Prime Minister Robert Abela embarrassed himself and our country by giving one of the most pretentious performances whilst reciting a disastrous speech mired with mistakes at the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a cringe-worthy experience for those who have basic knowledge of international relations and diplomacy.
The mistakes in the speech make it clear that it wasn’t a diplomat who wrote the speech but rather a political appointee without any knowledge of history. The speech may have been written by a diplomat and then later heavily edited by an incompetent appointee.
The speech was about world peace and global inequalities but Robert wasn’t able to explain how the two are related and it’s mostly nice soundbites recited with a very delusional, pretentious and patronising performance. Some of the obvious mistakes Robert made was when he said that Malta “played an important role in ending the Cold War by hosting the Bush and Gorbachev summit”, which is factually incorrect because it wasn’t “the” summit, but just one of the many summits held in series.
As he alluded to the war in Ukraine, he said that nation-states should make an effort to bring peace to the world and said that “innocent people are being killed in the war of Ukraine” as he inferred that some people are not innocent and that both parties had equal weight in starting the conflict. He then proceeded to speak about the Ukraine migrant crisis and claimed that all nation-states should help in this crisis although Malta having received a handful of Ukrainian migrants while refusing to save migrant lives at sea is not actually a country involved in helping abate the international migrant crisis. He insults everyone in the room and then expects help.
He didn’t even refer to the Ukrainians specifically and their victimisation by Russian aggression, placing Malta clearly in the position which refuses to acknowledge Russia as an aggressor. Robert then patronisingly says that war can only end with dialogue and urged Ukraine and Russia to look at the interest of “all peoples”. Really? I thought nation-states would only look at their own interests especially if they are threatened by an existential war initiated by another genocidal aggressor, who coincidentally is also telling you it wants to freeze you to death by cutting your gas supply.
“This is what our people are telling us” he continues, bizarrely assuming that he and his supporters have any say about how the war in Ukraine would end. And then continued his speech by invoking the far-right and Russia’s official narrative that unless we stop the war in Ukraine by appeasing Russia and recognising its illegal territorial claims, Europeans will become poorer and social unrest in Europe will increase.
Robert’s speech has done nothing to repair our reputation and isolates us even further as a country. Malta is currently going through its lowest ebb ever in its international relations as we have the lowest number of friends and allies in history. Yet, our foreign relations are only getting worse as Robert seems to be surrounded by total idiots who have no idea of what’s going on in the world. Robert’s advisors are probably telling him what a good job he did as they stroke his ego in ingratiation, but the reality can’t be even further from the truth. He can’t even realise that his sordid and patronising platitudes make a mockery of himself.
He isn’t even aware of how fake and inauthentic he sounds as he embarrasses himself in front of experienced people and seasoned diplomats. It’s like watching a third-division player playing in the first division. A true authentic exhibition of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Mind you. He is reciting patronizing platitudes on peace when he, himself, can’t look into the eye of his deputy prime minister, doesn’t even trust his deputy of Party affairs, has purged his critics from the Party and the government executive and rules Malta with a pedestrian intellect and totalitarian instincts. Currently, he is trying to divide and conquer the press while waging a war against independent media.
Meanwhile, this is the Maltese delegation while Robert was speaking; visibly bored, embarrassed and disinterested.
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