Let’s be honest. We like short-cuts. And these days there is a real sense of competition on who will deliver the best, the cheapest and the most efficient short-cuts. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter are at the top of their game in getting us to where we want quicker and better.
Reaching customers, promoting our latest products and services, finding the nearest restaurant serving fried bananas. You name it, they have the route to it, fast and furious. We have a platform to say whatever we want (within rules) the moment the thought enters our mind. Hot pink fringes not to your taste? The emoticons fly onto the posts. The easiest and quickest way to express our opinion. A smiley or an angry face. No need to use your fingers and type a few sentences. Emoticons are the best short-cut.
The internet is crowded with all the time-saving, effort-sparing methods of becoming wealthy, free, independent. With the opportunity to purchase the most successful money-making systems and cost-saving products. The latest diet and exercise equipment to take us down 10 stones in the shortest time possible.
We have become wired to sniff out the short-cut. Having to wait at home, away from the fast track, for COVID to get bored and lose interest in infecting us, was a stressful experience for many. No matter how much we tried to get around it, ultimately, there was only one way to defeat the virus and that was the long, patient method of social distancing. That really went against our nature, though. After having tried the short-cut in Summer 2020, in the Winter of 2021 we saw that the quickest way to rid ourselves of the virus was to take the long route, otherwise it would keep on winning. That’s when we saw sense.
Short-cuts to achieving our hopes are as popular as the week-end. The mood in the country is to cast aside anything that can interfere with our intentions. Anything that can delay our gratification or prohibit it is expertly avoided.
Whilst the Labour party continue to present the most short-cuts possible, in the shortest time possible for the most people it can target, the PN lags in the realm of pre-internet and installing traffic lights. Fair to say that most of those short-cuts created by Joseph Muscat, his accountants and the let’s-keep-digging Ian Borg, hot on the heels of the let’s-keep-building Planning Authority, are mired in corruption. To people who consume short-cuts at the speed of building permits issued to the super-contractors, they are not sticking around to see if there is any wrong with their demands or who may get left behind.
Most of all, in spite of the scandals, the theft and the clear egoistical manner of serving themselves seen from the Labour benches, people have long become fed-up of the trailing fortunes of the PN, failing to catch up with their immediate needs and beliefs. This train has left the station.
Whilst Bernard Grech continues to play the role of UN peace keeper, people’s minds are on how quickly travel can be restored. The internal warring, followed by the usual rhetoric of “I will kick them out” is childish, boring and simply not on these days. Not even the Pope says he will kick people out of church. But if anyone is not true to a vocation, they should find another and not inflict harm on the people. Wrong or right in what they did and said, Delia and Azzopardi are not there to be scolded and warned. Neither will anyone believe that disgrace is necessary for discipline. People may ask, too, whether this is the job of Grech or of the party Secretary General. The leader of the party is meant to inspire, both the party shadow cabinet and the public. The elected MPs serve their constituents under the authority of the party. That authority is the responsibility of the Secretary General and the official bodies of the party.
In truth, the forte of Dr George Borg Olivier, father of Independence, was his quiet patience. He booked a room at the Savoy Hotel in London and simply enjoyed his time waiting for the British government to concede to his demands. That trait was a virtue in those circumstances but for today’s pace in seeing results, most do not have the time for more frustration.
So, if the St Vincent de Paule kitchen cost millions, the question is, did it solve the problem in the shortest time possible or not? That is the modus operandi of the Labour Party. No bothering with tenders, applications, approvals, parliamentary scrutiny or the media. What people don’t see is that the reason for fast-tracking is to make as much money for special beneficiaries as they can, in the shortest time possible. Another trait that is not at odds with the majority.
The system is now broken. Covid may have brought a sense of responsibility that was lacking in an egoistic society and some more awareness that a simple virus can bring a country to its knees. Indications are though, that the economy is rearing to go and will grow at the first possible chance. The prospects for Malta may be negatively affected because of our dependence on tourism and the battering that our financial service industry has taken. But on a micro-level where the ordinary consumer or entrepreneur can make a difference, it is likely to get a boost.
Again, there will be many short-cuts presented. Unless there is a balance and the long route being the quickest route is kept in mind, we will soon find ourselves in a worse place than before on all levels.
Getting to their physical and intellectual destination is a goal for many. Compromise is not really something that people are used to in these days of high expectations and high self-esteem. If there is a better way for people to live and to find more happiness, with the environment around them and the more altruistic good in mind, for the sake of making a better investment in our future, all political parties are obliged to find that way and stop taking short-cuts or, equally bad, losing their way. We cannot afford it anymore.