Lino Spiteri’s autobiography

Savıour Balzan comments on former Labour minister Lino Spiteri’s autobiography 'Jien u Ghaddej fil-Politika' launched last week by PEG Ltd:

It seems out of the ordinary to dedicate more than one article in a newspaper to a book. Yet it has been some time since the memoirs of anyone significant and of course relevant have been published in Maltese. Neither do I recall anyone of late who has attempted to take a good look at the last 40 years. What needs to happen to Lino Spiteri’s autobiography is to get it off the shelves and libraries of news and political junkies like myself, and to throw it at tertiary education and university students. Literally throw it at them. Some of them need to know a thing or two about their roots before they fall into that spiral of self-depreciatory talk about Malta and the Maltese – so typical of today’s youth.

The need for the younger Maltese to debate, to disagree or to question what happened in the last 40 years can only lead to a more open and mature society. To realise that many younger people have little understanding of their recent history is very sad, to say the least. If there is one institution I often ignore it is university; but then it appears that university is closed in itself. It refuses to engage people out of its circles, whether in the media and political world. Just look at its communication and media department and the people they churn out as graduates...

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