President George Abela has taken it upon himself to reveal to the general public, the extent of poverty in Malta.

While we do not see maimed people out in the streets begging, as we do in other European countries, poverty is as part of Maltese society, as it is that of Rome, London, Munich or Stockholm.

The fact is, that wherever you go in the world, there is always going to be a sector of society you can never reach, a sector that always seems to be left behind. Of course, as we have said, this is not limited to Malta – poverty is a global problem and the EU has made it one of its aims to tackle it.

But what is poverty? How do we define it? In our modern society, there might be people that think that people who cannot afford a nice car, or to go out to eat more than once a week are poor. That is not poverty.

Poverty is when a person cannot afford to clothe and feed themselves and keep their house warm – if they have one. True poverty is when you don’t know whether the pay cheque is going to cover the monthly bills and leave enough for foodstuffs and other essential items such as toothpaste, soap, washing powder. Poverty is when you truly cannot afford the items that define us as being human and civilised.

But while we say it does not seem to appear on the surface in Malta, there are plenty of poor people. One only has to go to certain areas in the South of Malta and listen to the conversation among the men in the old men’s bars. It is chilling to hear someone say they have paid their bill and have e150 left in the kitty to support a family of four.

Various homes also do a lot of work on the quiet, taking in young people who have, for whatever reason, left home and have to fend for themselves. These people end up going from home to home and sometimes end up in the sub-world of drug abuse and prostitution.

The sad thing, as we have already said, is that all this happens under our noses and it is quite amazing, if we were to stop and think, that we all pass through certain decrepit areas – Gzira being a prime one, and carry on our merry way.

Of course, for a second, our thoughts will carry us down the road as to how these people manage to find themselves in such situations, but we rapidly forget. As the President’s activities have shown, the Maltese people are generous when it comes to helping their peers, but the solution to poverty is not charity drives and collections. It is something more long-term and includes the issue of social justice.

To ensure that poverty does not rear its ugly head, we need to ensure that our society is an inclusive one that allows opportunities for all and provides a good safety net in case people fall on hard times and need help in getting back on their feet.

This is the moral high-ground. But the fact of the matter is that a Capitalist system – the free market – is completely at odds with the concept of the welfare state. It is impossible to go by the maxim of survival of the fittest and then expect to have a fully functioning safety net as we described. Perhaps until we can reach that level of social justice (we will not), we will have to make do with charity drives.