Back in my youth, we had records for music, that were played on a record player.  The great classics of the music industry were recorded at that time and stood the test of time.  We played them and played them and many wonderful memories come to mind when we hear those songs again.  Lucio Dalla, Francesco de Gregori, Adriano Celantano, Paolo Conte and Gino Paoli from Italy and Bowie, Queen, the Beatles and all the glittering disco pop that we danced to at the discotheque in Paceville before it became a den for gentlemen clubs and their indulgences.

Today, though, when we realise we are hearing a broken record it is not music that comes to mind, but the vain repetition of mantras by those who try to defend themselves against the indefensible.  Vacuous statements, meant only to create a smokescreen, a security blanket and a sickening and broken response to really serious issues which are now exhausting and tiring for all of us to keep hearing.  Issues of corruption, of theft, of rule of law and the institutions made impotent, of abuse of our freedom and our rights and of crimes that have not been brought to justice.

So we block out the tripe and turn away from it.  But the fact is that we are confronted with its consequences everywhere, all around us and there is nowhere to turn anymore without coming face to face with the rot and the lies.  The manipulation of truth has now turned into a cloak and is worn by anyone who has something to hide.  It has spawned a clan of other-wordly creatures, with multiple heads and splayed feet and fat stomachs that roll over tight pants.

To deny is to thrive these days.  Nothing but empty denials when all the evidence to the contrary is right there before us.  Hand-outs these days come not in money or favour, but in a ticket to the world beyond reason.  Its members are taught to believe, to foster and to act in conformity with the threat.  Anything that threatens the Prime Minister and his trusted men and women is to be dealt with swiftly and the music will play, over and over again, like a broken record.

In its own way it has become something of a cult and has now attracted acolytes from various other groups.  The old broken record of “If you can’t beat them, join them” is just the tip of it.  

Along with the denials and the “it wasn’t me”, come the old clichés and communist slogans of getting behind the leader and all keeping a straight line or else we fall over the edge.  What rot, what poor philosophy and politics.  I don’t even know what this takes us back to because it was never a part of the way honest politics were done before so it must have been spawned from the warped thinking that goes around these days.

When we watch interviews on UK national TV, with people who are probably born around 80 years ago, asking them about what they think of Brexit, its like, really? These are the people who are deciding our future?  What era do they see themselves living in?  The same is happening here to us.  Our future is in the hands of some relics, not age-wise because the youthful factor is popular these days, but mentally. 

The disconnect between what people are experiencing, what they are living and thinking and what they are offered, is bewildering to say the least.  For Malta, one more time.  Surely there is another slogan we can re-cycle, the formula goes.  Its all about recycling now, isn’t it? 

Beneath this clay, there are streams of water that will carry the debris and dump it in the shallow bed to accumulate and block the passage and all around it will dry.  Our spirit is choking, our hope is failing and our energy is stifled. 

It is our Chernobyl, our tsunami, our earthquake, our drought.  All from the lies and the deceit.  All from the deliberate destruction of truth and justice. 

Now it must survive and the result is around us.  Not just the fake island we have become but also the third world country, with imported workers living in a container in a quarry, with all the hot summer sun making them boil inside.  A refugee camp in Syria has better conditions than that.  And these are the workers who are meant to be providing for our pensions, we were told. 

What is all of this going to do to our infrastructure, our health, our heritage and our self-respect?  Maltese citizens are living on the edge now, pushed further and further away from their neighbourhood and the sense of community they had before.  No wonder the churches are not full these days.  Who knows who lives where and where they came from?  The only instruction to follow now, is to keep the front door shut of the condominium.  The order to clean up after your dog is ignored, the rubbish bags line the pavement and construction noise is our next door neighbour. 

In a little while, our addresses will be changed to Area C, section X, floor 35.  Old College Street?  Who heard of that?  How did it get its name?  What’s a College?  And an old College?  Everything is new here.  Built in the surplus era.  The population were once known as Maltese.  Today they are not but neither does anyone know what they are or which God they worship.

We can only hope that the hot Mediterranean climate and centuries old DNA will forge a place in us that will keep the truth sacred and intact and we can stand the virus that is plaguing many and come out stronger for it.  We have our faith and our courage.  Let’s use it.

Then we can start over.