To have an island that has been independent for more than 50 years and which is now exposed to financial gluttony at the highest level of government we have ever seen, reminds me of the book bearing the title of this piece. This is neo-colonial thinking and behaviour at its worse. To be elected to govern and, rather than seek the common good you appropriate money for yourself in a fraudulent manner to the extent we have been regaled with in recent press reports, is not only unbelievable but incredibly filthy and corrupt.
How is it possible that the Labour Party could have fallen into the bottomless pit of such filthy corruption to the extent that what they have been caught descending into is none other than a humongous mess that no other modern party should have allowed itself to fall into. The Labour Party should have had its guards up to locate this type of graft. Instead, it allowed itself to be bought lock stock and barrel, so that no one could stand up to or question the Prime Minister and his gang of three musketeers. It seems everybody had his price!
It is however not only an institutional failure of the Labour Party, but also an institutional failure of the Maltese State. The mechanisms that were supposed to protect the Maltese citizen from the corrupt and to ensure that the law is equal for everyone not only failed but has also failed dismally. The police force especially the Police Commissioner, the Attorney General’s Office, the Income Tax offices, State Broadcasting all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men failed miserably to prevent corruption, investigate corrupt persons and protect the man in the street from the strong who were breaking the law! It seems that even in government, the state apparatus had its price. Money, fear or favour bought tacit compliance, throwing the whole country back to the seventies and eighties. There are no institutions left to protect the truth and the common man save for the law courts and even there, I have heard of police superintendents putting their finger in the pie where they should not have done so. I hope that the Courts of Law will not prove to be another red herring, knuckling under pressure from above. Ethics and the law have gone to the highest bidder.
Lawrence Kohlberg, an American psychologist, developed the theory which stated that moral development does not take place in all of us at the same pace. A person’s ability to deal with moral issues is not formed just like that. Kohlberg put forward six stages of moral development now thought to be five (the last two together). At Stage 1 (5+ years) children think that obeying that which authority says, is what is right. In stage 2 (7+ years) right or wrong is defined in terms of what results in rewards and punishments, but punishment is simply a risk that one naturally wants to avoid rather than do good in itself. At Stage 3 (10+ years) people live up to the expectations of the family and friends and good or bad is defined in this relationship. In Stage 4 (16+ years), this relationship of defining good or bad is extended to the community (band club, football team, political party) which is what defines good or bad. It is only at Stages 5 and 6 (adult stage) that people are supposed to move to decide what is good or bad – what is good for the proper functioning of society and what is good and bad for everyone, that is the common good. In Malta many individuals are still stuck at moral stages 1and 2 with some individuals moving to 3 and possibly four. Very few individuals actually reach stages 5 or 6. The reality is that with most adult people moral development is arrested at level 3!
All this must change significantly. The new government after the general election must chose to build strong institutions and a strong institutional base which are not built on the cult of personality but lend themselves to the empowerment of the man in the street, justice and the common good, because we want others to treat us as we treat them! It is very important that there is an constitutional overhaul to make sure that corrupt people like those we have now at the top are never allowed to see the light of power again. Neither should there ever be a number of people in high positions of trust whose main aim is to suck up to others for personal favours or honours or financial gain. The PN is promising a complete overhaul of our institutional safeguards and composition, placing emphasis on institutions for the common man and the common good. People heading these institutions should be appointed by consensus and their main duty should be to the Constitution and not to powerful men by adulation.
The only way forward for this institutional reform is to throw out the corrupt incumbents, elect the PN to government with a good working majority, and give it the means to carry out all these institutional changes which will ensure that what is happening now, will never happen again!
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Dr Asciak is Senior Lecturer II in the Institute of Applied Science at MCAST.