“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit has a man of all his labour which he takes under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth abides forever”. King Solomon, who had all the power and riches he thought he might have wanted, questioned where all that power and might would actually lead a man.

The Hon. Franco Debono, notwithstanding his perceived annoyance at not progressing further in his political ambitions, already has much more political power than many of us ordinary folk. He already has the power to bring down the government of the day and change the political and economic course that we presently sail, not to mention the turmoil involved in calling an early general election which the people who voted for the ruling majority through him do not wish to have at the moment. The current world economic situation calls for a more temperate approach.

I watched the Hon. Dr Debono with Lou Bondi and what hit me squarely in the face is that I heard what he wanted and what he wished for and what he expected and what he would do and several other desiderata oriented towards a ‘him, himself and he’. The word “we” and attention to the wishes of the “them” around him did not seem to figure much in his calculations. Now, since he is a very small minority of one, compared to the rest of the party that saw him elected on its ticket, I suggest he stops behaving the way he is doing and thinks about the “we” in the equation a wee bit more. A failure to do so may indicate that either he does not want to, or is incapable of doing so. Either way, that leaves us all in the lurch while he continues to fight his quixotic battles. If the Hon. Dr Debono does go ahead with his threat of bringing down the democratically elected government of a country on a whim, then will he be able to live with his failure? He is still young and might live to be 90 or 100 – or I wish him even a 110. Would he, in his long life, then be able to live with himself?

No matter what actions we perceive are appropriate at a particular moment in time, history is not written by us personally – it is written by others. What would others see? They would see that, just as Mr Mintoff brought down his own government in 1998, so was Franco Debono responsible for bringing down his own government in 2012. History will judge him as a failure! Now I doubt very much whether he wants to go down in history as a failure, especially because his motive clearly seems to be that he was not promoted. We are in our lives, to a large degree, the products of our own choices. The Hon. Dr Debono has a number of choices before him and ultimately only he can decide how history will judge him.

I still remember studying – with that master of English literature Fr Charles Caruana SJ – the Shakespearean play Julius Caesar which is itself, together with Antony and Cleopatra, a profound lesson in politics. And I remember – as if it was yesterday – him telling us that while many people may think that ambition is wrong, it is not ambition in itself that is wrong. It is not a bad thing because it captures our hopes and aspirations in life. What is wrong is blind ambition – because then we see and consider nothing else but ourselves and our immediate gratification. Were I to be asked to pass judgement on Franco’s behaviour, I would say that his is a case of blind ambition and my advice to him is to stop and look around him. I know he is disappointed, but his perspective here is mismatched. There are other beautiful things in life. He has his health and his family, his profession and there is, of course, his vocation. Not many people consider that. He is still in time to apply that cardinal virtue, which is temperance.

King Solomon had everything that many in today’s world would crave for, but it did not seem to make him satisfied! The real Hebrew word used in the original Qoheleth text, in the Latin translation used today and now translated as “vanity”, is actually the word for “vapour”, “steam” or “fog”. Would sacrificing what is good in life for something that is actually “vapour” be worth it? Would it ultimately make him happy? What is the real meaning of life? Thomas à Kempis, in his famous book written in the Middle Ages, asked the same question. I believe that he came up with the right answer. We should all, including Franco, look up what that answer is.