When an 80-year-old woman is badly beaten in a mugging and left for dead on her doorstep, for a just a few euros (according to her relatives), that is the signal that something has gone terribly wrong in our society. We used to be so proud of the fact that in this country there was a certain respect for the older generation; even complete strangers would drop everything and come to the aid of someone frail. The recent spate of burglaries and muggings however, which specifically target old people, has put paid to this illusion. Somewhere along the way, there are those who have completely lost their compassion – for no matter how desperately you need the money, you really must have hardened your heart until it’s turned to stone, to be able to beat up a defenceless old woman, snatch her purse and then be able to sleep at night.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this poor little old lady, lying there unconscious in a pool of blood, helpless and injured and still clutching the handle of her handbag, until she was discovered by neighbours and an ambulance was called.

The woman, Mrs Garroni, died this week, succumbing to her injuries which included a broken hip, a broken femur and massive head trauma.

Such stories are shocking to us because Malta never used to be like this – for all its faults, the one thing we were sure of was that this was a safe place to live. Now, you can no longer take it for granted that it is perfectly possible to walk alone in the street even in the early evening... especially if you are elderly.

Social patterns have changed dramatically, and while in the past it was normal for parents and grandparents to move in with their children so that they can be cared for in an extended family environment, this is no longer the case. This means we have more and more elderly who continue to live in their own homes, alone, and because of the increase in the rate of crime, they are also alone and fearful. A knock on the door could be a visiting relative checking to make sure you’re OK, or it could be someone ready to burst into your house and ransack it for loot, injuring you (or worse) in the process.

From ‘snatch and grab’ muggings, to elaborately planned bank heists, the spiral of crime has increased because there are people out there whose need for cash has obliterated all sense of reason or conscience. What’s happened to Malta? we ask ourselves. Well, it is now quite blatantly obvious that money trumps everything – and any ways or means of getting it (especially without having to work for it) is the waking thought of quite a lot of people

Whether this greed is triggered by drug use, gambling problems or simply a deluded fantasy of getting rich quick, when laying your hands on a lot of money becomes an all-consuming obsession then I suppose you will do anything.

Even if it means callously leaving an 80-year-old woman to die on her doorstep.

Decoration overload

While I strongly believe human nature is similar all over the world, occasionally I am struck by a trait which can only be described as ‘typical Maltese”. One of these traits is our penchant for one-upmanship. Anything you can do I can do better and everything is reduced to a competition – I used to think this was restricted to people trying to outdo each other with their weddings but now it has apparently been transferred to Christmas decorations as well. Xarabank’s programme on Friday introduced us to some of the most outrageously decorated homes I have ever seen.

Flashy life-size Santa Claus statues which sing and dance, multi-coloured fairy lights covering every single piece of furniture in every room, and even a man who decided it was really important to decorate his bathroom with tinsel, it was all there – every gloriously gaudy, over-the-top aspect of it.

What compels someone to go to all this trouble? Is it a chance to appear on Xarabank, and be the most talked about person the next day for those fleeting 15 minutes of fame? Did the man who patiently made a nativity scene entirely out of snail shells do it purely because he knew he would get himself on television or is it really just a hobby? He told viewers that he knew exactly how many snails he used (3,600) because he had counted each shell before sticking it on. I had this vision of him counting softly to himself, “one hundred and one, one hundred and two…” only to be interrupted by his wife calling him to dinner and making him lose his concentration, so that he had to start counting all over again.

Which brings me to the wives (oddly enough, most of the people with this decoration fixation seemed to be men). What a patient bunch they must be to have their homes completely taken over by with what can only be described as a Christmas village gone wrong. All those grinning Santas staring at you everywhere you look would give me the creeps. In one particular house where the decorations and lights had literally swallowed up the furniture, I wondered how anyone could retain their sanity surrounded by such a dazzling display.

Several people said they had purchased their enormous Santa Claus figures from the US, adding smugly that “no one here has anything like it”. Well, it’s true that no one does garish and kitsch Christmas decorations quite as well as the Americans.

The entire segment was a bizarre display of home after home being completely overwhelmed by decorating fever, with everyone interviewed explaining that they do it because they simply love Christmas. (Here I couldn’t help but think that the money spent on all those thousands of decorations would have been better spent on helping the needy, but maybe that’s just me).

One man even admitted that, after all the trouble he goes to, he insists that the decorations remain where they are until February, despite his wife’s complaints. This woman should be given Gieh ir-Repubblika.

As with everything, even Christmas has become a matter of taste... so whether you have your Santa Claus incongruously clinging to your balcony (we don’t have chimneys you see) or whether your decorations are more low-key, these are the cultural differences which make this such a wonderfully fascinating place to live.

I wish all of our readers a happy and safe Christmas and New Year.

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