Attending MUSEUM catechism classes in Gozo is one of my most vivid childhood memories. The cobwebbed, bare light bulb casting a deathly yellow pall over our faces, the musty smell of the moss-covered walls, the strain of sitting for an hour on a backless bench, the oily, dog-eared religious manuals, the permanent chill in the bones are still stamped in my mind as if I experienced them four days ago, rather than forty years.

Guzeppi, our catechism instructor, always clad in the same dark grey badly-tailored suit with a small blue verbum dei caro factum lapel badge was the model of Catholic authority. If priests were God’s messengers, Guzeppi, in his white buttoned-up, tie-less shirt, was his joyless field marshal.

To our young, curious minds, he presented a religious vision which deadened all inquisitiveness. Not only did he give us stock answers, he never allowed us to go beyond stock questions. He managed to beat even the most lively, exciting religious matters into a lifeless pulp. In his hands, even the fascinating mystery of a God who had the facility of being three persons in one was boxed into a matter-of-fact package. Guzeppi’s God was a harsh man, shorn of spirituality and any sense of wonder and speculation.

Sitting on my hands on that hard bench, I was terrified of answering Guzeppi’s questions in case my mumbled words were not to his liking. Yet I had a deep, morbid respect for his ascetic and completely joyless view of the world.

The words of MUSEUM catechism instructors no longer hold sway over the minds of the young as they did in that damp room 40 years ago. The Guzeppis of today, still wearing the same ill-fitting suits, inhabit a world characterised by globalisation, the internet, mobile phones, reality TV and MTV New York rappers weighed down by massive gold chains. Their numbers have dwindled and they look like walking relics on the sidelines of society, even of the Catholic Church itself. From God’s militant and proud field marshal, today’s Guzeppi has become his eccentric, unmarried uncle. To adapt Milan Kundera’s phrase: life, even religious life, is elsewhere, not where contemporary Guzeppis stand.

Increasingly, I suspect that the way politics is done in Malta is going the way of MUSEUM’s God. People and life have moved on, yet politicians continue to think, speak and behave as if they had stood still. Obviously, there are politicians and politicians. Yet the problem is with the system, not individuals.

For the last quarter of a century, the country has always had a big cause dominating its public debate and occupying people’s minds. From the 1980s it was the restoration of democratic institutions and practice. By the early 1990s, the battle morphed into one to liberalise the economy, bolster the notion of citizenship, give more individual rights, create more educational and job opportunities, put a proper infrastructure in place and generally improve the standard of living. By 1996, that battle was in its final skirmishes and politics was no longer what occupied people’s minds.

With the election of Alfred Sant’s Labour party, that trend was reversed in record time. The man had some good intentions, particularly to bring down the deficit, but the way he went about them proved to be his undoing. The fall of his government, coupled with the commencement of the struggle over Europe, threw the country into the third battle - another five years of black and white politics.

Until last year, two or three generations of Maltese politicians knew no other way of going about their business except with an us-and-them mentality. The truth was always thought to be on one side and any deviation from it was deemed to be heretical. Like Guzeppi’s catechism, Maltese politics found its zenith in conformity rather than lively debate.

The resolution of the EU membership issue two years ago marked the end of that era. Politicians and their groupies woke up to discover that there were no more big battles to fight on the horizon. The victors and the vanquished looked at the future and nothing in it looked familiar.

To the Nationalists’ dismay, matters are no longer comfortably black and white in the Europe they fought so hard to get into. Biting the bullet is not as much fun as shooting it at Labour’s sitting ducks during the EU referendum campaign.

Labourites are realising that the political fatwa they have been used to declaring on government at every turn no longer gives a sense of security, deceptive as it might have been in the past. The more politically astute in Labour’s ranks know that even the electoral successes over the last year could prove to be a false dawn.

Despite these differences, the key challenge faced by the PN and MLP is not dissimilar. Both are finding that their trusty catechism manual no longer provides satisfactory answers to the burning questions. From policy to tactics, from public relations to grassroots politics, political life is no longer what it used to be.

So where do the two parties go from here? It is too early to tell, at least in specific and concrete terms. What is certain is that the political future will belong to the party which recognises that the current unease and political dislocation are neither accidental nor inconsequential. They bear the signs of things to come and they are to be read with care and a sharp, open mind. Guzeppi’s catechism will not be very helpful.

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