On the face of it, it seemed strange at first that the population of Malta is being called out to protest against a bill that will declare public feasts that fall on a weekend no feasts at all.

Strange because this is after all a country with one of the highest feast day quotas in a year. Strange because no other country in Europe has the luxury of getting an extra day off if a feast falls on a weekend. Strange because this is the country whose schoolchildren have the least school days in Europe.

But then, it is even more strange that the government, before it put pen to paper to draw a line on feast days, does not seem to have spent much time thinking about its responsibility for having saddled Malta with five, that’s right five, national days instead of the usual one because it and the Opposition could never agree on which day Malta’s national day is

celebrated.

So it is after all not strange at all that tomorrow people will come out marching against this measure and the government that is introducing it.

This is an arbitrary way of cutting down on feast days and, being arbitrary, has its good points and its bad ones. It is not, however the be all and end all measure, whatever the employer associations say. It will not, on its own, ensure competitiveness or productivity and it is not fair that employers push the government to such an extent and then hide behind its skirts, along with their inability to raise productivity through other deals with the workers, through better and more efficient management of their resources, through better R&D, through more imaginative marketing, through better strategic partnerships.

Once again, as in the classic tomes of an outdated capitalism, the solution to the problems, in such people’s eyes, is the worker. Always the worker, and only the worker. If the rhetoric being used by some GWU spokesmen is redolent of outmoded Marxism, the rhetoric underscoring the rationale behind this measure, if taken on its own, reeks of a capitalism Scrooge would be ashamed of.

In which case, the people are right to march.

There can be no doubt that people, of whatever political beliefs, are now angry and cannot take any more. They have seen their take home pay get undermined in so many different ways over the past years and there seems to be no end of the pain in sight, except a very long way off when the deficit is hopefully brought down in a more substantial way.

People are angry because they are suddenly being made to pay for any improvement that can be made even before that improvement is put in place. People are for a cleaner environment, but they have to pay more for a less damaging fuel. People want to tackle the environment problems but in practice this means they have to pay more for plastic bags they used to get for free. People want a better public transport but this is being brought about through hefty increases in fares which not all people can afford.

At the same time, unemployment is on the increase and those who lose their job do not always find a ready alternative. People, especially those who foolishly have taken on more debts than they can afford to pay, are living on the edge where the slightest dent can cause huge problems. No wonder that road rage is on the increase and that people are expressing their anger in so many unmistakeable ways.

The union/s are being on the whole very responsible in managing the people’s anger. Hopefully one will be able to say this again tomorrow.

The people are right to march in protest against a government that till now has not been able to deliver a better quality of life and which is not managing the country’s emotions well either. After last year’s shocks – the Dar Malta, the Mater Dei, the linking of fuel to international prices – the least one could have expected was that government wisely doses the amount of pain it needs to inflict. But no, it seems each minister has his own agenda, regardless of the others, so you get a deluge of measures all hitting the same poor man down on ground level.

Strong in its five MP majority, the government listens but then does its own thing. Of course it is the government which has the right to govern, but it must listen to the people. It cannot ride roughshod over them. It must be ready to compromise and to come to terms, provided there is a corresponding willingness on the other side. And it must get things right first time, not this repeated correction of bungled decisions.

This is why the people are right to march tomorrow and even those other unions or associations, which will not be marching, will be at one with the people in its protest against the way the present government is handling the country. The government needs the people to tell it what it thinks of it before things get more out of hand. Last year’s drubbing in the European elections does not seem to have served for anything.

But there should be a further target for the people to march against

tomorrow.

The people should also be marching in protest against social partners so far apart who have spent five months discussing at MCESD with nothing but squabbling to show for their pains. Blame not the government for this. Had the social partners agreed, no government could have stood up to them. Blame the social partners themselves for fiddling while Malta burns, for playing point your finger, put the blame on someone else and all the other ghastly games people play under the shadow of the guillotine, such as ‘Beggar thy neighbour’ when all else is falling apart around them.

Yes, the people are very right to march in protest tomorrow. When street meets palace, when the governed make their voices heard by the government, catharsis should follow.