One would have to accept cremation (an available service at this complex), as the final disposal of one’s remains, he added. This is impressive considering, for example, how heavily regulated life has become, but perhaps less so when one takes into account advances in technology that facilitate the discharge of one’s obligations as a citizen.
It is depressing to think that we Gozitans have for ages been conditioned to accept as part of life that we have to go to Malta for the most basic of needs. It was not long ago that a Gozitan in need of an x-ray had to go to Malta for the service. To our credit, this debilitating dependence on the main island has been reduced in recent years. So it was quite a shock when my son, who has recently turned 18, came up to me the other day to take him to Malta for the written part of his driver’s licence test. It struck me that some of the hard-fought gains of recent years were being clawed back by those who want to keep us forever servile to the Maltese.
Without thinking more of it, we took off for Malta for the test one morning earlier this month. Once we got to the test site, I saw something that gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach. The written test was not written (or oral as I recall it for my own test) but computerised. I do not want to shame our government by noting exactly how long it has been that these tests have been computerised other civilised countries. But I do want to express my regret that in the instance of progress being made in our country in the shape of a computerised system for testing a prospective driver’s knowledge of road signs and regulations, Gozitans have to experience the indignity of having to leave their island and in the process sacrifice two days’ worth of productive activity (parent and applicant).
Our government, otherwise withering in efficiency, waste, abuse, overkill, is a latter day convert to economic sense. As if to highlight the incongruence of it all, earlier that same day we caught sight of a group of Works Department employees, four or five of them, watching one of their colleagues work away with his shovel. But when it comes to the driver’s licence test, there will be one testing centre. It is unthinkable to recreate the set-up in a region servicing less than 10 per cent of the people serviced by the central unit.
The reality is that as progress descends on our country (postal service, banking, health, ferry service, and so on), Gozitans will suffer over and over again, because they will invariably come up short in the numbers game.
My son was in a buoyant mood as we trekked back from the test, he was halfway towards getting his cherished driver’s licence. I must have seemed a little vacant to him, however, lost as I was in thought, refusing to entertain, as outdated, the idea that the objective of every Gozitan politician must be to make Gozitans less subservient to the Maltese in their daily existence, which includes not having to go to Malta out of necessity.