The news that those creeps who classify (read censor) our films have decided children under the age of 12 cannot see the latest Harry Potter movie has been rightly met with outcries of derision. It is yet another hapless demonstration of how special a nation we think we are when faced with decisions that others less theatrical routinely take in the most basic, matter-of-fact way.

It is this kind of mentality that distinguishes us from the rest of the human race. Take the divorce issue for example. At a time when marriages are breaking down at an alarming rate, our politicians rather than uniting to see how they can make life easier for those young men and women (as well as their offspring if they happen to have any) caught in sad and often endless litigations, prefer to unite in turning a blind eye and, inexplicably, pretending the problem can one day somehow solve itself. It can’t and it certainly won’t.

It seems we simply have to be more Catholic than the Pope, a sort of laughable bastion against the rest of world. We seem to delight in other people’s miseries, regardless of the pain and all the stress involved. The bigots in us opt to openly accept co-habitation and Church-granted separation, better known as high-cost annulment, rather than insist on proper legislation that would give a man and a woman the chance to restart their life and, in so doing, feel entitled to seek happiness and fulfilment the second time round.

This is also the nation that wants to belong to an exclusive club like the European Union but insists it wants to be treated differently when it comes to the less pleasant aspects of rules and regulations. Our hunters, our fishermen, our farmers and some of our businessmen gladly swallowed the pre-Referendum derogation bait and now find they do not even qualify to be considered so special after all.

Helplessly caught in the painful reality of wave after wave of illegal immigrants, many of us must have thought the EU would make a special exception and wield the magic wand and solve it for us. Instead, we were first told that if we don’t like it we might just as well lump it, then a bit of decorum was established in the whole drama by statements of support, official visits and friendly, sometimes sycophant media exposure that have not reduced the number of illegal immigrants coming ashore, but have ostensibly helped us to more or less swallow the bitter medicine with a spoonful of sugar.

In the field of tourism, we thought we were special enough to ignore the new trends and the competition from new destinations and even to have the temerity of thinking tourists actually owed us a living. To our disbelief, we suddenly found that the seventies methods we still used in the 21st century needed to be changed and adapted to the new market forces, hence the initial hesitation and then the panic to accept and licence the low-cost carriers. If anything, in this case it was yet another instance of special ineptitude.

And so it goes on and on. We need to be considered special because we are small. Because we do not have any resources. Because we are surrounded by water. Because we are bilingual. Because we used to be a colony. Because we are Catholics. Because we saved Europe from the Infidel. Because we helped beat Hitler. Because I love you. Because you love me.

As the years go by and in absolute contrast to what has been happening in the rest of the world, the Gay Pride Parade in Valletta grows smaller instead of bigger in size. I thought we loved our families. But rather than showing it by acceptance and encouragement, we tend to have it displayed in the form of the fattest boys and girls anywhere in Europe. It is because they are lovingly fed a lot more than mere parental love. But lo and behold, if they dare join the Gay Pride Parade.

This nation is so special that a new hospital becomes such a major national attraction that it even makes it to the top of the list of the sightseeing schedule for coffee mornings and late-afternoon teas. It’s as if everyone wants to be there except in their intended role – that of patient, whenever they start accepting patients, anyway.

So special is this nation that on the delicate issue of abortion, recently legalised in no less Catholic Portugal, it cannot even begin to muster a proper debate. The political parties again prefer to steer clear away from it rather than encourage a sane and sensible national discussion. There has even been some pathetic talk of undemocratically shutting it – the debate – off forever by exploiting the Constitution. After all, we also have a special Constitution that, very much in the manner of the Islamic Sharia, decides what religion we, as a nation, supposedly all belong to.

Back full circle to good old Harry Potter; it seems our children are so especially sensitive that they cannot be compared to other children in other parts of the civilised world. They have to be sheltered from the harmless wizardry, gimmicks and sheer fun that J.R. Rawling’s unique works quite clearly and innocently portray. It’s OK for Maltese children to be shown horrendously gruesome pictures, on several occasions even the real thing, of Dun Gorg Preca’s macabre remains, but fiction, good children’s fiction, such as the Harry Potter books and films, are to be denied to a sizeable chunk of the pre-teenage population.

Aren’t we special.