It doesn’t seem that the general public is angry – or if there is anger, it’s still inward; people are seething and not really expressing it. It seems to me that the Maltese are sick and tired. Not only of the scandals that, like a huge wrecking ball, keep demolishing the edifice of our international reputation and our pretensions at being able to govern ourselves. But also of the shabby environment we’re being condemned to live in. It’s degeneration, both moral and material.

Joseph Muscat built the ship called “Partit Laburista” in his own image and set sail in search of his own “America”, the continent of fourth-floor and identity-politics alliances. Robert Abela, despite his sea-faring expertise, seems unable to steer the ship back to a normal course. The Partit Laburista has jettisoned all pretence to political morality, to serving as a vehicle for taming raw, unbridled political ambition into good governance. It has instead become a ship whose sailors are drunk on corruption and the captain lacks the skills to rein them in while charting the route toward the Haven of Common Good. On top of that, it looks like Robert Abela is surrounded by obsequious flunkies who have neither the desire nor the wherewithal to draw his attention to possible shipwrecks.

Muscat’s PL pretended to be superior to its main political rival. Robert Abela is undecided on whether to continue with the pretence (pun intended) and hope to survive the growing undercurrents of public discontent, or to try something new, or even to call it a day, and perhaps cede the helm to somebody with more nous, like Clyde Caruana, who might not be a bonny lad but is certainly a more capable man of state.

While Robert Abela is trying to read his inner compass, the country is being rocked by mafia-like stories. Death threats from the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff (duly denied, as expected). Possible bribes camouflaged as consultancy fees (duly denied). The Tourism Minister was found by the NAO to have misled his Cabinet colleagues on a hospitals deal while side-lining the Minister responsible for Health (duly denied). These are just the latest in a long string of episodes that stink. Pure moral rot, pure absence of values, pure will to make hay while the sun shines – all this purity is devilish. It evokes Lucifer described as the most beautiful angel. The perversion in what we’re witnessing is profound.

Which is why people are not angry, but tired. It goes without saying that there are those whose brains are either on long shore leave or whose tribal loyalty outweighs their love of country. There are many others, however, who see the rot but can’t summon enough anger, because the rot is so pure. It’s like encountering the Devil and being unable to see through his Beauty to recognise his Evil. I always maintain that religious symbols have profound archetypal value, as shorthand for psychological phenomena.

While it is busy rolling in the mud of moral degeneration, Labour has unleashed the forces of material degeneration. The irrational, irresponsible and I dare say unconstitutional laissez-faire policies put in place by Muscat’s post-Socialist Labour have changed, probably forever, the physical environment of our country. Our villages have lost their character, with soulless, monstrous blocks of flats invading neighbourhoods where high-rise buildings should never have sprouted. We have raped our architectural heritage, and not many of us are ashamed. The rest are either gleeful or dazed.

Labour has permitted, aided and abetted, and at times even promoted the unjustified de-Christianisation of society. To avoid misunderstandings, let me clarify that I’m not advocating a confessional State, so much so that I wrote “de-Christianisation of society”. My point is that Labour has contributed, even accelerated, the ongoing process of de-Christianisation. I’m not referring to faith: those who want to believe can do so, and those who don’t want to believe, don’t need to. The right (not) to embrace a faith and express it is protected, as it is in any democracy. What I’m referring to is the anthropological function of Christianity, a religion based on the principle that you should love your neighbour. (Whether its adherents do it in practice is of no concern to us here.)

By directly or indirectly attacking the Church and variously ridiculing Christianity, Labour has essentially removed a set of moral and ethical principles to have them replaced by... nothingness. Needless to say, Labour was not original in this – it simply followed the dominant ideology of urbanised Europe. But urbanised Europe has two characteristics which are absent in Malta: an efficient police force and a high rate of psychopathology. This link is not something I cooked up myself – it’s what scientific studies consistently show. Just look up “urbanisation and psychopathology” on the Internet and read some of the materials you find.

Perhaps I should correct that statement. In the sense that of those two characteristics, one has crept into Malta: an increase in psychopathology. The COVID pandemic has contributed hugely to the surge in mental health problems, but even before that pandemic, a study published in 2019 by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) reported that 20% of Maltese aged between 18 and 24 were at risk of depression: the third-highest rate in Europe. 

The Church’s rate of success is obviously open to debate – but the fact remains that the Church, and its exponents, preach about the need to be less selfish and think of others. It goes without saying that some of the seed that the Church scatters falls along the path and birds eat it up; other seed falls on rocky places, where there isn’t much soil; other still falls among thorns. But some seed falls on good soil, and it can produce a crop, even thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown. Ultimately, those who have ears can hear. But by debasing the Church and mocking its message, Labour abjectly weakened the possibility for the spread of what is essentially a message that binds society together. After all, not even die-hard liberals deny that society’s worst enemy is selfishness.

De-Christianisation might at first glance look like moral degeneration; in reality, it ties in with material degeneration. You kill God, and suddenly everything is permissible. You kill the Father, and psychopathology becomes rampant.

So Labour, hoodwinked by its one-book-man leader Muscat, unleashed the brutal forces of laissez-faire on an unsuspecting country, accelerating the ruin of our culture and physical environment, and now the bonds between generations.

While the political sins of Labour’s grandees are coming to the surface – the hospitals deal which explains the Panama companies, etc etc –, Labour is working hard to introduce abortion in this country. So not only has it ridiculed Christianity – probably the only “philosophy of life” that truly promotes selflessness and good neighbourly relations – but it is also working on normalising the idea that killing your own offspring is fine. (Later on, it will normalise the idea that killing your own parents too is fine – through euthanasia... pleasures yet to come.)

The abortion innovation will contribute further to the degeneration of the country, not only because it will foster the idea that mothers can kill their own (unborn) children but also because of the way Labour is introducing it. Labour has no electoral mandate, and yet it’s introducing a veritable game-changer. It’s a game-changer because your female partner can kill your child behind your back.  Also, because by crossing this line, women will feel empowered and – as the Italian psychoanalyst who writes for La Repubblica Umberto Galimberti argues – become arrogant: they will acquire the right of life and death on their own progeny, a right not even the (democratic) State enjoys.

All in all, it’s degeneration all around: moral values, urban and natural environment, national identity...

Two points before I conclude. The attack on our national identity is so tangible that the President launched a campaign to protect the national language. Such campaigns usually happen in nations that either exist in a multilingual State or are under foreign rule. The need to protect one’s national language isn’t felt in independent countries that are functional.

The other point: referring to moral values doesn’t mean that one believes that there was some golden age in the past when values were observed. That’s a myth. Neither does it mean that one believes that there should be a Morality Police or a repressive State that imposes morality. Referring to moral values means that one advocates upholding higher ideals, in the full knowledge that higher ideals are only rarely achieved.

But higher ideals have to exist.

Higher ideals are like a compass – you’re not obliged to follow the compass, but if you’re lost and want to find your way, then you need to have one. Removing ideals is like throwing away your compass. The philosophy of nothingness means just that: there’s nothing, there’s no compass. You’re on your own. Obviously, you can listen to your own instincts and follow the path they suggest. You can seek individual realisation – in its bare essence, individualism (doing it your way) means that you seek to fulfil your potential or, particularly in the contemporary world, to fulfil your desires. But desire is unquenchable thirst. The canticle Frank Sinatra chanted – “I did it my way” – is but a mirage. Agreed, you might be lucky and your way turns out to be the right way. Then again, you might be less lucky – and the increase in psychopathology suggests that Lady Luck isn’t only blindfolded but also stingy.

Long story short, Labour has managed to confuse Malta, by implementing the politics of degeneration. It’s this confusion that’s making it difficult for the people really to get angry at the scandals that keep surfacing day after day. Because confusion has two effects on people: it makes them misread the signs of the times while consuming their energy and tiring them out.

For democracy to work, the people have to be vigilant, to follow current events as they unfold. But unlike TV shows, current events lack an inherent narrative form, and therefore it is not always easy for people to absorb the bigger picture or to work out where the current situation is heading to. Political observers have to do the work for the electorate, by giving a form to water-like events. Yet, not all political observers and commentators are unbiased or credible.

And while all this is taking place, the degeneration and the rot expand like wildfire, and the country opens its gates to chaos.

If they really want to save the country, the Nationalists need to figure out how to channel the unexpressed anger and how to overcome the fatigue to which the electorate has succumbed.