As the world sits glued to their television screens, hoping for an Arab Spring, our government stays mum and the opposition leader harps on about marketing Malta to increase tourism arrivals – how utterly pathetic from both sides.

While the world hopes that Tunisia and Egypt can forge a new democratic way of living, we cannot ignore the fact that Islamism and extremism might rear its ugly head and we could end up with another Iran on our doorstep.

Let us start with the opposition leader, as that point is the easiest to deal with. Joseph Muscat has shown downright immaturity in the face of such cataclysmic events. While he is completely correct in his assessment of Malta needing to increase its marketing campaign to gain ground in tourism (yes, at the expense of Tunisia and Egypt), it is not something that one says during a public political activity.

What Muscat should have done was pick up the telephone, call Mario de Marco (tourism junior minister), and make his thoughts known in private. Political rhetoric on such a sensitive matter, just to please the grassroots and show how in touch the PL is with current developments is immature, offensive and possibly damaging in our future relations with Egypt and Tunisia.

While we have rapped Dr Muscat hard, we will also rap the government for its silence. A 100-word statement to complain about Muscat’s comments just doesn’t quite cut it.

We first questioned why the government was so quiet in the aftermath of Tunisia. We received no explanation, no statement, not even an off the record phone call. What we said was the Government of Malta was, perhaps, quite happy with the state of affairs under Ben Ali and was fully aware of the state of affairs for common Tunisians.

All that we saw was a travel warning issued to Maltese nationals. The same happened again when tensions broke out in Egypt. The US has spoken out, the UK has spoken out, as have others. Why did the Prime Minister, or at least his deputy (and Foreign Minister) not speak out?

This is all happening on our doorstep. Egypt is a huge nation and it only lies across the water. The Tunisian regime has fallen, and it looks like Mubarak’s might also fall. We have already stressed the dangers of rising extremism. If Egypt follows Tunisia, we might see similar scenes in Algeria, Libya and Morocco. It might also spread east, towards Jordan and Syria, which have already seen unrest and this could unnerve Israel, which already has a siege mentality. And yet, the government still remains silent.

Time and time again, we have sung our own praises as being excellent interlocutors and being the bridge between Africa and Europe... so it begs the question… Why has the government of Malta not made a statement about the situation in the Arab world?

Is it happy to just let things unfold and watch as the rest of us are doing on Sky News and CNN? While many might think that this is a distant event which does not affect us, we should think again. Has, for example, the government considered what it might mean if the Suez canal is threatened or closed? Much of the oil which comes into the Mediterranean does so through the canal. If it is threatened, the price of oil will skyrocket even further than it has done in the past few days. Wake up, smell the coffee. This is a potentially catastrophic situation. Or at least stop trying to sell Malta as a diplomatic genius when we can’t even muster a word about the Arab crisis.