Nostalgia for a rotten regime

I get a kick reading Mark Vella Feltrinelli's blog. I've decided it is one of the best, if not *the* best weblogs by a fellow Maltese citizen. Like myself he is one of the 80s generation who is still trying to come to terms with the period when he came of age and one of the small group of one-time-hopefuls who is analysing the present through a very disillusioned pair of eyes. I cannot but share most of his views about our crazy motherland who time and again ended up being raped by a bunch of filthy honourable politicians and now the mighty motley crew of 'media' figures.

His entries about the Mintoff era, especially the one narrating the (true) story of Korean dancers being taught to chant the then notorious socialist anthem "Ma taghmlu xejn mal-Perit Mintoff" is simply hilarious. What impressed me most in this entry was, however, Feltrinelli's similitude of Mintoff to Ceaucescu. I used to think that this kind of similitude - which I have often thought seriously about - was all nationalist propaganda crap. But now, seeing that even my dear Feltrinelli (who never voted PN as I did in 1987) is drawing the same conclusions I have put my mind to rest that I haven't been infected by the PN's propaganda machine in some Orwellian manner.

And then nostalgia creeps in. Some three winters ago, Feltrinelli and co, used to meet at the Gifen, Valletta, and, in the little hours, behind closed doors (obviously), used to indulge in spontaneous socialist nostalgia rituals, such as cacophonous choruses of old time socialist and nationalist chants archived from the 80s; Mintoff impersonations; and countless parodies of Eddie (aka Edward) catchphrases.

I have no doubt that many people my age who watched Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin last weekend had their share of socialist nostalgia as well. This is a very interesting socio-psychological phenomenon, which, like many other things, has not yet been analysed locally. In an interview I gave to Adrian Grima for babelmed.net last January I spoke about the nostalgia sweeping through former communist countries. While in Bratislava last December I was taken for a night out of bar hopping in the city centre, and my host was trying to amuse me by touring me to pubs like KGB, and others.

I don't know why exactly but these lines from the greatest Maltese poet, Victor Fenech, come reeling back to mind:

Be off Samuraj - may the worst curse fall upon you . I look at this land and I see nothing but your shadow: a frail people with glass eyes, silently witnessing the seven moons of havoc, babbling mutely the failed spring.

(apologies to Victor Fenech for my poor translation)