Undoubtedly, and perhaps ignorantly, Malta’s most under-utilised resource is the brainpower of its academics. Most of our academics seem to have confined themselves within the walls of Tal-Qroqq, restricting their output to the teaching of undergraduates, the supervision of theses and the drafting of academic papers that are little read and understood even less. Their much-needed contribution to political debate at a time when this country needs to undergo radical change is sadly minimal.
The restriction of their activity is a choice they have made. I guess that the heavily-polarised political climate in which we still live in, as well as the unfortunate financial dependence of many of our academics on state-provided employment, bear upon such decision. For a number of academics, participation in political debate has become an occupational hazard.
An example of this was witnessed during a televised debate before the EU referendum in which the opposition’s education spokesman Evarist Bartolo criticised Prof. Kenneth Wain’s endorsement of Malta’s European Union membership.
More recently we had Education Minister Louis Galea use his party’s media to criticise the auditor general because his professional opinion on some of the undertakings at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools was not to the minister’s liking.
After such incidents, it is not surprising that many of this country’s best brains choose to tread very carefully wherever politicians dare venture. It is a state of affairs that undermines the very essence of democracy and robs this country of its finest minds.
Only a week ago, a similar incident occurred in which Prof. Edward Scicluna, one of this country’s finest economists and the familiar harbinger of election results, was advised to “steer away” from partisan political comments. Why? Because the professor declared that the country is facing one of the worst recessions in recent decades.
I wonder which was more political; Prof. Scicluna’s comment or the advice he received? What was odd in this case was that this “advice” came not from a Labour or Nationalist politician, but from the president of the Malta Employers’ Association.
Are some of the business elite now attempting to silence the country’s intellectuals? Are we all going to shut up so this government does not get offended?
In a world where the economy dominates political life, is it at all possible for any serious economists to comment apolitically about our economy? Can anyone disassociate a recession from the incumbent government? Economics is not an objective science. It is a subjective discipline dependent upon circumstance and situation. No economist claims the truth. They all perceive the world from a different viewpoint and interpret it within a political context for which they have a personal bias; like the rest of us.
I have written it before and I write it again now. Malta needs to listen more and more to its economists and less and less to its politicians; and if our economists choose to be political, so much the better! Let’s face it – if Tonio Fenech, Charles Mangion and the undersigned pooled all their economic knowledge it would not amount to more than 10 per cent of the depth and expertise of people like Prof. Edward Scicluna, Governor Michael Bonello, Prof. Lino Briguglio, Emmanuel Delia, Dr Joseph Falzon, Gordon Cordina and others I have not yet had the time to read or occasion to meet.
In other countries, and particularly in the United States, economists are given a leading role in the framing of their country’s political economy and do so not by sitting on the political fence but by standing clearly on one side of it. Paul Krugman (my absolute favourite), Laura D’Andrea Tyson and Joseph Stiglitz are liberal economists and do not hide it. Robert Barro, Arthur Laffer and Gary Becker are conservative economists and really proud of it.
These people are all very political. Their country expects them to be so. It is through the competition between their ideas that politicians are afforded an array of options from which to design their political programmes. They are on the radio, on the papers, on the television daily. Where are our economists?
The liberation of our intellectuals from the strings and weights of local political oppression is a pre-requisite for changing this country into a liberal and well-functioning democracy. Our intelligentsia must be challenged, rather than channeled.
Without their original, and (yes why not?) politically biased opinions all we are left with is the same cacophony of repetitive political waffle that has caused many of our best people to de-franchise themselves completely from our country’s political life.
Our elite deserve their professional independence as well as their political space. Your individual contributions are the rock which we all need to hang on to, swimming as we are powerlessly in these troubled waters.
The Greens beseech your full participation and salute each and every one of you!
Edward Fenech is the spokesperson on finance, the economy and tourism of Alternattiva Demokratika –
The Green Party