I am sure you’ve heard it before – Labour is always ready and amenable to change; the Nationalists never are, but keep on winning. It is as erroneous a conclusion as that by present-day American religious zealots who deny Darwin’s science-based theory of evolution on the basis of biblical hogwash.

The Nationalists have indeed been able to change and to shed skin, even resorting to impeccable chameleon tactics to fool, as they have often fooled, the electorate. The party that Eddie Fenech Adami snatched from Gorg Borg Oliver underwent a remarkable change that saw it switching from being viewed as the archetypal rich man’s party to one that supposedly also catered for the working class. Party faithful infiltrated the unions and, lo and behold, they also started celebrating May Day, until then considered by many of their ilk as a “communist” event.

It was, however, a change that the Nationalists needed to accept if they wanted to wrest power, as they eventually did, from the governing Labour Party. This gave them the advantage of appearing before the public as a “new” party, ready, willing and able to take over from Dom Mintoff’s ageing administration.

The trend continued even after that, right up until the last general election in March, in fact. The GonziPN theme was so obviously meant to shift the attention from a similar ageing administration to one expressly linked to a “new” leader and it worked, albeit by a meagre margin.

The Labour Party, with the stronger grassroots network of the two major parties, was also desperately trying to change and to adapt in a fast-changing political environment. Both Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant, the latter causing a major, though short-lived, upset in 1996, instigated internally-effective change, but the public seemingly remained unconvinced.

The emergence of Joseph Muscat, after three consecutive electoral knockouts however, seems destined to change all that. After all, the world changes so fast that you couldn’t be wrong all the time even if you tried. It is true that new ideas hurt some minds, the same as some new shoes will hurt some feet, but it is also true that most people are willing to change, not because they see the light, but because they feel the heat. Joseph’s promised earthquake has begun with a flurry and it would be foolhardy for anyone to assume it stops here. The lad knows what he wants and where he’s going.

He knows Malta actually craves a revitalised Labour that can truly and belatedly guide the nation into the 21st century. We all have friends who disagree with us politically and we can vouch how many of them have honestly had enough of the clique mentality and arrogance that pervade the Gonzi administration. One close friend of mine with long-standing Nationalist connections was furious last March that he could not, for undisclosed reasons, make himself vote Labour for the first time in his life. I am sure there were hundreds like him, as well as hundreds of still disgruntled Labourites, who would have given their right arm to be convinced into bringing on the change. Sadly they were not convinced, and there you have the GonziPN wafer-thin victory.

Everybody is of course in favour of progress. It’s the change that goes with it that they don’t like. I wouldn’t want Malta to continue to be seen as a small island where so little ever changes that the local radio stations may carry on running last year’s weather forecasts. Joseph will see to that. It is not change simply for the sake of change; it is change that is both necessary and resourceful in the sense that it instigates the full revival of an already strong party that can be much stronger, and the creation of a progressive national movement that seeks progress in a persuasive manner.

The real changes are not the cosmetic ones of a redesigned party emblem and name, or the winding up of the Labour Brigade, which, undoubtedly, had its operative uses in colonial and mortal sin times. The real ones are the new openness and the new realism, both of which are a reflection of the desire to create bridges rather than burn them, to understand rather than shun, and to come to terms with many home truths rather than camouflage them.

Joseph Muscat’s closing speech last Sunday marked the beginning of this new political chapter that could possibly know no end. There will be generational differences, but there will also be generational collaboration to make of the earthquake a workable chaos out of which one can bring change when it is most needed, today and tomorrow, while giving people who almost gave up, the chance to recharge their batteries and to regroup within the fold.

Politics demand constant change. One may at times be able to suppress it. Sometimes it even hides and hibernates away from us until there comes the day of reckoning, whenever it comes. With Joseph it all seems so possible. His youth could be the key to many a young heart as well as to many who are – and will always be – young at heart. “Constant change is here to stay” is no mere piece of instant wit, a temporary slogan, but a declaration that mirrors this new reality we are living at this moment in time.