Writing an article in the week between Christmas and New Year during the festive season is a somewhat daunting task. Although parliament is in recess, the general atmosphere seems to get somewhat charged up at this time

We do promise there will be no politics during the festive season, and so be it. We should all look forward to a new year, brushing away an old year, which was, looking back, rather dark and gloomy.

We saw earthquakes that we all soon forgot when tales of revolutions and civil wars on our doorstep began to dominate television coverages and stories in newspapers. The economic worries did not help the year 2011 to be remembered in a proper way. 2011 could very well be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Everybody has a wish for the next year. Probably in this day and age, it’s not only one wish, but many, seeing our increasing human greed. One wish the Sliema residents have, and frankly insist upon, is to see their present local council pounce on the opportunity of reinstating the circular bus around the streets of the locality.

The lack of consideration is careless to say the least, where an evident lack of actual leadership has been, once again, exposed. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong as the year kicks in.

My wish in the public sphere, is to see taxpayers’ money being spent well, while also seeing the government offering more help to many families that are in need who depend on such concessions as their only source of survival.

I am disgusted at the throwing away of other people’s money, in fancy inaugurations, rather than distributing it among our own people. Whoever is a spendthrift in this manner must be accountable, not only to the people, but ultimately to the Creator, for ignoring the basic priority of human needs.

Helping people in a silent way should be the priority, and not posing on a podium before the media to show off your goodness when your heart is not really in it. The former way of doing things makes us proper, practising Christians.

To the victims of blackmail, I  suggest through personal experience as a victim, to expose the sender and the messenger. Only then will the blackmail stop.

I would like to see that people who are hardened, green with envy about everything and everybody, who are harming others in their actions, to finally come to terms with themselves, and acknowledge their mistakes. It takes nothing to be nice and helpful. It takes so much to be cruel, to invent plots and implement horrible ideas. They do, however, boomerang, when least expected. Karma. Doing away with such harm, would make this Malta a near paradise. Maybe we can all make a small step in that direction.

You must have realised the gist of this end of year article. I am not being a softy, but a realist, and an optimist for the year to come. We can all contribute to make the society we live in a better place, for all. A small effort will go a long way.

Lest this article does not become a tall wish list, I would like to conclude and thank the editor of the newspaper for affording me space in this newspaper, to you the readers who patiently go through my articles, all 26 of them this year, and comment on them too. May each of you have a very happy new year, with health being my top wish for you.

Robert Arrigo is parliamentary assistant in the Finance Ministry