After turning away e14 million in funds from the European Union for a thousand spurious reasons and petty grievances, we’re now at it again, looking another gift horse in the mouth over at the Citadel in Gozo.

A news report in The Times – “Italian company wins Cittadella master plan contract” – has drawn howls of protest from those who want to know why the work isn’t being done by Maltese people working for Maltese companies. The news to them was not that finally, something is going to be done about the Citadel and its ruins, but that the engineering company which will be investigating the stability of the site is Italian, and not Maltese.

Well, I hate to be mean about this, but the last time a Maltese geologist appended his name to a “report”, he was roundly and soundly laughed out of town by all except those who are expert at nothing but playing bridge, making lampuka pies and griping about the blocks of flats in their backyards – from the comfort of other blocks of flats in other people’s backyards.

But that’s by the by. What really interests me is the primitive thinking at work here. Here are some examples, complete with the original spelling, grammar and punctuation. L. Galea: “Always getting foreigners instead of commission Maltese persons and companies. Can Gonezipn go lower than this in foreign lackeyism?” victor g. mercieca: “Ignoring completely local resources why is that?....Was this survey done already?? Why does the island of Gozo continue to miss out on vital infrastructure communications that should have been in place long time ago? Far too many question marks????” At least his last remark was spot on.

There was more negative thinking from people who don’t understand the open tendering process that came into effect when Malta joined the European Union. I sometimes think that lots of people do not fully comprehend that we are part of the EU, and what this means in terms of freedom of movement and obligations – hence the “tow them back” sentiments expressed about immigrants, and the repeated suggestion, made under a news report yesterday about a Romanian beggar who had been jailed, that he should be deported. Take the ubiquitous Joe Borg, for example: “Is it possible no Maltese company is capable of carrying out these works!!??!!??” And then the really incompetent J. Galea: “Has this ever been tendered for local companies before being awarded to Politecnica Ingegneria e Architettura?” Yes, that’s right. That’s the way it works: the government asks “local” – not Maltese, but local – businesses whether they want the job, and if they decline, it gives Italy a shout. Then there were the completely incoherent, like Kevin Zammit: “More money for more Italian plans….and the citadella? What for? Its better if the money is used to protect what there is as is…how about using the money to get a couple of archaeologists to study the site better?”

The power of positive thinking… it certainly hasn’t come to Malta. The Maltese mindset is invariably negative. We don’t look for the silver lining; we look for the cloud. The glass is half empty. If something good happens, our response is a cynical grunt, wondering out loud where the catch is. If we get a free shed-load of money, like millions of euros to build a museum, we kvetch and bitch about the reasons why we don’t even want to try finding out how we might take advantage of it. But then we are quite happy to stand in line for hours waiting to exchange our tin cans and our bottle-tops for dishcloths or mugs with a brand-name printed on them.

Presented with the news that Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (as members of the European Economic Area) will be co-financing the drawing up of a conservation master plan for the Gozo citadel, our reaction is not “Wow, that’s great! How kind of them. We could really use the money and the project.” No, instead it’s “Iss hej, where’s the catch? Why can’t a ‘local’ company do the work? Why can’t we spend the money on something else instead?”

We can’t spend the money on something else because we are getting the money for a specific reason: the Citadel project. I really can’t believe the way people reason, the way they don’t understand how project financing works. We saw it with the St John’s museum: great merriment because now the e14 million have been freed up to be spread around among those who want sheds for carnival floats and those who want yet another theatre. Sorry, but that’s not how it works, and somebody had better do some explaining quite quickly before more and more people make utter fools of themselves.

Instead of being thankful that Iceland, which is facing economic catastrophe, has chosen to give money to Malta, which at this point in time should instead be giving money to Iceland, the message coming through from The People, in all their great wisdom, is that we should take the money and run, spending it on what we think best rather than on what it was given for. Again, somebody needs to do a lot of explaining about how project financing works: you don’t get a pot of readies to raid as you see fit. Everything is audited and monitored, every step of the way. It doesn’t work on the principle of chucking money into a busker’s hat on the street.

Imagine if the people of Iceland thought like the people of Malta, and demanded to know why their taxes are going to finance a geo-technical exploration project in an ancient walled city on an island they’d never heard of. But we don’t look at it that way, do we? Using the hard-earned taxes of the people of other countries to fund our own projects is a divine right: they are there to give us money, and we are here to demand it, and then to use it as we deem fit. Every so often, we will look that damned gift horse in the mouth and say, take your stinking money and stuff it up where the sun doesn’t shine. If you’re going to attach strings to it, then we don’t want it, thanks but no thanks.

There’s more going on at the Citadel besides this. The European Union is co-financing a e7 million project for the consolidation of the bedrock and restoration of the bastion walls. Using the reasoning of the intellectually impaired Leader of the Opposition, the funds must have been obtained by “somebody who knows how to play the game”, so we might as well get right down to finding the fly in the ointment as quickly as we can, lest something actually gets done.

Many books have been written about the constructive power of positive thinking. But Maltese society is a case study in the reverse – the destructive power of negative thinking. Everything positive that has happened here has been achieved by going against the flow, battling uphill against the flood of negativity.

Take a look next time you’re in a crowd of Maltese – walking around the capital city, for example – and you’ll notice that the predominant facial expression is not pleasant or even neutral, but bad-tempered, angry, irritated, stony-faced, glaring, and downright unpleasant. Negative people, the lot of them; and all of them probably believe that they are the most hard-done-by and zvinturati people on earth.

Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog is at

www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com