[ANALYSIS] Saying sorry: a first step or a token?
An apology from Labour is not enough but it could be a start of a process. JAMES DEBONO analyses the reaction to Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca’s call for soul-searching in the party she loves
8 April 2021, 7:57am
by James Debono
President emeritus Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca’s call on Labour to apologise and embark on critical soul searching has provoked two opposite reactions.
On one side there were those who derided Coleiro Preca for having been part of Labour and Joseph Muscat’s government and who consider Labour unredeemable. Underlying this school of thought is a Manichean view that Labour is historically “not trustworthy” or that it contains within it the seeds of immorality. On the other side there were those who kept insisting the party is not to blame for the actions of a few rotten apples, with most shooting down the idea of an apology relegating it to a token gesture of ‘humility’ from a magnanimous party.