From the days of antiquity, starting with Neolithic man and his megalithic temples, to the days of splendour of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the people of these islands were associated with the powers that dominated the Mediterranean region

Nevertheless, the sea isolated Malta from the mainland, and the winds of change often bypassed us.

For many centuries, Malta was sheltered from the turbulence and upheavals that agitated other peoples. Time, therefore, stood relatively still in Malta and Gozo, and the urge for innovation and a taste for dissent took time to develop.

A whiff of French revolutionary ideas, followed by long familiarity with liberal British institutions, fermented the thoughts of the early Maltese political and social pioneers.

It was only 43 years or so ago that the Maltese people became masters in their own home. By that time, the winds of change had blown with hurricane force all around us.

Restlessness

One Maltese generation after another came to realise what had been happening beyond the seas as they took advantage of a better education, improved means of communication and more advanced technology.

Pluralism is now as firmly part of received belief of the Maltese electorate as the roundness of the earth and the regularity of lunar eclipses.

Pluralism implies the right of free speech and of association, the right of dissent, and the right to stand up to authoritarianism and the arrogance of the State.

Time does not stand still any longer. Ideas and fashions are changing fast in politics, political style, causes, popular culture, attitudes and responses, work, myths, food and access to the spectrum of the media.

There is restlessness in the air, reflected in the air we breathe and the stones under our feet. There are moments when Maltese society no longer walks ahead with its once purposeful stride. One gets the impression, from time to time, that society is staggering or about to stumble.

Sceptical generation

Sure enough, there are those who view the young as a sceptical and rationalist generation which is increasingly unwilling to deprive itself of the comforts and pleasures of this consumerist, materialist age. At the same time, it looks as if this generation is searching for assurance and certainty.

All ages have searched for such things in the past. But never has there been such an age as this for dismissing and reaching false conclusions about the certainties and reassurances established in earlier times.

To many young people – thankfully, not the majority – orthodox religion offers no satisfaction. Authority – moral, political, parental, pedagogical – would not do.

The marketplace is seething with rival brand-products. As opposed to yesterday’s market, the difference is that now, it is the buyers, and not the sellers, who set the trend. Freedom of choice has assumed meaning. It has made consumer sovereignty a possibility.

The more pessimistic observers now see Malta moving in the direction of turbulent waters. For them, the new morality is demolishing the simple faith by which people had lived for centuries. Permissiveness is turning society upside down. Modern methods of education are leaving the masses virtually illiterate.

Honest labour is now, for some, more a means of earning money than a conscious contribution to the general welfare.

Parental control and responsibility is seen to be withdrawn from children who then grow wild, and make sure that the next generation will hasten the rate of decline. Adolescence, by virtue of its newfound economic power, dictates fashion in clothing as well as popular entertainment.

In short, all the strategic bastions have been taken, either after external onslaughts, or after the surrender of the citadel from within.

The new morality

Seen in this light, society is now a dark satanic mill, taking in raw corruption from one end, and grinding it out in refined form at the other, sometimes forming an overspill of odium theologicum.

The new morality is designed to make it easier for men and women to practice what they please, without feeling guilty about it.

Deep down, it is authority that is being challenged and, in some cases, it is being challenged by persons who studied society from the inside so if the foundations are shaking, they are doing so because they are being sapped from beneath rather than battered from without.

Seen from this angle, it is as if a cosmic explosion has devastated many of Malta’s traditional attitudes and beliefs among the young.

The tensions and contradictions of these turbulent years of upheavals produced a state of moral weightlessness akin to that experienced by astronauts beyond the earth’s gravitational pull.

If the past was not glamorous for the hardheaded sceptic, the future does not look inviting at first sight.

Having professed its belief in ecology and the environment, today’s young generation is facing a future spoiled by the greenhouse effect.

It believed in the wonders of technology and is experiencing the disenchantment brought about by pollution in all its forms.

It believed in the liberation of man from religious and moral taboos. It is wilting under the curse of drug abuse. Single mothers are fast augmenting its ranks.

But there is one good and overriding thing about youth. It is the buoyancy of its spirit and the imperishable quality of its idealism.

That, and that alone, ensures that the spring of hope for better and saner times will not dry up.

Thing may get worse before they become better. So long as democracy prevails, lessons will be learnt. Things would be less painful if we are quick on the uptake.

If not, we will learn willy-nilly by experience, after paying the price.

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