. I, at least, wish to be not a whitewasher but a recorder of fact, a chronicler and an observer of reality.

If God in heaven, or whoever takes care of souls in transit from here to wherever, has loads of compassion and lets us all into eternal peace, so be it. But, while we wait for eternity, what happens in this world cannot be forgotten, wiped away or totally rewritten.

When Mifsud Bonnici died, I mourned. I mourned the man, the human who had left this world. Any other thoughts about the man’s passing would be horrendous.

History and humanity are not gods in heaven being nice, kind and forgiving. Notwithstanding my sadness at Mifsud Bonnici’s death, I will not write or say anything that cleanses him of all his terrible actions, his legacy, his total disregard of the rule of law.

Humanity needs truth at all times and at all costs. It does not make sense to rewrite history and a man’s, or a woman’s, past cannot be excused merely because the grim reaper happens to come along.

Maybe, or rather it seems an obvious fact, Mifsud Bonnici was intrinsically a good man who helped many in their plight, who had a soul untainted by personal greed or gain. That is to be celebrated.

If he was manipulated – and his goodness used by others – to do the wrong that he committed, that does not mean we can forget his legacy.

Malta’s parliament, as it is today, is full of hogwash- Victor Calleja

Whatever his soul was like, what is glaringly true is that his life in politics was marred by too many wrongs.

Mifsud Bonnici took over the premiership at one of the lowest points in Maltese history. Labour had won at the polls in the worst way possible. Gerrymandering their way into power, Labour then had to defend themselves for five inglorious, bloodied years, against a gallant fight for democracy by the Nationalist Party.

And where was Mifsud Bonnici during these years? Defending at all costs the Labour spin and their stranglehold on power.

On his watch, or while he served as deputy leader of the party in power, multiple episodes took place that should shame any politician rather than have him painted as a walking saint.

There were murders, frameups, a police corps turned into a thugs’ paradise, public broadcasting transformed into a North Korea style lying machine, a law prohibiting foreigners from commenting about Malta, public manifestations disrupted by Labour thugs.

The list is endless, the horrors against all government critics left unchecked, the violent given an impunity pass wherever they felt they could strike.

Even the right to freedom of assembly and speech was curtailed in various instances. And all this was allowed and seen as necessary by Mifsud Bonnici.

Before the 1987 election, everything was done – and condoned by our saintly Mifsud Bonnici – to keep Labour in power at all costs.

Thousands of jobs were dished out to anyone ready to trade their democratic rights for a cushy, hardly legitimate posting.

This is but a small dose of the horrors of the man our men and women in parliament are now painting as a political giant and innocent man of destiny with a few bad traits.

Let us, for our sake and for the sake of all those yet to come, be truthful with the living and the dead.