So many people were asking us to stand up and be counted during the divorce referendum campaign, and since, that had the calls been heeded, we’d all be walking hand in hand to the edge of Dingli Cliffs and jumping. One whole sorry tribe descending into oblivion. It has happened before in history, from Masada to Sparta, and there is always the possibility of it happening again.

I have always had this feeling of national helplessness instigating the surrealist idea of collective hara-kiri. Some insist it is the “village” mentality we are burdened with that produces it. Others think it could be religious fundamentalism or political naivety, or both, working on our psyche. Whatever it is, it has kept us in the dark, decades behind other nations and ignorant of even the most basic attributes of 21st century living.

The examples are too many. Suffice to say that when we had it good, that is money in our pockets and money to spend, we chose to squabble over such silly little issues like chocolate, toothpaste and colour television sets, the best brands of which were stupidly denied. When we finally got access to the goodies, and at Heathrow and Fiumicino said goodbye to bemused airport salesgirls who needed to restock their shelves after every Malta flight, we suddenly found the more serious products were missing... life-saving medicines and pills perennially out of stock. Just go out and buy them, if you’ve enough money left after paying the utility and fuel bills.

The divorce issue of course brought out the worst in us. Churchmen and an ex-prime minister/ex-president/potential cardinal asked us to stand up and be counted. The No movement obligingly wanted us standing up and being counted. So did the Yes people, albeit more politely. And we did go out to stand up and we were indeed counted. And many more of us, 14,576 more to be exact, brought the issue to a close. Or so we thought.

The tribe had by then already lost its head. When a decision was taken, a decision was needed. When people seemed to have spoken, people found they were being asked to speak again, through their so-called representatives. A convenient thing called conscience was relifted from the dictionary to restart the whole process at parliamentary level.

Suddenly, it was back to everyone asking us again to stand up and be counted. Well, of course, why not? The potential cardinal got back into the groove, humming and buzzing words into (s)elected ears. Other clowns explained their own personal stances on something we had all thought to have been democratically decided once and for all, and they too called for people, their honourable colleagues, to stand up and be counted.

The No people, still smarting from the drubbing they got at the polls, saw a flicker of hope here. They were obviously and quietly hoping they could stand up and be counted once again. Loose talk about minorities was being heard all over the place, much more articulate saliva sprayed out than when a much larger minority resulted from the 2008 general election. The Prime Minister himself, who immediately after the referendum result had electronically told us the will of the people needed to be respected, became the ventriloquist for the minority class which, no doubt, he would now like to have standing up and being counted.

The Yes people, incredulous of all these dances with wolves, couldn’t be expected to watch idly from the sidelines and not asking us, too, to stand up and be counted. After all they represent the vast majority that had already, surprise surprise, stood up and been counted.

While all this standing up and being counted was taking place, the same thing was being denied to the Media. Journalists, we were solemnly told, should not be asking MPs on both sides how they would be voting on the divorce bill. Don’t stand up and don’t be counted all you journalists was the obvious motive. Thankfully and quite predictably, the journalists who ask questions, most of them anyway, quickly stood up and bluntly asked to be counted.

The national farce goes on unabated. There is still more to come. When the people of the Philippines, that last no-divorce rampart in the world, heard how the whole Maltese people had been asked to stand up and be counted and how they had actually stood up and been counted, they too wanted to stand up and be counted. Now they continue to watch us with suppressed breath. Will they or will they not?

The last lap of the maddest race in the world is on. Filipinos v Maltese, refereed by the Vatican, which, of course, will never stand up and be counted. There’s no one to count. It is only a fake state (based on the 1929 Lateran Treaty signed with Mussolini, the mamma mia dictator) with an even more fake status in the United Nations. Who will be the first of the two to leap into the 21st century and so shed on the other the indignity of a last hurrah?

There is still a lot more standing up and being counted to take place. In a democracy it is the ruling party that has to show it has taken the cue from the people. While the influence of the potential cardinal and a couple of conscientious ministerial zealots polishing their halos cannot be ignored, it is good to know there are other influential sources within it, such as the youth section, which are calling for a proper standing up and being counted over the issue.

Who next, what next, where next? If the Filipinos beat us to it, the alternative to rushing to Dingli for a united rendition of “go lightly from the ledge, babe” would be, sorry folks, standing up and being counted outside the House of Representatives until the counting in there matches the referendum count.

But there is still hope that good sense will prevail. At least this is the indication one gets from the standing up and the counting unofficially taking place among MPs. Sorry, Filipinos, you can for now keep counting and re-counting Imelda’s famous shoes, if you wish, unless you want to consider the cliffs...