The temptation does arise to consider that the attitude being adopted regarding the island’s actual economic situation against the background of the growing uncertaitnties that surround us, verges on the complacent. (Obviously, this is not with reference to the wails and gnashing of teeth indulged in by the Nationalist Opposition, which is a totally exagerrated attitude lacking in credibility).
The point however also holds: the Maltese economy has truly succeeded not just to stay afloat but it has surged forward while keeping inflation pegged on the “low” side. The fiscal space which the government still has to implement measures that can contain external shocks is still better than that available to others.
But still, are we being too complacent? No politician is taken seriously – I have been told – if he/she does not trumpet what he/she has managed to accomplish. Doing so is not complacency. And again, it is true that the successes that have been achieved are not tiny.
On the other hand, the good results themselves carry social and environmental costs and one has to expect that more negative developments overseas could bring with them additional burdens. Full attention needs to be maintained therefore on these aspects even as empahsis is given to getting full recongition for what is being done right.
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HAS WRITING BEEN DEVALUED?
At times the suspicion arises that the written word no longer attracts the interest it used to do in the past. The Maltese people have always been reluctant readers... but this too is perhaps a fairy story. As soon as primary education really came into its own, the purchase and readership of newspapers and novels in serial format boomed. And I still remember publishers telling me in the 1970’s and the beginning of the 1980’s that the establishment of factories which brought work opportuities to a greater number of persons, not least women, had been followed by a significant increase in their sale of novels.
Even so, today writing seems to have lost in value. Rumours, repetitive slogans and visuals that are experienced in bits and pieces like with youtube and TikTok dominate. I believe that already this revolution has gone too far and that quite likely sooner than most people expect, a “counter-revolution” will occur to re-establish the popularity and importance of the written word.
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MEANING OF HISTORY
Best know what happened in the course of human history to understand better how events shape up. This does not mean that what has happened up to now offers any sure guide to how the future will develop. Which is what the adverts publicizing financial investments also slip into their message. In no river can one step twice at the same spot: a now forgotten Greek philospher of antiquity said something like ths.
What meaning can be extracted from history? Why should we even look it up? Could it be that history carries no intelligible meaning as events happen without reflecting any kind of pattern that can be understood or predicted beforehand?
It would appear that no satisfactory replies can be given to such queries. Will the human species continue to make the same mistakes of previous generations? – or rather mistakes that resemble those of the past without being the same.