When Judas betrays the cult
The amount of information emerging every day about the web of corruption and criminality emanating from Castille is shocking and overwhelming many of all political leanings.
Many activists of the ruling party – Labour – are reeling in disbelief. Some of them are angry. Some of them are anxious. Some of them are disorientated. Some of them feel hurt. Some of them are in denial.
Some of them closed ranks because their party is their cult.
And a cult means unquestioning commitment to its leader. Anything he says is the absolute truth, anything he does is perfection personified. Any accusations of wrongdoing or allegations of a crime on his part can only be the result of a conspiracy, a persecution by the outside world.
Being in a cult implies having convictions manufactured by the leaders of the cult for their own personal advantage. And the more these convictions are challenged, the more the cult member’s belief in these convictions is reinforced.
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change,” Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacter wrote in When Prophecy Fails, “Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point … Suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before.”
The Shift News had published an excellent article on how the Labour Party manipulated supporters’ minds to transform Joseph Muscat into a god in their eyes.
But the truth of the matter is that the evidence that Keith Schembri is a criminal is becoming more and more overwhelming day by day. And the truth of the matter is that Joseph Muscat knew enough to realise what Keith Schembri, his best friend and closest collaborator was up to. That makes him an accomplice.
To Labour activists, Joseph Muscat embodies their party’s Messiah. After 25 years relegated to the Opposition benches, the PL is now celebrating landslide victory after landslide victory thanks to him. PL have a champion, a winning horse. Losing Joseph Muscat is a bitter pill for them to swallow.
But Labour activists have to realise that this is not about PL and PN. It is not about bringing PL down. It’s about the corrupt and the criminal versus those who do not want to be governed by the corrupt and the criminal and those who do not stand up to them. It’s about integrity and justice. They need to get past the cult mind-set, they need to realise that the leader of the cult was a Judas who used them and manipulated them, and they need to evict the leader of the cult from office and from the party yesterday. It should never be Judas who sets the timetable of his resignation.
Unfortunately, it seems that integrity and justice have long left the building and have no intention of returning.
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