Malta has been reduced to a pitiful state – a place full of deceit, horrors and shit. And no, it is not just Joseph Muscat or Keith Kasco Schembri who are to blame – we all are.
If we do not realise this and fight the malaise that has entered our core we will never change the Malta we have today. We let too many horrors go unchallenged and instead of fighting apathy, many times we all become apathetic. At last a few have risen and taken the lead out of politicians. But more has to happen, more has to be opposed and more people need to be made to resign.
A few friends – the real ones, the ones who whisper truths untarnished – told me that I have become too negative about our country. An English friend actually told me that I mustn’t forget that there are good things in Malta too, that we have some saving graces.
I acknowledged that of course we do, and I hope to remain ever thankful for the good this country and its people gave me. Yet if we remain corrupt at the core, and do not fight the evil inside us, then all else is irrelevant. What use are civil rights, economic well-being, baroque festivals and wonderful fortifications if we are sliding fast down the democratic scales?
What use is good schooling, nursing and living in splendid golden castles if the people are slaves?
Are slaves better off than their neighbours in a free country just because they are treated well?
The worry is not just because the rule of law is not functioning perfectly: the loudest alarm should be sounding because our situation is getting worse. Year after year we slide down a few more rungs when it comes to freedom and good governance.
These alarming signals are not coming from internal critics: they are coming from international – and objective – sources.
Of course, we have attributes, no one denies that. We have our mild weather, our beautiful sea, our size which, overall, is a blessing and many other qualities. They are hardly enough.
Even our relative safety is at risk. If a vociferous journalist can be assassinated in broad daylight and justice is denied for over two years at the highest echelons of power, where is our real safety? How safe can I be, when crooks caught in flagrante are still running free and unencumbered; when accomplices in crime and corruption, are not just free but are given generous handshakes and some are also our representatives in parliament? What kind of safety is that?
What safety is there when a man who ran one of the most important regulatory bodies in the land for 20 years or so is told off by a judge for passing the buck and asking him to ask someone else.
These misdeeds resulted in – or at least definitely contributed to – one woman being blown to pieces. Who knows who else is at risk? Who dares investigate if the state has vilified the ones who were ready to speak up?
To feel truly safe and free, I must know that all of us are. Safety, like every right, is not something given to us as a gift by some benign dictator.
The more the new Prime Minister grants me – and anyone else – the right to protest and the right to maintain a memorial to an assassinated journalist, the less free and the less safe I feel.
Who is this man who can grant me this luxury? What arrogance from Robert Abela to utter such despicable and condemnable words?
He, nor anyone else in power, should feel the need to grant me this right to protest. He might not agree with the reason for my protest, but he is in no position to grant me the privilege of protesting. That privilege is mine because we live in a free country – or so we hope.
We are living in such terrible times where we have lost the plot totally on what is right, proper and democratic. Life is not about what a prime minister, in his munificence, grants you. We are not a feudal society or an emperor’s subjects, where freedom and the right to life is a gift given by the all-seeing, all-knowing leader.
Politics and politicians have failed us. They have always treated us as pawns in their power-grab. It is about time we all realised that, unless we wake up and shake off politicians’ hold on us, soon we will be no better than a North Korean satellite. With lovely sea and a few architectural gems.