Over the last 40 years Malta was transformed. The sheer immensity of that change is disconcerting. Malta shifted radically from a situation where politics was paramount to one where only money matters.
Until 1987 the country lived in darkness - literally and metaphorically. The lack of opportunity and the impossibility of escape sapped the morale even of the greatest optimist. There were no prospects, restricted rights and freedoms, no work and no future. We lived in a state of anxiety and fear where intimidation and violence, both psychological and physical, were standard. Labour’s leaders called shipyard workers onto the streets to run riot. The destruction of the Archbishop’s Curia, just opposite the police headquarters, will forever stain our history.
The ransacking of the Opposition Leader’s house, his wife’s violent beating and the intimidation of his young children who fled, with neighbours’ help, was another scar Labour chiselled into our collective memory. The closure of church schools, the threats of violence by dockyard workers, the intimidation of teachers, who bravely continued to teach students huddled in private residences, instilled fear.
That black period culminated in the murder of the young Raymond Caruana, rampant police violence and the framing of Pietru Pawl Busuttil for Caruana’s murder.
PN’s election victory of 1987 flooded the nation with relief and optimism. Malta could finally start to live, even dream. The joy was palpable. There was still much to be done - but hope was alive.
Not everybody celebrated. The police corps were stuffed with Labour lackeys. When a group of Zejtun Labour activists were due to be charged in court, they rampaged through Valletta, destroying the courts, burning documents in the street, looting shops and damaging property, while the police looked on. Prime Minister Fenech Adami was attacked by Labour thugs, as he entered Zejtun parish church to attend a wedding. Dockyard workers refused to allow him into the shipyards. When a British naval vessel was due to enter Grand Harbour, Sammy Meilaq and other Labour diehards manoeuvred a tanker across the harbour’s entrance to stop the vessel entering.
Despite Labour, the country made rapid progress. Essential infrastructure was developed - an airport, a power station, reverse osmosis plants. The University flourished. Job opportunities increased. The media was liberalised. New radio stations opened. People were free. Malta could dream. Its biggest dream was to take its rightful place in Europe, to gain for its citizens the rights so brutally denied just years earlier.
That dream was rudely shattered. Labour was back within a decade. Thanks to Alfred Sant, violence didn’t return. But Malta’s EU application was frozen. Hopes were dashed - only to be saved 18 months later, by Dom Mintoff. Mintoff brought down Sant’s government and resurrected the dream.
Labour didn’t give up. Sant and a young Joseph Muscat ran a hostile campaign against EU membership. They came up with a fantasy - partnership. When the country voted to join the EU, Labour claimed victory. Labour supporters were fed the lie that “Partnership won”. As the country celebrated, Labour called its supporters onto the streets - with total disregard for people’s safety.
The country’s will was stamped at the subsequent election. Instead of making way Sant clung on. He would lose another election in 2008. After almost two decades in the wilderness Labour had a golden opportunity to reform. Labour was practically guaranteed victory in 2013 after PN’s 2008 razor thin majority. This was Labour’s chance to reclaim its socialist soul, and promote public spirit and integrity as its core values. Instead it elected the young ambitious Muscat. Labour put at its helm a man as charismatic as he was shallow; as appealing to the masses as he was a virtuoso in deception; as much a winner of votes as he was a magnet for crooks.
When the inevitable victory arrived in 2013, the country was plunged into a new darkness. Many didn’t realise - but a period of unbridled greed, rampant individualism and amoral double-dealing was ushered in. Only now is the country waking up to Muscat’s debauched politics, his tainted legacy and the party he leaves behind - one that enjoys popular support but which ditched every pretence of decency. A party that embraces greed, abuse of power, trading in influence and personal profit.
Muscat created a fake economic miracle which caused environmental degradation, growing inequality, rampant cronyism and pervasive corruption. The scale of that corruption is only now becoming apparent. He embarked on a systematic dismantling of the institutions, by appointing lackeys to head the police, the army, MFSA, FIAU, MGA. While retaining a facade of respectability those institutions became rotting caracasses. When Muscat was finally forced out, he anointed his continuity candidate.
The nation now wrestles with Muscat’s blight of corruption and cronyism. It is devoured by the frenzy of Labour’s looting. Rosianne Cutajar, Luciano Busuttil, Gavin Gulia, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Silvio Grixti, Edward Zammit Lewis, Justyne Caruana are all making tens of thousands off undeserved or fake posts. Even the wives and girlfriends of MPs - Roderick Galdes, Silvio Schembri, Clayton Bartolo, Andy Ellul, Owen Bonnici, Chris Bonett, Clint Camilleri - are gorging at the trough.
In one lifetime we’ve gone from a nation of self-sacrifice to a country of shameless opportunists. Instead of honesty and integrity, we value cunning and deceit. Instead of selflessness, we have selfishness. Labour epitomises the shamelessness of greed and excess. Instead of embracing the gift of life we perversely pursue its destruction - where drug abuse is “recreational”. In four decades we’ve moved from an era where principles and values mattered to another where only money counts. We’ve gone from being embarassed at the slightest impropriety to complete shamelessness about the most obscene behaviour.
In the 1980s people protested in massive numbers, risking their safety. They fought for democratic freedoms. In the darkest of times, they still hoped for salvation and the country rose again.
We see no massive protests now. Only bleak indifference, at best and vociferous support for Labour’s looting at worst. The darkness won’t last. The light will shine again.