Since we’ve been pushing back the corona virus pandemic... for slightly less than three months though it feels like it’s been much longer... we had to learn how to live our lives differently from how we used to do “before”... sometimes very differently.
The worst change was the need to go into isolation, coupled to rules of distancing that told us how far away to keep from people one met or with whom there could be physical proximity.
To override this problem, we got to increasingly use the latest technological advances which allow people to meet at a good distance from each other in order to discuss and decide – and this even when participants can be counted in their scores, and more.
Getting accustomed to working closely with other people while remaing distant has its upside and downside. In future, we need to examine deeply what is going on to determine what the positives and negatives amount to. Some say that the “new” ways of communicating with others will be of great benefit to people who for reasons of illhealth or otherwise feel that they may have been sidelined.
Then there is the view that if we go too far down the road of electronic discourse, we will end up totally isolated while living in a communications bubble that converts each one of us into total strangers. Those who will experience this problem most sharply will be religious practitioners.
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SERVICES
Since Independence, changes that occurred in the Maltese economy basically related to three tendencies. One now covers a closed chapter – the total dismantlement of the British military base.
The two others have proceeded in tandem while alternating in the speed with which they developed – manufacturing and services (including tourism). When during the 1970’s, manufacturing began to grow, some would claim that it was not sustainable on an island with our features. A foreign professor by the name of Metwally raised a storm when he published a report about the Maltese economy, in part because he came close to such a conclusion.
Over the years, it seemed as if Metwally was right. In recent years, especially since Malta became a member of the EU, its economy progressed mainly on the back of services activities.
But now it is also becoming evident that services can prove to be extremely fragile. On top of which comes the point that some services are generating negative perceptions about us among other member states of the EU.
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BASTILLE
While struggling to restore some order among the heaps of objects and bric-à- brac accumulated in my home over the years, I came across the hiding place of two “ancient” CDs carrying the rock opera “Bastilja”. It was put on in 1989 to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution.
The music was Paul Abela’s, the lyrics were by Ray Mahoney, the duo responsible for “Ġensna” the rock opera. “Bastilja” did not achieve the popularity of its elder sibling. Still it possessed some excellent moments in which the voices of highclass Maltese singers (who had also held lead parts in “Ġensna”) stood out.
It is a pity that during the thirty years and more that have elapsed since “Bastilja” was launched, it has been fogotten and was never staged again.