One can only agree immediately with all that is said in support of multiculturalism and the need to proscribe totally all speech and action that stimulate antipathy (to put it mildly) between different peoples, whether living close to each other or separated by distance.
Yet, there is also the need to remember that as a matter of fact, people are not (as I used to say some years back) like products on the shelf of some supermarket: indifferent to where they find themselves and to their surroundings. To the contrary, people evaluate themselves and their life situation in terms of what they see happening around them and close to where they have lived over the years.
If the character of the place where they live is changing – because for instance, new people are coming to live there with the different social mix that this creates in the neighourhood: but other instances as well – after some time, they might begin to feel that if changes continue the way they have done, their identity will come under threat as well as the meaning they have become accustomed to give to their way of life. Which is what I understand is happening when talking to people who say, come from Hamrun or Marsa.
***
ELECTIONS
General elections in Israel and Congressional elections in the US have confirmed again that the extreme right remains very strong. Even Lula’s victory in Brazil’s presidential elections – won by a nose – cannot screen the fact that a similar situation exists in Latin America: in the Brazilian parliamentary assemblies the extreme right made substantial gains.
For its message still has a drawing power among electorates. Indeed it has been increasing. One must ask why this is happening. A reason could be that in a world where social and economic changes occur with ever increasing freqency, affecting a wide range of peoples and territories, a message that simplifies matters while polarising the issues becomes effective. Especially if changes take the aspect of crises.
Some say that the attractiveness of the extreme right will evaporate as soon as it is in government and fails to contain the ongoing changes. Yet such a government might, once it reaches that stage and in order to evade the problem, set about creating a bigger crisis.
***
VISION
The current political, economic and social set-ups get a lot of flak for their failure to promote a “vision”. Or also because they lack enough vision – as if the latter can be pieced out and delivered in grams.
It makes sense though to ask what constitutes a vision. You get told that a vision creates a picture of how society should look like say fifteen years from now – and presents a plan by which to achieve this desired state of affairs.
How feasible could such a plan be? In certain cases, yes – it might be possible to lay it out, like for the necessary action to combat climate warming. But is it equally possible for a small open economy like ours, which is subject to the tugs and pushes of “free” market forces from the inside and outside? Could the problem be not that nobody is trying to present a vision but that it has been discovered that progress can only be achieved on a step by step basis, according to what is called a trial and error approach.