Celebrating workers

On May 1, countless thousands of Maltese and Gozitans will flock to Valletta to enjoy and celebrate, while being reminded that all the rights which workers and their families have won in our country were achieved whenever the Labour movement was trusted to govern.

Starting from the very basic right to vote for all men, followed by the vote for women, and much later for 18- and 16-year-olds; the rights for free education right up to university level; free healthcare and free medicines; the right for a pension for all; the rights for, at least, a minimum wage, yearly bonus, 40-hour, five-day working week; an endless list of social services which is impossible to mention here as I would have to take a full page.

Workers’ Day being marked by the Labour Party in Valletta in 2019. Photo: Jonathan Borg

All the rights given to people with disabilities and those given to the LGBTIQ community in our country, which have turned Malta into the world’s role model for LGBTIQ rights.

I could carry on to prove why those who support the Labour movement have so much to celebrate on May 1. Contrary to those who support the Nationalist Party, which, historically, had resisted such rights under some excuse or other.

The Nationalist Party – like all other conservative parties all over the world – never wanted to associate themselves with May Day. In fact, the PN was not created to give rights to workers and their families but to protect the interest and privileges of the rich, business people, professional class and the local Catholic Church, which had enormous political influence on Maltese and Gozitans, by depicting the PN as the “party of the Church”.

This is the main reason why while thousands will be making their way to Valletta on May 1 to enjoy themselves while celebrating all that the Labour Movement has given them and their families, those who support the PN have been called to vent their political frustration during a “protest mass meeting”.

Ironically, their fake kap, has appealed to PN voters to attend in order to hear him spreading more doom and gloom.

Bernard Grech had the cheek to say that the PN is “defending workers’ rights”, when, at the same time, he and his PN described the countless millions spent by the government to save the jobs of over 100,000 workers and to save thousands of business people from closing their business as “squandering of money”, “money down the drain” and “millions spent to buy votes”.

This is also the reason why, since 2013, thousands of business people started identifying themselves with the Labour Movement and they too will be celebrating May 1 together with the workers they employ.

Eddy Privitera – Naxxar

Human stupidity

Very recently, I watched (again) the 1998 epic war movie Saving Private Ryan on television, quite late at night.

As I had seen the film the first time some 20 years back, the next morning I looked it up on Wikipedia to revive my memory and read the reviews that have been building up over the years.

This film is not for the faint-hearted. The opening sequences, the Normandy landings, are sickeningly gruesome to watch. It is tempting to think and believe that the producers threw in a terrifying dose of graphic human carnage to make the work all the more dramatic and saleable.

But one thing in the reviews is very telling. Most of those surviving the Normandy Omaha Beach incursion who watched the movie felt that it was, sadly, reasonably realistic.

Perhaps it would not be a bad idea to suggest to Vladimir Putin to watch this film.

The Russian president was just three years old when Albert Einstein died in 1955. The great physicist and visionary was so candidly right when he said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

Victor Pisani – Santa Luċija