In some future time, looking back on what today seems an everyday normality, there could very well be – or perhaps there already is – a study to be made on how Malta steered itself through one of the most fake decades it ever experienced.

Quite probably it will reveal that to survive you need to adapt and adapting well has always been a trait of the Maltese.  What went on below the surface may have been a different story but on the outside, our people had learned early on in their history to become adaptable.  In the least, we had to adapt to a hot climate and water shortage.  To having few natural resources.   To more powerful neighbours and to the several nations that invaded or ruled Malta. 

Conversely, the partial inability to adapt to accepting other races, when we no longer need to be submissive to them or generate an income from them, is perhaps a reaction to the years of being dominated and little room is left in our psyche for a positive or worthwhile experience.

The default position is to hoard and consolidate our prospects and security, with scant regard for negative consequences on others.  With time, we discard positions that do not serve us and exaggerate our own success.

This selective memory enhances our pleasure in satisfying our needs and how far we have come with that.  So, sacrificing hundreds’ years old trees and agricultural land to build a fuel station or a wider road, is neatly worked into our greater plan of conformity with progress.

The issue of corruption, no matter how true and how deep, is an outsider.  Will it interfere with obtaining success for me?  Probably not.  Therefore the issue can be rejected and my prospects remain positive for growth.

Looking at the reality is a matter of inconvenience.  In today’s life where everything is made to our convenience, we have absolutely no time or interest in examining the truth and scrutinizing the fake from the real, the facts from the tales.  Ultimately it is what some sectors of the media have taught us to do.

This is what we have become accustomed to in Malta.  Maybe there is also a latent sense of fear which also conditions our behavior.  Many have simply turned off thinking and happily live in delusion and false modesty.  Because you have to pretty happy with yourself to allow such serious facts to go past you undisturbed.

Choices are quite uncomplicated these days.  Things are either black or not black and what we are told is what we see. 

So, if we are told that we are in a better place than we were before, we are more than ready to believe it because we see so many changes around us, they can only be good.  Criticism will not serve any purpose other than bother and frustrate us.  Anyone who engages in criticism must have nothing to do or no-one to care for or live a very dull life.

But life is a pesky thing and it has a way of not sitting still.  There was a time when it felt like every family was touched by couples who separated and were facing problems with finding their place in society and how to deal with the religious issues that arose.  So, when the divorce bill was proposed, people approved and adapted to the new normal.  Should there come a time when crowding has become a negative influence in our life, when we are gasping for air and a space to relax in, when there are no more rentals to be made and the costs of maintaining property has drained our pockets and when the price of energy has become prohibitive and when people we know  or know of have fallen on seriously hard times and even medical treatment is a favour, then maybe we will need to make a change.

Finding how to re-adapt after such a long conversion into believing the good-life will be hard and could very well skip a generation or two.    Ironically though, it is the same resilience, natural to our Maltese mentality that will need to find that change and make it happen.  Adjustments on how we view our prospects and success will once again resonate in our mind and somewhere a bell will finally ring and what’s black will be black and what’s white will be white.  No more pretending or ignoring.  No more silence.  The need to re-open our hearts and mind to the world outside and try to once again catch up on years of insular and poor vision will drive a new generation into the future, maybe poorer but strangely richer.  Less complacent but more conscious, somehow, better people.  Alive and generous once more.

Hopefully, some more young people, aware and brave, would have come forward to lead the way and create a new purpose and a more honest country and what’s left of the population of Malta and Gozo will support and join them in making us small again, a country of communities not blocks, of warm sun and free beaches and natural coastlines to enjoy, of tree-lined shady roads and lazy boat crossings to our neighbouring islands, of a first class health service and space for recreation, of well-paid jobs and the possibility of buying a home and raising a family with pride.  Of free speech and freedom of the press.  Of justice and equality for all.  A country to call home not a Ltd entity or club Med.