Whoever wins, it’s the country that really needs to win.

The polls have been suggesting a Labour landslide victory for the past number of weeks. Unless a black swan event takes place, in the coming hours Robert Abela will be appointed Prime Minister once again.

While the diehards and (those Desmond Zammit Marmarà has astutely described more or less as) the chicken-brained will be celebrating, does the country at large have anything really to celebrate?

Not really. It won’t be so much a continuation of the spree we have witnessed in the last months – a spree quite obviously meant to overwhelm a gullible electorate in order to legitimise the Leader's ascent to power – as a painful alignment with reality, with a world redefined by the Covid pandemic and the Russian military attack on Ukraine.

The pandemic has impacted supply chains, tourism, education, and God knows how many other sectors not visible to the naked eye. The war in Ukraine too has (directly or indirectly) impacted trade and other aspects of the economy. Labour has been dishing out assurances that the State will shield the population from all hardships, while investing more in everything and even reducing taxes. How this will be possible is anybody’s guess. Not all promises are made to be broken, but these particular ones certainly possess all the qualities to be thus eligible.

Apart from the economic consequences, the war in Ukraine has also unleashed forces in Europe that had long lain dormant. Germany’s military spirit is re-awakening; other countries are getting aroused by the idea of a European army; others are re-thinking their neutrality; and so on. I wonder how an uninspired and uninspiring Prime Minister of our little country will be able to navigate these unchartered waters avoiding a shipwreck. If indeed it’s Robert Abela who’s going to don the prime ministerial mantle again, how will he be taken seriously when, despite using a private jet, he arrives late to meetings with his European counterparts and when, despite having an army of advisers, he’s unable to defend himself from serious accusations relating to the time he served as lawyer to the Planning Authority?

The fact is I am completely disconcerted by that little of his vision Robert Abela deigned to share with us during the campaign. It seems to me a vision meant for the hungry and the greedy. It seems that the people advising Robert Abela believe that for the vast majority of the population, the first priority is still to put food on the table. It is true that there are more than 100,000 people in Malta (that’s 1 in 5) who either live in poverty or have Lady Poverty knocking on their door. But Labour did not unveil a proper strategy to tackle poverty (possibly because that would have meant admitting that they utterly failed to keep Joseph Muscat’s 2012 promise that they would drastically reduce poverty). So, whereas during the campaign, Labour made no serious effort to define (if and) how it plans to reduce poverty in the country, it still employed a language that speaks to an electorate intoxicated with the poverty mentality.

The progressive element within the Nationalist Party did not pick up on this, because it hails from the upper-middle class and the middle classes and is thus not quite sensitive to the plight of the economically disadvantaged. But about this, some other time. Let’s focus on Labour for the moment.

When Labour speaks of the country it wants to leave to our children, it is thinking in terms of sustenance and survival. In a sense, it perpetuates the mindset of the poor, of those who expect Government handouts to be able to survive till the end of the month. Labour has shown no awareness of the role education, self-help, and other really progressive tools play in kindling in the poor the drive to better their station. It also seems either oblivious to or callously nonchalant about the possibility of not perceiving poverty as an intractable problem and that there are ways to react to it other than by throwing morsels at those members of society whom Edward Zammit Lewis referred to as “il-Ġaħan Laburist”. That phrase fired up everybody's imagination because it captured the essence of the image of the stupid and the parasitic. It betrayed so much of how Labour views many of its own supporters, and how it thinks it should deal with them.

But this is not what the country needs.

The country needs a “double vision”: an internal vision and an external vision.

Internally, the country needs to upgrade the services it gives its citizens. The professionalisation of the public service is a must. Citizens need to be treated not only with efficiency but also with rationality and courtesy. Skills and ability should be the bases for appointment to management, rather than boot-licking.

Not only, but the country is fast becoming a weird place, with undertones of authoritarianism. I am noticing that different departments or agencies ask for the citizen’s ID card number. I recently went to pay my road licence, for instance, and was asked for my name and ID card number not by the clerk at the window, but by a gentleman in the waiting area who was collecting names and ID card numbers. What game is the Government playing? But more about this in the coming weeks, when the electoral dust will have settled.

Externally, the country needs to understand its role in the world. Robert Abela cannot act as if he were the mayor of a mid-sized town; he needs to comprehend that he is the Prime Minister of a sovereign state. Will Robert Abela truly master the trappings of sovereignty and the subtleties of international politics? Does he give you the impression he has what it takes? The Maltese are used to their country punching more than its weight. It seems to me that, ironically, the former weight-lifter turned Prime Minister who believes in continuation will not be able to continue this tradition.

Let’s wait and see.

The Nationalists

If the polls have predicted correctly, the Nationalists will be relegated to the opposition benches for another five years. They will have their own double vision, caused by the trauma. But they need to get out of it as soon as possible, and recalibrate their philosophy.

The PN needs to regroup its intellectuals, to outline what it stands for.

It is clear that the corruption issue is not a winner; the Party needs another narrative.

The Nationalists need to rediscover their Christian-Democratic roots. It might be true that these are post-Christian times. But only a facile understanding of “post-Christian” precludes using Christian principles to guide politics.

The Nationalists need to create a strong brand, to let go of progressive ideas so dear to upper-middle class ideologues and instead embrace the solutions that are suggested by Christian thinking. If the Nationalists listen to foolish geese or shallow people who uncritically embrace current ideology, they will get nowhere. About foolish geese there isn’t much to say; but with regard to the cynics who uncritically embrace current ideology, one ought to keep in mind that their predecessors believed that slavery was natural, Amerindians did not have a soul, negroes were only five-eighths persons, women should not vote, and petty thieves should be hanged. Keeping a proper historical perspective helps to understand the current incarnations of conformist mentalities.

The Nationalists are proud of having attained independence and EU membership for the country, and rightly so. But, one, they should not rest on their laurels. Independence was sixty years ago; EU membership, twenty. Two, those two achievements were formal: they were achievements on paper. Now they need to become tangible achievements in the real world. Now the country needs to embrace European-ness. Can Labour do it? No – it lacks the vision. Can the PN do it? Possibly – but only if it goes back to being a real Christian Democratic party, by embracing the Christian roots of Europe.

Otherwise, it can only hope that enough voters die, for the “old” ideas to die with them and for the demographic to become more progressive. That could take another ten years. Minimum.

Black Swan Event

If a black swan event does happen and the Nationalists win, then ignore this article and stop for a moment of collection. It might be a watershed moment for the country.

My Personal Video Library (30)

A recent movie called Marilyn ha gli occhi neri (2021) was so pleasant to watch that I was sincerely sad when it ended; I wanted it to be longer, to further develop not only the characters but also their interactions.

This Italian movie, directed by Simone Godano and starring Stefano Accorsi (as the neurotic chef, Diego) and the beautiful Miriam Leone (winner of the 2008 Miss Italia competition – in this movie she plays the pathological liar Clara), is about a group of psychiatric out-patients who suffer from a variety of conditions – ranging from Tourette's syndrome to paranoia – and decide to open a restaurant in the out-patient department’s canteen.

The most touching aspect of the movie is the budding romance between Diego and Clara, who at first become besotted with each other and then finally allow themselves to fall in love, discovering in the process how finding love helps overcome mental problems.

On many levels, it’s very much like a fairy-tale, as one has to wonder whether in real life love can supplant therapy and medication. But in these times of ours, when loneliness defines the existence of many, believing that love can breach the walls of social isolation is in itself cathartic.

But whereas the characterisation is excellent, there are a couple of problems with the film’s plot. Diego’s father reminds him that his condition had made him an exceptionally unbearable teenager. So, if Diego was so annoying all his life, how come Diego’s estranged wife had not only fallen in love but also made a child with him? The film does not suggest that the estranged wife too is mentally disturbed.

Another defect in the plot is that the supervising psychiatrist is aware of his patients’ restaurant project and, in spite of knowing full well what their mental problems consist of, he simply assumes that they have asked for and been granted all the necessary permits and are paying VAT, etc. When the police eventually shut down the place, there seem to be no repercussions for the doctor – somewhat difficult to believe, unless we are to accept that Italy is such a dysfunctional country that one can get away with practically anything.

Despite the not-so-indifferent demands on our suspension of disbelief, this is a movie worth watching.