In 1995, Italian politician Massimo d'Alema published a book called Un paese normale: la sinistra e il futuro d'Italia (A Normal Country: The Left and Italy's Future). I didn't manage to read it all, because  the layout was horrible and the text bored me to tears, but I have always cherished that title as a politico-moral compass. A normal country.

D'Alema synthesised the message of his book in three sentences: "My generation's duty is to take the Italian Left to government. Previous generations have done fundamental things: they acknowledged democracy and renewed the country. For us, now, the problem is government: we want to prove our mettle."

Twenty-three years later, and almost five after the Maltese "Left" has been elected to power again, I find myself asking whether Malta is a normal country. By many accounts it is not. I will focus only on three: Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, the urban environment, and culture.

Schembri and Mizzi

Seems like the name of a stand-up comedy duo. Only it's not. These two are more like the Cat (Mizzi) and the Fox (Schembri) from Collodi's Pinocchio.

Anyway. We have now learnt about the secret memorandum being signed months before the call for expressions of interest in the hospital privatisation project, and about involvements in recycling. In a normal country, the Cat and the Fox would have been made to resign. Not in Malta, though, where they are kept in their positions (secret companies and all) ... To serve as catalysts for other projects?

Urban environment

Like everybody else, I am following with a heavy heart, newspaper reports on the relentless onslaught on our architectural heritage.

The Gozitans are worried about unrestrained "development" in Victoria's historical core. Others are concerned about the transformation of a Sliema cloister into a hotel and the obliteration of a former cinema in Birkirkara. Others still, about the forest of high-rise buildings which will forever change the landscape. The list goes on and on.

Needless to say, I fully subscribe to the subtext in all these cases: Joseph Muscat's laissez-faire policies are destroying the country's heritage. But let us be frank and honest. Villa Birbal, Borg Olivier's villa and the de Fremaux Żejtun palazzo - to mention but three examples - were not demolished on Dr Muscat's watch.

The problem seems to me deeper than Joseph Muscat and his everything-goes policies where the only value is money. It's a matter of what it means to be a "normal country".

When campaigners protest against the remorseless demolition and destruction of our architectural heritage and, essentially, Malta's character, they fail to come up with a coherent philosophy of preservation. Or, at least, if such a philosophy exists, it does not form part of public discourse, it is simply absent from the public arena.

I believe that in a "normal country", the thinking part of the public (only a minority of which votes for Dr Muscat, by the way) should articulate a philosophy of urban conservation. And that philosophy should not only be made public, but it should form part of the culture of the people.

Only when such a coherent philosophy starts occupying public discourse will there be a real context to the protests of campaigners.

Otherwise, they are all destined to be perceived as the protests of fussy people, who have nothing better to do with their lives. Which is manifestly wrong and simply rubbish.

Of course, campaigners are right. They are insisting on the preservation of the urban character of the country, which contributes to the nation's unique or almost-unique identity - a selling point for tourism but also a point of reference for our collective psychological well-being.

But this communitarian ideal clashes, and violently to boot, with the right (real or perceived) of individuals to capitalise on their property. The issues here are complex and require careful philosophical analysis. Yes, philosophical. (But our philosophers are more interested in liberal issues, such as abortion, MAP, euthanasia, gay adoption, thought policing, and other such rubbish imported from the Anglo-American globalist-capitalist world, than in saner, more practical and mundane problems which interest not the fringes but the entire local population.)

The problems exist on two levels and both are intimately related to Justice, with a capital "J".

One, community versus individual. Why should the right of the individual to capitalise on private property be curtailed by intangible community benefits accrued from conservation? Since the benefits to individuals are easily quantified, how to quantify community benefits?

Two, individual versus individual. If individuals have already had a chance to capitalise in the past, why shouldn't other individuals be given the same opportunity in the present and the future? This is a very serious question, and so far I have read or heard nobody dealing with it in a philosophical way. By "philosophy" I mean the drawing up of a theoretical framework which outlines the path of justice to be followed if we are to maintain social peace.

Culture

In the meantime, instead of solving these problems, we are regaled with the most inane cultural production imaginable: a concert featuring the favourite music of the Prime Minister. I cannot say "Bang your head against the wall" because heavy metal seems not to be on the menu.

Let's compare the present Prime Minister with his predecessors.

Under Mintoff, we got Ġensna. Fine, many might find it a distorted interpretation of history, almost a Whiggish rehash of history as an evolution leading to Mintoff's 31 March 1979.

But that's not my point. My point is that under Mintoff, the people were told a story about the nation, and the message that Mintoff is the Saviour of the Nation is oblique. Ray Mahoney actually did a fine job when he wrote the lyrics to that rock opera.

Under Eddie Fenech Adami - and surely thanks to Peter Serracino Inglott's input - Malta got some serious cultural stuff: the Malta Jazz Festival and the Malta International Choir Festival are but two examples.

Alfred Sant didn't have much time to do anything as Prime Minister. Military re-enactments "celebrated" the bicentenary of the French occupation, but otherwise not much else in those twenty-two months. Yet, under Dr Sant's leadership, the Labour Party produced the high-quality Iljieli Mediterranji on an annual basis, with people such as the late Joe Attard, Joe Borg, Tony Degiovanni, Narcy Calamatta, my late father, and many others, creating and promoting popular yet beautiful and artistically-valid representations.

To my mind, Lawrence Gonzi adopted a more austere attitude, preferring work to play.

But now we come to Joseph Muscat and we find that the pinnacle of his government's cultural programme is a concert to celebrate the Prime Minister's musical tastes!

So let us sum up all of this. Shady dealings go on, while the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff and favourite Minister open secret companies. The Prime Minister's laissez-faire policies usher in an era of remorseless urban devastation. And all this happens with the Prime Minister's favourite music as soundtrack. "Malta: A Normal Country" - what a horror movie!