After recovering from the shock, the press has been inundated with comments and reflections following the tragic death of 19-year-old Jeanette Mifsud. Jeanette was a university student who attended a New Year’s Eve party at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, and met her death when she fell off a nearby bastion.

Now everybody is wise after the event. Some speak about “lessons to be learnt”. Others are calling for “a culture change” – a movement away from widespread and pervasive binge drinking.

Others still, generalise and discuss the technicalities of police licensing and the sale of alcohol to minors.

While the press speculated, there has been a deafening silence from the authorities and the party organisers, all of whom declined to comment until an ongoing magisterial inquiry is concluded.

This, unhappily, is the standard “Maltese” way of reacting to tragic events, ranging from explosions at fireworks factories to traffic fatalities in localities with a propensity for accidents. Public authority stays mum, public opinion raises a fuss for a while, then the hullabaloo abates and life resumes as if nothing happened. This explains why the Maltese milieu is resistant to change, sometimes giving the impression that it is ossified.

The real explanation springs from lethargy, indifference and plain dereliction of duty, sometimes sanctioned from the top, out of political motives.

This is not the first time that a public plea has been made against binge drinking. Neither it is the first time that strong public feeling has been expressed in support of legislation prohibiting the sale of alcohol to underage children.

I, for one, have spoken repeatedly in Parliament against the authorisation of certain “rave parties”. Some years ago, I imposed a curfew for unaccompanied minors in certain districts like Paceville.

Mine was a voice in the wildness. The media was indifferent and the relevant authorities were stone deaf.

There seems to be a reluctance to step on the toes of faceless interests, who make hay while their sun shines – no matter at whose expense. There ARE laws of sorts to regulate public entertainment and alcohol consumption. But these are not systematically enforced, much less updated to meet the exigencies of our times.

In rare cases where the authorities intervene, time-consuming “inquiries” and interminable judicial proceeding often trivialize the final outcome. One never hears of bar licences being withdrawn.

That is why things seem to go from bad to worse and why it is, therefore, difficult for Malta to adjust itself to the exigencies of modem times.

The Jeanette Mifsud story is tragic and heartbreaking. But the challenge we all face is to focus on the big picture – which is the persistent lack of courage to take up the battle against powerful vested interests involved in the entertainment and alcohol industry. The law has to be updated and enforced with determination.

In the second half of last year, the local media narrated the story about “three youths jailed for beach rape”. The central figure was a young man, aged 17, jailed for raping a 14-year-old student, three years earlier, after he had made a bet with two of his friends (both 16 years old) that he would bed her by the end of the night.

In this case, the 17-year old youth was jailed for four years, and his two friends were jailed for two years for complicity.

It resulted that the 14-year-old girl, who was with her boyfriend, as well as the three accused, were in a bar. The latter noted that the girl was drunk. All of this was in flagrant breach of the law. The girl was a foreign student who had come to Malta for English language lessons. What keeps the authorities from declaring entertainment areas out of bounds for minors?

Is prompt simultaneous action, if any, taken against bar owners in cases similar to the one mentioned above?

In the unlikely event that the answer is in the affirmative, the media displayed no interest, as far as I am aware, and had nothing to report.

While the world is on the move, Malta slumbers and hankers for a quiet time.

Adrian Vassallo

TA’ XBIEX