I often stop and ponder about what is going on around us. At first I used to attribute emerging trends that I didn’t particularly like to our membership of the EU and the wider horizons we suddenly had to cope with. We also had to move from insularity to an international context where others are continually judging what we do and what we say well beyond the reach of our people. After decades of rather amateur laid-back direction and a rather off-hand attitude to what needed to be done, Malta had to go professional without noticing that a substantial brain-drain had already taken place as knowledge and ambition flocked to pastures new in a Europe without borders. New horizons, new hopes, a protracted prosperity (prior to the inevitable crash) and a siren call to affluence attracted our best young

people.

The not-this-time syndrome

Well, all of Europe now seems to be in some sort of a mess whichever way you look at it. Certainly authority, any authority, has now been greatly diminished, as more and more people are learning to judge by deeds rather than slogans. When the banks crumpled and thrust us into a severe financial crisis, we thought that the reason was the fault of unscrupulous and greedy people – which it partly was, as the report on the Lehman Brothers shows – and rightly, the citizen demanded regulations and accountability. But it goes beyond that. On-going research shows that at all times, society convinces itself that the current boom is built on sound fundamentals. 

In the current US-triggered global crisis, the prevailing view of central bankers, Wall Street experts and economists was that the US is a rich country and special in its status, that securitisation of debt and derivatives greatly reduced risk, that productivity was booming, that global capital would be easily available, and that central banks could control any problems since we had learned from past mistakes. The truth is that banking crises, currency crashes, default on domestic or external government debt and inflation will always be with us, no matter what we do. What we need to take to heart is that vigilance must be exercised and it must be eternal.

The eternal phoenix

So will man’s eternal ability to rise from the ashes. As the forces of over-supply, outsourcing and automation contribute to the need for business to concentrate on cognitive or creative assets, we are now entering what is being called the Conceptual Age, where the main players will no longer be workers who are equipped with technical know-how, but those that possess the ability to create, analyse and transform information and interact effectively – empathise – with others: what literature is calling the creators and the empathisers. Affluence, technology and globalisation, ATG, will take us from the information age to a new age, it is claimed.

Until that happens, industry and business will remain under intense scrutiny by regulators and governing bodies. This trend will continue and probably become more invasive as long as there are unscrupulous and greedy people in both the leadership and sales positions. After all, the US had been showing for some time virtually all the signs of a country on the verge of a financial crisis, and indeed a severe one, according to some critics.

Has politics escaped scrutiny?

But while accountability is being demanded from the business, financial and commercial worlds, the same cannot be said of the political world. People expect that, during challenging times, the leaders of the bi-polar world of business and politics should unite in an honest and creative effort to pull the nation out of the morass. They certainly do not expect them to feather their nests even further, as the report on the failure of the Lehman Brothers demonstrates.

Nearer home, we certainly did not expect the good news that there was finally some light at the end of the recessional tunnel to lead to a cataclysmic failure on the part of Greek politicians who had for years practised creative accounting, allowed the country to be mired in maladministration, and handed out largesse with both hands simply in order to win power with hardly any thought about the retribution that would come. And this from the country that invented the concept of hubris and the downfall it inevitably brings with it! It is shocking to learn that members of 240 professions in Greece are allowed to retire on generous pensions at the age of 45-50; no wonder Angela Merkel does not want to bale out this kind of corruption. What signal will it send to the other 26 member states of the EU?

A Church run by humans

The paedophile scandals that are haunting the Church add to the sour taste of a world that seems to be imploding. Of course, easy means of communication and a media that is more spectacle and propaganda than information make bad news more attractive and every nuance is exploited to the death. Nevertheless, what is wrong has to be put right, and those who erred must be seen to be punished, for natural justice demands no other way.

But as I attend Mass at the St Anthony Shrine and Ministry Centre here in Boston, I am struck by the high attendance by people of all ages, by the spirituality, the solemnity and the meditative atmosphere that prevails.  A few days earlier I had visited the Cathedral of Our Lady in Barcelona and had witnessed the sacrifices that thousands of priests and other religious had made for the faith.

As I sat in my room sampling US channels, the news was, as one might expect these days, all about the relative few who abuse their positions of power and trust. It goes without saying that they need to account for their misdeeds, but it is equally wrong to tar everybody with the same brush. This applies to politics, business, the professions and any other organisation, including the Church. The anger that people may justly feel for an organisation that remained reticent about abuse and its terrible consequences out of fear of alienating its supporters, must be balanced by the knowledge that in politics and even more in religion, there were, and still are, many who dedicate their life to honest service towards their ideals.  

Crises come and go and mankind will keep falling into pits of different sizes and digging itself out, but the struggle to find the light must go on forever because even one candle illuminates the darkness.