Boris Nemtsov

I never got the squirts from Cafe Premier while it was open and serving.

The least I ever expected was to get an assquake and other humiliating effects of mood poisoning after it shut down.

For no matter how much I try, and try I did, to find logic in the government's handling of the case of the once so happy place, justification of forking out over four million euro of public money to a private entity when there was a huge possibility that legal redress could save us the  badly needed sum of money, has eluded me so far. 

The whole affair stinks more than the stench of food poisoning, and by no stretch of the imagination can be excused by the now very popular 'PN government did worse' statement.

Every single day I am assailed by fellow Maltese still  dangling on the poverty line, struggling to hang on to whatever dignity is left to them while existing as family breadwinners in precarious jobs.

Every single day I am reminded of the plight of pensioners, lonely, ailing mothers and fathers who are denied a place in an old people's home because there are no available affordable beds.

Not a day passes without being shocked by some bit of news reminding us that what is left of our environment is being perceived as another commodity to be traded solely for the financial gain of the few, at the cost of the rest of the nation's sanity, well-being and health. 

Like thousands of fellow countrymen, I fully supported our own Labour Movement's pre-electoral promise of cutting bureaucracy. I still do, but the new form of arbitrary bureaucracy that is replacing Civil Service Procedures as well as official and in toto government participation is as dangerous as it is selective and can totally destroy any regard for authority in the short term and have devastating effects in the long term.

Suffice it to cite as an example the concrete platforms and other ancillary interventions permitted to mushroom on our protected Ghadira Bay sand dunes, which incidentally belong to all the people and not the few, which allegedly were approved by MEPA through a DNO!

Most of these offensive transgressions are carried out in the name of the urgent need for economic growth.... and economic growth we are having,  and yet:

The   list of glaring needs of our people remains  very long, and though many needs cannot be met solely and simply by financial power,  best use of public funds and public institutions remains an overarching priority, and the government has to stop shooting itself in the foot by creating or leaving room for doubts as to its governing credentials in this regard.

The most precious thing any country can have is real and perceivable Rule of Law and the government can nurture it best by its own example.

Now for a word about Russia.

There are many ways in which one can silence an opposition.  One of them is fabricating stories about political adversaries in order to demonise them or demolish their credibility or otherwise vilify them. Another is framing them into crime scenes they never even dreamt about. Threats, blackmail and countless other ways have been concocted to stamp out criticism in different countries at different times. We have all heard about what goes on in Mexico, and recently Argentina hit the headlines in this regard as well,  and those nasty bits of news reveal  just the tip of the iceberg of the info we  are allowed to know  about. 

Incidentally, or maybe not so incidentally after all, in the last few years democracy hopeful Russia's name is being mentioned once too often in this villainous context.

Anna Politkovsksaya,  Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Magnitski, Alexei Devotchenko, Stanislav Markelos, Natalya Estemirova were some of Vladimir Putin's most vociferous critics who were murdered or died in suspicious circumstances in recent years.

As if these happenings weren't damning enough for the Russuan Federation 's rule,  surveillance loaded Red Square was picked as the venue for the assassination of ex-Deputy Prime minister, once Presidential hopeful, face of the opposition, nuclear scientist Boris Nemstov just a couple of days ago.

Free speech and opposition has taken a bashing particularly in recent years in Russia, but Nemtsov's  decimation within the confines of a high security zone, only a few minutes after voicing harsh criticism of the establishment and hours before an opposition demonstration which he was supposed to lead, speaks volumes about  the intoxicating, addictive effect that power  might have on some politicians  and what it might hypothetically turn them into.

For , in my eyes,  and this  is my humble personal opinion, this was not  a murder, but a public execution of what Nemtzov stood for, which is not just a warning for Russian Opposition, but a warning to anyone anywhere who  not only believes in clean, corruption free governance, the upholding of human rights and respect for territorial integrity of sovereign nations, but is also ready to state it and fight for the right to put one's beliefs into practice.