Camus: Countries of Freedom was published on January 9. It revealed a previously unknown letter that the Nobel-prize philosopher Albert Camus wrote in the dark days of 1943 when France was throttled by Nazism. Camus described the anguish and uncertainty of the French. His main concern, however, was “the appalling destruction of thinkers” who were essential for opposing the destructive logics of history and for rebuilding the country.

Dom Mintoff (top left) set about destroying the university.

Just three days after this letter’s publication, the Malta Labour Party elected a new leader. The previous prime minister had resigned in disgrace, driven out by a whirlpool of institutionalised corruption that he had orchestrated and which led to the assassination of Malta’s most prolific journalist and the irreparable destruction of the country’s reputation. It finally sucked him and his closest conspirators down with it.

He left behind utter devastation in the institutions as is witnessed in the crumbling shell that was the police force. Yet Joseph Muscat continued to enjoy the adulation of a massive section of the population. The man who replaced him had been his advisor, personally benefitting from hundreds of thousands of euro in direct orders and triumphing as the candidate of continuity. Muscat never revealed the reasons for his resignation. It definitely was not a lack of support from the people.

Why were the trust ratings of Muscat and Labour so high in the face of such damage to the country? Why did the candidate of continuity demolish the deputy prime minister and deputy leader? To answer that, we have to rewind some 50 years.

In 1971, Dom Mintoff triumphantly rode a wave of change bringing hope of a more just and prosperous country. He was intelligent, energetic and experienced having served as prime minister previously. Importantly he was well educated. He studied at the Lyceum in Valletta and at the Royal University and finally at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. His government brought in significant changes, particularly in social benefits, which transformed the lives of many struggling families.

Crucially, Mintoff moved quickly to modernise education and the University. Mintoff head-hunted Ralf Dahrendorf, director of the prestigious London School of Economics, and John Horlock, vice chancellor at the University of Salford. They were appointed to the Commission of the Royal University of Malta. Their task was the transformation of the university into a modern place of learning.

The Dahrendorf commission made its proposals in 1973. By then, however, Mintoff had been on his epic visit to Mao in China in April 1972. He was blown away by the hundreds of thousands of Chinese greeting him. In Mao, Mintoff saw a profoundly autocratic leader who had created a one-party state that worshipped its supreme leader without question.

Mao had used political violence to achieve his goals and believed that “power comes out of the barrel of a gun”. He had inflicted the cultural revolution. His red guards had subjected “bourgeouis intellectuals”, mostly teachers, to humiliation, physical violence and even death. Mao’s tactics had a huge and tragic human cost with tens of millions exterminated.

Mintoff recognised that Mao’s grip on power was achieved through ruthless and violent suppression of the educated. He learnt his Chinese lesson well.

Education, knowledge, information and critical thinking are the cornerstone of democracy. And that’s why despots love ignorance

On his return from China, his policies on education changed radically. Mintoff set about destroying the university. He established his own red guard, il-Brigata. The 1974 Education Act triggered the dismemberment of the university. He deprived the university of funds, prevented the filling of posts, closed the faculty of medicine and eventually passed the infamous 1978 bill to amend the education act. The university was renamed ‘The Old University’ and replaced with a ‘New University’.

The Old University would only teach humanities, law and theology while the New would do the rest. Students would be worker-students selected by the government-controlled General Workers’ Union. Theology was exiled to Rabat and the Old University funds were frozen. Mintoff’s final tactic was intimidation.

Violent thugs led by Dennis Sammut, administrative secretary, and Joe Debono Grech, a Labour MP, gained entry into the assembly hall where the graduation ceremony of November 18, 1977 was being held. Some of these were armed with flick knives, one was carrying a revolver and another had a long thick pole with studs. Instead of protecting students, the police protected the thugs.

One of the university lecturers, Henry Frendo, was arrested. Students and staff were repeatedly intimidated by Mintoff’s ‘red guards’ and by hundreds of police officers between October 5 and November 18 on campus. The president and Minister of Education Philip Muscat stormed out of the ceremony when student Michael Frendo delivered his oration in support of academic freedom.

At the same time Mintoff was using his eloquent oratory to ridicule and harass citizens who spoke English, wore suits and who were generally considered part of the ‘bad classes’ as defined in Mao’s cultural revolution. He created a culture of fear, anxiety and despair among the educated. Once the university was completely destroyed, the Act of 1980 absorbed the ‘old’ into the ‘new’.

The mild, beneficent Mintoff of 1971 turned into the crude harsh autocrat of 1980, Papa Dom. The relations between Mintoff and Dahrendorf illustrate this transformation. The man who had courted Dahrendorf now turned aggressive and hostile. On June 6, 1978, Dahrendorf submitted his resignation letter to Mintoff – “only a ruin of a university remains” he wrote despondently. When Dahrendorf asked why he did not allow free study, Mintoff replied “but don’t you realise that education is gelignite”.

Mintoff fully understood the power of education and independent thought. He did not stop there. He locked the medical profession out, most of whom were compelled to emigrate with their families; he closed down Church schools for weeks; he expelled the Blue Sisters; he relentlessly hounded the Church and its Archbishop; he intimidated all those who represented independent thought.

Despite the long years of university revival under Nationalist governments after 1987 and Malta’s entry into the European Union, Malta remains the member state with the lowest proportion of tertiary educated citizens – the legacy of Dom Mintoff.

This poor level of education paved the way not only for a Labour victory in 2017 but the complicit approval by the majority of the population of rampant abuse of power, corruption at the highest levels, unprecedented cronyism and the erosion of democratic freedoms. It led to the glorification of a leader who resigned in disgrace embroiled in the ugliest and darkest events in our recent history and the election of his very own consultant to replace him.

The Malta Today survey of December 2019 showed that if the whole population had received tertiary education and an election were held, the Nationalist Party would win a 55 per cent majority, despite the PN’s piteous state and unpopular leader. If it had only received a primary education, Labour would win by 69 per cent, a two thirds majority.

Consistently and unfailingly, Labour’s support is strongest among the least educated. No wonder Mintoff worked so hard to destroy the university. Education, knowledge, information and critical thinking are the cornerstones of democracy. And that’s why despots love ignorance.

Labour knows that to retain power and continue to destroy the country, it must maintain its crusade to keep the masses uneducated. And what better way to destroy any vestige of true education than to appoint Owen Bonnici as Minister of Education.

Completely lacking in knowledge, background or experience in the field and with a proven track record of a veritable wrecking ball, he epitomises the cynicism of Labour towards what should be the ultimate priority for our nation – a strong educational system.

As David Brooks pointed out in the New York Times (February 17), the Scandinavian countries have the highest economic productivity, social equality, personal happiness and the lowest levels of corruption not because they are ethnically homogenous or because of their welfare state but because of generations of phenomenal educational policies. Bildung, which has no English translation, describes their approach. It means the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person.

Only through generations of Bildung can we bring our country back from the ruins that successive Labour leaders have brought it to. Can Bonnici bring about Malta’s Bildung? Even if he could, it would deplete Labour’s base and bring it crashing down. No despot worth his salt would allow that. It would undo the “appalling destruction of the thinkers” that Mintoff so successfully achieved.

Kevin Cassar is consultant vascular surgeon, Mater Dei Hospital and professor of surgery, University of Malta.