Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/28618
Title: Old wine in new bottles : political parties and the grant of responsible government
Other Titles: Party politics in a fortress colony : the Maltese experience
Authors: Frendo, Henry
Keywords: Malta -- History -- British occupation, 1800-1964
Political parties -- Malta
Issue Date: 1991
Publisher: Midsea Publication
Citation: Frendo, H. (1991). Old wine in new bottles : political parties and the grant of responsible government. In H. Frendo (Ed.), Party politics in a fortress colony : the Maltese experience (pp. 183-200). VaIletta: Midsea Publication.
Abstract: 'An old order of things is tumbling down and another order is being set up, not, as of old, on its ruins, but on a completely new foundation'; so wrote the Voce del Popolo in 1919, commenting on a moving performance of Girolamo Royetta's Romanticismo at the Manoel Theatre: that 'magnificent demonstration of patriotism which reached its climax at the scene of Mazzini's oath and at the cry of Vitaliano Lamberti "Now is the time!" '. Just like the red and white ribbons being worn in button-holes, the crowded meetings of the Assemblea Nazionale were representative and symbolic. The Giovine Malta hall was 'packed with people, of all classes and social standing, of no political party, but of one creed, and that creed Nationalism'. Elated by a demonstration outside his residence in celebration of the achievement of self-government, Sceberras told the crowd that the time had come for all parties to sink all political differences and work the new constitution in a loyal spirit. Purging the past of all its ills and, for a moment, anticipating a changed world after years of waiting and suffering, this euphoria was a catharsis, a short-lived dream because conflict is endemic in society and the solution lay precisely in cultivating political parties as a rational mechanism whereby to channel and regulate differences of opinion in an orderly manner within the radically transformed constitutional order that was about to start functioning.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/28618
Appears in Collections:Party politics in a fortress colony : the Maltese experience
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