Duminku Chircop, the President of the Naxxar Labour Party Committee has retired from his post to gradually retire political activism. Denise Farrugia has taken his place.
Most of those who are not members of the Labour Party do not know who Duminku Chircop is, and will probably find this news item strange compared to national news items.
It’s actually a very interesting and noteworthy event because Duminku Chircop is one of the most popular and dedicated Labour Party delegates and he is also from the Mintoffian generation that is now in its latest phase of political activism before it is completely replaced by the younger generations.
This is not a very progressive development for the party because the younger generations that are entering the Labour Party are doing so without a political formation and without any experience of political activism: many of them are just being recruited outright to work for ONE or for the government. This is turning the Labour Party’s youth wing more into a vehicle for economic incentives rather than political goals, with Labour youths treating the party as their own little job centre.
Indeed, the Labour Party’s youth wing has become less relevant in politics than it used to be. They are not even featured in Labour’s ongoing campaign in favour of the introduction of euthanasia, in stark contrast to their predecessors, who were essentially at the forefront of the party’s push for greater civil liberties.
Duminku Chircop comes from a generation of political activists that were strongly informed about their politics through propaganda and lots of political literature. These are people who actually used to read and inform themselves about their politics. Today, they are considered as too orthodox with regard to their ideas, but their difference from the younger generations is that they actually have a belief-structure based on values. Even until this day Duminku Chircop describes himself as a socialist and can spend hours telling you about what his socialism means.
On the other hand, the Labour Party youth of today mostly speak the official discourse of the party and aren’t able to reconcile the Labour Party’s official discourse with an informed belief-system based on values.
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