I found a document that dates from some seventeen years back published by the Malta government of the time regarding the problem of waste disposal and how to deal with it. The analysis of the problem was indeed very good. The consequences that would arise from accumulating an overload of waste were carefully outlined. Solutions were laid out.

None of the proposed remedies could be implemented overnight. All required step by step, patient, unspectacular approaches, coupled to an overall effort to change the behaviour of families and citizens in the way they disposed of their trash.

Very few of the measures were actually carried out. Those which were launched did not get far. A problem is that the whole policy area generates boredom and apathy. Seemingly, it aims to push society towards action that will increase discomfort in our everyday life in order to attain long term worthy objectives. But why worry so much over the future?

That future has now turned into a worrisome present. Rightly, the government is emphasizing the urgency of the problem. Could it too become a “victim” of the boredom and apathy that the challenge of how to dispose of our trash has always given rise to?

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Europe and Catalonia

As I write this, the full implications of events developing in Catalonia remain uncertain. The Spanish state has been rocked to the deepest limits of its essential structures. However, the crisis has given rise to questions that have a much wider application.

They relate to Europe as a whole.

How far can be taken the right of European peoples to decide about the national state in which they want to live? How can this right be exercised in the framework of democratic constitutions that were designed long ago?

What forms of political expression are permissible? And how far can they be taken, not least when they are non-violent?

How should referenda be used to solve questions involving fundamental national choices? Is there a future in which from a Europe of nations, we could evolve towards a Europe of regions?

No European discussion is being conducted to cover these questions which the Catalonian crisis has catapulted to the political centre stage.

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Features

After the social media became so dominant in the communciations field, this is what happened in the print media:

Up to a few years ago, newspapers and magazines were intent on cutting down on the length of articles, news and commentaries they published. People were no longer prepared to spend much time reading, they explained; so what gets published must be condensed, on the model of the popular tabloids, to feature short and pungent pieces.

However now we have facebook and all the other ways by which you can say anything you want on the social media. With a short comment you are even empowered to pronounce about the future of the universe. So, a new interest has been rediscovered for a longer discourse which would cover in-depth the complexity of the social and economic reality in which we live. There’s hardly a medium that can deliver this better than the print one.

Especially in weekend papers, the space available for longish pieces has been largely increased.