A guy going by the nick of europ�en has recently been very prolific on a right-wing Maltese forum on the internet. This forum has a thread dedicated to my blog (and reactions thereto) ever since I had the 'audacity' to write about Stormin' Norman's adventures in the Maltese court following his libel case.
We cannot commit the mistake of placing all 'contributors' to the forum in question in the same basket. The thread dealing with my blog is a case in point. I understand that some contributors were rightly irked by my stand taken on the issue and I also read with interest the various reactions. It is there that the sorting begins. Although one of the moderators claims later in the thread that the forum does not admit ad hominem arguments it is difficult to find any among the tirade of insults and fabrications that adorn the thread which are not ad hominem.
It took the forum some time to notice that I am not a translator but a lawyer. I have been described as a personal advisor to Arnold Cassola and friend of the Greens (in which case Arnold I should be sending you the bill by now). There was a slight deviation consisting of an assault on all things Jesuit based on my upbringing at good old SAC. One cannot help but be amused. As I have had occasion to say before, I understand the frustration with Maltese politics in general and this can cause weird twists like this forum where extremes (and so-called extremists) meet. Sadly their will for change is being translated into negative power and potential is being frittered away.
I repeat, I have nothing against the forum although I disagree with most of its content. Europ�en on the other hand is another matter altogether. Here are his posts from the forum�.
Europ�en
I know this Jacques Rene' Zammit. He is 100% Maltese, so will someone please modify the title of the thread? It gives the impression that France is somehow acting against Norman Lowell. Now, a personal comment about this wanker Zammit (Am I allowed to use this word, Mods?). He is among the top 5 most pretentious bastards I have ever met. His best buddy is Antonio Tufigno (a lawyer), of "Shostakovich's Nightmare" fame. For those of you who are not Maltese, this is an "alternative" band, made up of stinking faux-hippie bourgeois-boheme types. And he is a lawyer, and a lecturer at the University of Malta too. Or at least he was, until he left for Brussels or wherever. The fact that he was educated at a Jesuit College is neither here nor there. I myself had such an education, and I don't think it turned me into a Third-Worldist leftwing hippie. Some of you might ask why all the people I know seem to be pretentious wankers. I don't know.
Europ�en
That's the problem. I was considered as a hamallu by the toffs, and as a toff by the hamalli. And yes of course I didn't live up to their expectations. I can remember a talk we had in Form 2. Fr. Pierre Grech Marguerat was going on about how colonising and western imperialism is responsible for Africa's current problems, showing us a map of Africa full of straight-line frontiers where the evil western Empires divided it up among themselves, etc. And I stood up to challenge that view. In vain, of course, since the present-day right-wingers were among those hamalli who didn't give a shit about anything at the time. Most of those hamalli are now lawyers, doctors, and general millionaires by the way. So it wasn't at all an elitist school, as some of you seem to think. This Jacques-bloody-Rene-may-the-plague-be-upon-him-Zammit belonged to that strong minority of self-satisfied intellectual glitterati, even when he was a schoolboy, the ones who looked down on people like me. The fucker.
Europ�en
He wasn't a teacher though, and he didn't work there. Anyway, all Church schools in Malta, Jesuit or not, I presume, are run on Catholic lines, so that includes welcoming refugees and generally being charitable to everybody etc. You people seem to have an anti-Jesuit fixation.But I have gone totally out of point here. I was talking about my personal hatred for Jacques Rene Zammit.By the way, could any legal expert among you tell me if all this is illegal?
I don't want to be sued by Zammit because I can't afford it.
Not so funny is it? I have no idea who this kid is. All I can tell is that he is a frustrated 24-year old who seems to bear some grudge against me. The anonymity afforded by the site must have encouraged him to express himself in this manner. The unsigned message must give him courage. Honestly, all this glitterati bull has me baffled. I do not recall having much time to look down on anyone at school� especially since I had the impression of being looked down upon most of the time considering my height!
Anyway. Monsieur Europ�en. First of all, I find your nick quite a sad choice. You sound like anything but an open-minded European. I'm sad that you do not like Shostakovich's Nightmare, they could be quite good on a good night� after a few beers� when Tufigno is really rocking. Actually I agree that he did pass through a phase of faux-hippyism and I am sure he would love your bourgeois-boheme description� especially if you added along the Belti tag!
Meanwhile I suggest you vent your frustration elsewhere. I find a Play Station game quite apt for such matters (currently playing Shadow of Rome). You should keep good constructive arguments for posts. Don't fall into the trap of insults and accusations� that's old politicians work and if I am not mistaken even your Mr Lowell claims to want to bring our Melita to a new era away from how old politicians work.
As to your last questions.
Is it illegal? Yes
Can I sue you? Yes
Will I sue you? No
Why? It is mind over matter�I don't mind because you don't matter.
(I would spend the money saved from the lawsuit on Shadow of Rome� trust me on that one)
Next beer is on me! (I'll have a Kinnie)
7 commentaires:
I could be wrong, but it seems like a "min imaqdar irid jixtri" case to me.
My usual analogy in such situations goes something like this - the higher the bird flies, the more hunters it will attract. Therefore congrats.
congrats for attracting hunters?
:)
Hehe, in that case there's a new bar in Qrendi which caters for you perfectly :-) But I shall sure as hell not take you there! I have better ideas, closer to the sea... smajt li int u Mark nezlin Malta l-gimgha d-diehla. Issa niktbilkom u norganizzaw xi haga.
Excellent analogy by the way, Arch!
I fail to see what you find so unfunny about it all. I hadn't heard of the site before, but it is nothing if not hilarious. All the attempts Hitlerian pompousness remind of an embarassing predicament I had in my teen years. There was a bookshop across the road from the Embassy Cinema (Florian?) that stocked one folorn, yellowing copy of Mein Kampf that I often used to contemplate spending ten pounds of my pocket money on. There was certainly no rush as nobody else seemed willing to take it off their hands, but in the end I never did give in to the temptation. My desire to acquire the book was fired largely by a belief that a book with such a power to influence must deserve at least scrutiny, but ten pounds could buy a lot of cinema tickets even in the mid-nineties.
Flash forward to the internet generation, and it seems that countless impressionable buffoons with easier access to Teutonic rhetoric than I ever had have begun to blight their own minds with incoherent fascist drivel. The upside of it all is that they are as bad at it as Hitler was skillful. And if that isn't funny I don't what is.
My not so funny comment was directed to europ�en's personal attacks on me. That is no longer in the realm of amusing (and amusing is also a way of saying sadly amusing).
Persons like europ�en who have nothing to do with politics and a lot to do with hate find harbour in such sites. When many of these persons accumulate then it is dangerous.
My comments seem to have worked as the moderators have rightly censored (partially... they missed out a wanker on the first page), the young urchins misdemeanour. They might have done it out of their own interest since the law allows me to sue the site itself for libel (apart from the right to force the site to disclose the identity of any slanderous members among its fold).
I must say that this all seems very mean-spirited. The day anybody returns and says to his expectant mum and dad that the thing that they most want to be in the world is a lawyer they have pretty much abrogated the right not to be called a wanker.
The impulse to censor by threatening legal action is a churlish concession to the nascent racist bully-boys. You must remember that Norman Lowell is apparently a defender of free speech. Whether he would continue to be so if in some wacked parallel world he indeed was made leader of anything other than his self-praise committee is up for debate.
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