I watched Friday’s Xarabank with a heavy heart, as the programme revisited the events which led to the murders of Raymond Caruana and Karin Grech.

Twenty four years and 33 years have respectively passed since these two black marks in Malta’s history took place, yet even as I watched the footage I wondered if we have really learned anything from these tragedies.

Both of these two young people were victims of the political madness of the time and yet when the subjects are discussed I still hear people falling into the same trap of arguing which one was “worse”. What a futile, redundant argument that is. Whether we are talking about a random shooting at a club full of people or a premeditated bomb, the result was the same.

Both murders were equally senseless, all the more so because the perpetrators have never been found, something which sounds preposterous in a country so small. Or maybe it is precisely because the country is so small that it has proved impossible for these murders to be solved and for the families to see justice done.

As heartbreaking appeals were made by the relatives for anyone with information to come forward, it was eerie to think that someone watching the programme might have actually been involved on those fateful days.

Were they Labour or Nationalist supporters? Should it really make a difference? As Prof. Anglu Psaila rightly pointed out, it is wounding enough to us as a nation that they were fellow Maltese. What should matter is that the cobwebs of secrecy and omertà which have led to both these cases ending up in a cold trial should be untangled once and for all.

My gut feeling tells me, however, that they never will be, and we will never really know who got into that car that night and sprayed the Nationalist party club with bullets, killing a young man who was just there having a drink with friends.

We will never know who made that bomb and wrapped it up as a Christmas present and addressed it to Prof. Edwin Grech, only for it to be opened by his teenage daughter instead.

What I do know is that these two tragic events still continue to divide the country into two camps which hate each other. And, come to think of it, I don’t know whether finding out the real identity of the murderers would really change matters, or whether it would merely give people just one more excuse to reinforce their hatred. I sometimes think that as a nation we really don’t want to have closure, because we “enjoy” having something to bicker about, whether it is the gravity of these political murders, or something trivial like the Luqa monument.

That probably explains how the political parties have managed to keep us in the palm of their hands for so long, because they have tapped into this penchant for quarrelling and exploited it for what it’s worth. They’ve kept us so busy squabbling amongst ourselves on their behalf that we often forget to examine their policies too closely. When I say “we” I mean my generation, because thankfully I am starting to see a change in younger people, who are point blank refusing to be labelled and categorised.

There might be hope yet

Much to my relief, I don’t think those under 25 are going to allow the two political parties to get their hooks into them so easily.

I came to this conclusion during a discussion held on campus this week, aptly titled “Apathy vs. Motivation” organised by the student group Pulse. We were meant to be discussing why so many students are simply not bothered enough to become actively involved in student organisations. As if to further drive this point home, not more than 40 students were present for this discussion, while the rest were milling around the quad, lapping up the sun, talking to their friends or casually strolling by.

The answer for this lack of interest came soon enough – student organisations too, have been hijacked by the two political parties (or at least that is the perception), and students have decided they want none of it. This is also the reason the turnout for the KSU elections was so low (a mere 15 per cent voted which, I found out included junior college students, which means the actual university participation was even lower).

Voting for either Pulse (left wing) or SDM (right wing) automatically puts you into a “box”, I was told by one student, and you are then labelled either red or blue. That’s it – a label, a sticker on your forehead for life, or so it seems. Their decision to stay away from the elections was, in effect, a protest vote against the system which has been turned into a mini version of the national elections. By not voting they were making a statement: we don’t want to be represented by students who are more interested in partisan politics than in the real issues on campus. They have probably taken one look at their parents, seen how politics has brainwashed them and decided they didn’t want to be a part of that status quo.

They are absolutely right of course – I felt exactly the same when I was 18. In fact, I still do. I still get uncomfortable when people try to stick a label on me… no one owns my vote.

While there are those who happily take on the mantle of their parents’ political party and have no intention of ever budging from that position, it fills me with hope that some young people refuse to be bludgeoned into submission to “choose sides”. Far from seeing it as apathy, I see it as a positive move towards a more mature way of looking at politics. I’m not saying there is no room for student politics on campus, but it is clear that the majority of students want no part in it, at least not ‘politics’ in the traditional sense.

Perhaps what is needed at university is a non-political debating society where issues are argued without the long tentacles of the Labour and Nationalist parties getting in the way. So, for example, the infamous Delimara power station contract could be discussed in terms of how it would impact the environment, with pro and con arguments about the best type of fuel to be used. The challenge for the students would be to argue their respective points without dragging political affiliations into it – and not merely to mimic what their elders say depending on which side they’re on.

Another potentially interesting student discussion could have been developed around the UK election and how the televised leaders’ debates have influenced people’s perceptions. Again, the point would not be to side with Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, but to discuss how the media was used in this election. For all I know, this exercise was done within the Communications course, but it could still be done on a wider scale involving a cross section of students from all the faculties.

Student participation on campus, as I see it, does not have to limit itself to “belonging” to one organisation or another – it can be tapped by opening up discussion on a wide range of national and international issues of public interest. The most important thing, however, is to leave partisan politics out of it.

Students will have enough of that later when they’re out there in the real world.

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