Why does no one ask whether Joseph Muscat is a freemason?

By a blog reader

Today, thankfully it is not the priests who are whipping up the hysteria against freemasons in Malta. Today, thankfully the masons are yet to be observed flying like swallows on moonlit nights but this it seems does not prevent some from seeing them everywhere and for accusing them of being after every act of corruption and indeed even murder with no less of a messianic zeal than the priests and peasants of yore.

The hysteria has reached such a pitch that it is now even impervious to logic or contradiction. We have people like Patrick Dalli (husband to a former government minister and now EU commissioner) who has long fed nicely off the public trough not least by having a solo exhibition that cost the public at least 50,000 euros  (which the Valletta Cultural Agency tried desperately to keep secret in a manner that should make freemasons envious) and works of art bought by direct order by government ministries, now being shown open solidarity by the Mason hunters for having had the courage to call the Judge ‘Mafia, Freemasons and Opus Dei’ after the judge rejected his son’s claim of having suffered a fundamental rights breach when he was jailed on drug trafficking charges. One has to remember that his son was caught red handed trafficking dangerous drugs including ecstasy. But anything can be given a pass  I presume as long as one can decry the masons.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi were being challenged to declare whether they were members of a Masonic lodge. Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi were of course not only responsible for the hospitals’ debacle and many other shady deals but also close confidants of ex-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Given that the latter continued to protect them to the very end at his very considerable political risk (which ultimately brought him down), I was expecting the same sources to ask Joseph Muscat to also declare whether he was a member of the same masonic lodge. After all such loyalty defies reason unless of course, you are a freemason.

But no, on the contrary, and to my amazement, Joseph Muscat was begrudgingly praised in the aftermath of an interview given to Manuel Cuschieri for having said that the Freemasons were out to ruin him.

Excuse me – I cannot follow the logic – on the one hand, his close buddies for which he sacrificed his political career are being indirectly accused of belonging to a masonic lodge yet on the other hand he makes the sensational claim that he is being hounded by the Freemasons and is praised for it.

In my series of articles called An Objective View of Freemasonry, graciously hosted on this website (and here I thank Prof. Simon Mercieca publicly for being perhaps the only person on this island who truly believes in a free press and does not shy away from posting contrarian opinion pieces), I declared that this whole issue of Freemasonry was a distraction. I also stated that loose usage of the term Freemasonry will only serve to shed more heat than light.

My Conviction grows and grows exponentially with each new convenient utterance that it was the Freemasons that did it.

I underlined that when terms are used loosely they ultimately render themselves useless.

I have my own opinion of what is really going on around us and my theory is that this whole sordid business is nothing but a turf war between a long-established elite and the nouveau riche upstarts that want to displace them. The established elite have long traditionally had a stronghold in the legal profession and the law courts. They also have a history of intermarriage and familial relations and business interests. They also have the Curia (I distinguish between the Curia and the priesthood or the Church at large) on their side, it always has been. They also have extensive roots in the EU.

On the other side of the equation is the nouveau riche class – the upstarts – who came to power in 2013 and expected to have more than their fair share of the monetary pie only to find out that the established elite would not budge. The upstarts do not have the deep roots of interfamilial marriages – all they have that binds them together is an understanding that ‘united they stand and divided they fall’. They have underestimated the old elite who though politically weak remain institutionally strong. The old elite is not averse to broker deals with the upstarts when it suits them and sections of the upstarts, the Dell Boys of our age, who very evidently harbour a strong sense of social inferiority complex are not averse either of brokering deals with the old elite in the (mistaken) hope that they will be eventually accepted into it.

Each of these primary two factions, the Guelphs and Ghibellines of our time may have indeed the odd mason as indeed they have probably the odd Opus Dei or Knight of Malta (something that the old elite really treasure for it enhances their prestige tremendously) and why not, also the odd prelate as well among their ranks – but it is neither the masons nor the religious fundamentalists nor the Order of Malta that are the ones fighting this very dirty war.

Daphne was an unapologetic proponent for the Ancien Régime, losing no opportunity to label the upstarts as ħammalli despite she herself only obtaining membership to the elite class by virtue of marriage. In my opinion, she was ultimately a sacrificial lamb – her last words that there are crooks everywhere were certainly not aimed solely at the upstarts. Everywhere means everywhere. I have no doubt that there are those who attended her funeral or placed flowers at her memorial who know exactly who is behind her premature and horrible demise.

Yorgen Fenech belonged to neither class – he was not of the Ancien Regime but neither of the upstarts – he couldn’t decide which side he’s on and naively thought he could have a foot in either camp. Hence, he could be dispensed with too, with the added privilege that once gone the remnants of his empire could be easy and profitable pickings for others.

Of course, I have no proof of all of this but it is increasingly clear that Freemasonry is an increasingly obscure and convenient culprit to both factions – because neither of them really belong to it.

Let me remind the reader that there is indeed a body of men, who the government recognizes as Freemasons – one is the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Malta which the government recognizes as a voluntary organization within all the confines of the law and the others being of the British jurisdiction which the government recognizes indirectly by leasing them for close to a century now the buildings they work in.

These bodies are therefore the solely recognized entities representing Freemasonry in Malta according to the law –  When we use the term Freemasonry loosely as being behind all the corruption going on in these islands and indeed of orchestrating a brutal murder without any iota of proof is tantamount to inciting hatred against this legitimate distinct minority which according to our own constitution have every right to self-assemble and associate.

Unfortunately we have new inquisitors and witch hunters in our midst – who blinded by prejudice like their forefathers before them, have taken us two centuries back.