We are a fantastic country – but still fast asleep.

We pressed the “snooze”

button for too long a time, when we knew it was time

to wake up, and we are

still dead to the world. We have an old traditional

saying that “those who

sleep will not catch any fish”. This saying has been around for ages, we know about it but we do too little and are too slow.

Our history, which is one of the oldest in the world, has been shaped by strong foreign powers. Over half a century ago we obtained self-government. What we did with it was nothing more useful than fight among ourselves. Half a century later we are still asleep and doing nothing more then just quarrel with each other.

Read the newspapers and listen to the news. The political parties, the unions, the traders, etc, do very little more than fight each other. They fight over problems that have been “dumped” on us, whether by design or not, by foreign powers. For as long as we decide to remain sound asleep we will still fight each other, when what we simply have to do is to join forces to defend ourselves against the foreign “imposing” powers.

As we sleep, we just mutter that the present government (be it left, right or centre) has raised the price of fuel, and is accepting too many illegal immigrants into our country. If we take a long time to wake up we will have to walk (not drive) and be surrounded by people who will occupy our country again.

We fight a government (be it right, left or centre) because of the steep rise in fuel prices and we demand subsidies and compensation – but who is going to pay? A government does print money. Why do we fight each other when the prices have been deliberately raised by foreign powers specifically to break us?

Why do we fight each other when the invasion of our country can possibly be a long-term calculated plan to destabilise us and other democratic (?) countries? What is democracy really? Could it not be just a pair of handcuffs incorrectly applied to one’s own hands? How can a million poor people today, and 20 million tomorrow, walk undetected across 3,000 kms of desert land, buy a boat and cross 200 kms of sea, if somebody very rich and powerful is not assisting them? When they run away they are only helping the “dictators” who are forcing them to run away, and their dictators keep getting richer and more powerful.

When we wake up and realise that it is not our people who are raising the prices of our fuel and destabilising our country, we may learn to live together better. While we sleep we will not get any answers. If we remain asleep too long it may be too late to solve the problems. The problems may not be too big after all, as long as we do not mind becoming just another “colony” again.

We do have a choice: remain asleep and accept whoever, or wake up and do whatever.

R. Debono