No doubt the compilers of the book on Malta’s educational system and the targets set by the EU’s Lisbon strategy, The Lisbon Objectives and Maltese education provision, thought the publication would be a good idea. Scholarly presentations about aspects of local education were given at a conference held last year, and then reproduced in a well packaged format. Only, the effort seems to totally ignore the reality.

On most relevant targets within the Lisbon strategy, we come well down the list, if not bottom, among the EU’s member states. Thus, Malta is in bottom place regarding programmes to improve the skills of young people aged between 20 and 24 who have finished secondary education. We are in bottom place in the league of countries whose young people aged between 20 and 24 have completed higher secondary studies. And, contrary to Lisbon’s targets, the number of students graduating in science is declining.

It is difficult to understand how such a book comes to be produced by the Education Ministry – without at least some form of critical back-up – at a time when we need to reflect deeply, and in a genuine way, about the failure that benchmarking on the Lisbon gauge renders so evident.

Staged affairs

Similarly, one could take stock of a recent event at Castille, that was projected as a ground-breaking exercise by the powers-that-be. Prime Minister Gonzi, we were told, would, alongside his ministers, meet members of the public and discuss with them issues that they would raise. The occasion would provide an opportunity for people, by airing their grievances, to follow the PM’s agenda and understand what lies in the government’s mind.

The impression I got about this activity was gleaned from TV news shots of it, plus press reports. At least on the basis of the first edition of this sitcom, it appeared as a show. The public assembled in Castille’s upper room was stacked with the PN’s political and local council cadres. The whole approach gave the impression that, to put it mildly, everything was staged.

Now, it is well known that most political media events have become staged affairs (look at this year’s British general election for further confirmation). But the cardinal rule is that no matter how artificial the setting and implementation of political events happen to be, do not make it too obvious that they amount to set pieces. The Castille event broke this cardinal rule.

Turn now to altogether another matter, the method by which Malta has joined the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). Despite the signals that the government first gave – in the sense that it would be wise to hold an open technical debate on the matter – it had obviously decided right from the start to rush a decision through. There was no discussion at all within the consultation fora that have been highlighted as a platform for national consensus on this or that, such as the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development.

Moreover, if one can sum up, in a few words, the gist of the technical argument in favour of Prime Minister Gonzi’s rushed decision on the ERM, it is this: joining the ERM and the eurosystem as soon as possible will allow the Maltese authorities to shed the burden of having to watch over and “guard” Malta’s exchange rate and financial reserves. Why? Because they will have become irrelevant to national economic management.

Meanwhile, on another issue, PN propaganda has been claiming that Labour and others stayed on the sidelines over the “great” pensions debate, not least following the publication with the budget for 2005 of a government White Paper. Yet curiously, minister after minister, including the Prime Minister, refused to accept ownership of the contents of this White Paper. They did not reply in any way to critical points made about it. Indeed, they had no interaction at all with people who wanted to raise objections or present proposals. All such people were referred to the committee which originally drafted the White Paper.

Contradictions

Similarly, the Nationalist Party itself failed to take any position regarding the future of pensions. Yet, its media and spokespersons derided others for saying that first, before launching a pensions “reform”, other priorities needed to be given right of way. They attacked institutions like the General Workers Union which, in good faith, reacted to the White Paper by making counter-proposals and critical remarks. As far as is known, there has been no substantive debate within PN structures about this matter – which is supposedly so sensitive and urgent.

Ditto for the rest, regarding the ratification or otherwise of the EU constitutional treaty. So far as is known, there has been no internal debate within the PN about the whole issue.

Indeed, there have been PN representatives who complained that next to nothing is known about it by the public at large. True, one could claim that since the government has signed the treaty, it would hardly make sense for the PN to launch any kind of critical debate. Perhaps. But is it then the case that within the ruling structures, there is no distinction any more between government and party, despite all the lip service being paid to the importance of “civil society”?

As can be seen, such contradictions reach out to many sectors of national life, some of which are crucial to our future, others to the present safety and well-being of our society. Consider, for instance, the recent news about drug addiction in Malta.

I found it very disturbing that the first “national report” on the issue concluded that heroin usage is a major problem for Malta. All too often in the past, I had heard the general refrain – with Caritas to their credit, as the dissenting voice – that drug addiction was a problem but not a big one for Malta, while dependence on other addictive substances like alcohol should be considered as the main target.

It seems as if the pattern for action within government circles has become a holding one – that of people reassuring each other about how things are going well, or at least not too badly. When something happens to contradict what has been said all along about a certain topic, then we take note and simply try to ignore what was said in the recent past. This is no way by which to create the basis for structural change.

Transfer tough decisions

The list of “discrepancies” goes on. It covers areas where financial promises have been made and are not being kept. The mood is set to the tune that anything goes. Few mechanisms seem to be available to afford redress or to trigger corrective government action. As in agriculture for instance.

I have written elsewhere about the subsidies that were promised to our farmers previous to Malta’s accession to the EU. They were intended to help them remain in business following the surge of cheap farm imports that was to be expected.

Had it been just one person who said so, I would have discounted it. However, repeated claims have been made by people who do not know each other, that the subsidies they were promised have not materialised or have come in smaller dollops than the government indicated.

This is causing farmers and their families real hardship, while generating significant insecurity about their future.

For a long time, farmers have been a minority in this country. Their vote was important two years ago, since every vote counted. It is less so now and for another two years. Can they survive that long, one wonders? Meanwhile the Prime Minister indulges in irony about the fact that during the past 12 months the massive wave of immigrants that Labour had “predicted” would come from Sicily, has not materialised.

In all this one detects a political mentality that would prefer to transfer the tough decisions somewhere else, or if this cannot be done, to ignore them. Exchange rates, national reserves? Pensions? Drug control? The ideal would be to dissolve everything in a haze of public relations, while letting directives from outside determine the implementation of the hard decisions we need to take.

Own decisions

This of course factors out of the equation the individuality of our tiny nation state: how separate and different from others do we want to be? It is a question of political will, tied in to the ability or otherwise to position our tiny nation state politically and economically, in profitable and sustainable ways.

All too often it appears as if a neo-colonial mindset has emerged among us. We are preparing to evade and write away the post-colonial challenges we must overcome, by merging them into the concerns of some wider, deeper entity.

Thus, the way by which fashionable concepts and buzzwords are adopted pell-mell and used to project the idea of a rosy future for all, reflects a willingness to forget that, as a nation state, we must devise solutions that fit our characteristics and context: that we must work hard under our own steam to drive these solutions forward.

Consider for instance, how “globalisation” is glorified by the Prime Minister and his colleagues as a desirable phenomenon that is sure to keep us moving on the crest of progress, if only we accept it wholeheartedly.

No critical efforts have been attempted to understand how and why it will really affect our situation present and future. Instead of helping us understand that we must devise our particular strategy to meet it, the optimistic hype encourages us to assume that things will simply work out for the better, all by themselves.

As through a play with mirrors, it puts us at par arbitrarily and “automatically” with those peoples who have been doing nicely as a result of globalisation, at least in macro statistical terms.

One could say: is not this what political leaders in other countries, bigger and presumably wiser than ours, are also doing? Has it not been the frequent approach of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Chirac to extol the opportunities that arise from globalisation and its concerns? Which is correct.

However, examination of what actually goes on in the wake of such claims reveals that there is quite some distance between the surface rhetoric and what actually gets done and decided.

How else would Britain have continued to shy away from joining the euro?... insisted within the EU framework to preserve as much national autonomy as possible regarding the setting of taxation levels?

How else could France have manoeuvered to retain as much national influence as possible, if not control, over its main banks?... preserved its nuclear capability?… insisted on maintaining maximum protection and support for its agriculture? All these policies and others like them hardly fit into the embrace of globalisation.

But in Malta, we remain self-righteously oblivious to such nuances, if that is the right word. As ever, we must be holier than the Pope.

Tired

Come to think of it, the problem might be altogether different. Could it be that what we are witnessing is the politics of tiredness? The Gonzi administration tries to project itself as being a “new” one.

Everybody knows this is far from being the case, although some in the media and elsewhere have a vested interest to pretend the contrary.

Many ministers, including the Prime Minister, have been in harness since 1998, some earlier. Many of those who give advice or implement policy for the government have been at it for even longer.

Quite simply, this is a tired administration. It goes through the motions of studying and discussing policies, launching them, pretending that they are being implemented correctly, but the final aim is to keep things going without too much fuss, too much worry.

Whence joining the eurosystem sooner rather than later is a very good thing, because we do not have to bother any more about such nuisances as our national reserves.

When evaluating – through rose-tinted glasses – the implementation of the Lisbon strategy for education, the aim is to keep from worrying too much, while going through the motions of doing what the rest of Europe is doing. And so on in all the other areas which need urgent action, but which would require too big a burst of energy on the government’s part.

Joining the EU was the PN’s big project and they spared no effort to succeed.

They were even prepared to shunt aside the priority tasks required for the modernisation of this country.

Now that Malta is in the EU, the PN administration seems to lack another project and, worse, seems to be drained of creative energy.

They became tired, too tired, while achieving their main political aim of the last 20 years or so, and are now finding it hard going to set out a new project and to get things done the right way.

It is not a comfortable thought. From the Malta government at the moment, as the effects of EU membership set in and as the repositioning of our economy and society cannot be postponed any more, what is vitally required is vim and stamina.

If, instead, we continue to be served staged media shows driven by the politics of tiredness, the uphill struggle to make Malta work again will have to overcome a higher gradient than previously estimated