For the government to overrule a local authority and force its opinion down their throat forcefully, is not a good way to do politics nor in the interest of the common good, which should be the final arbiter in policy. It is narcissistic, hedonistic (greater happiness of the greatest number) and consequentialist (the ends justifies the means). One can understand that one campaigns on differences, but one should lead policy on consensus and principles of subsidiarity unless these themselves go against the common good. Politicians tend to let their narcissistic qualities get out of hand, proportionally the greater the power they have and unless this is tempered through control and other people, it will leave the limits of the norm and become pathological. The country cannot continue to be run as a tribal fiefdom.

I am referring particularly here to the government's reaction to the recently elected Mosta Council's decision to temporarily reverse the pedestrianisation of the central area until more consultation is carried out. The central government's answer was to force its decision down their throat through overriding the Council's decision through Transport Malta. Now I do not think that anyone here, including myself, is against pedestrianisation of central areas, but these should be done with proper planning, dialogue and consultation. It is not proper for people who invest money to buy property in quiet urban and rural areas to suddenly find that central zoning pedestrianisation has shifted traffic and parking into their once quiet area. These plans need to be properly forethought and traffic flows and parking spaces considered well before pedestrianisation is effectively implemented. From what PN MP's Robert Cutajar and Ivan Castillo are saying about the Mellieha main square, the same seems to be happening there, willy-nilly! I have seen this happening in Manikata too, where residents who had property in a rural area suddenly find that their rural road has become a main thoroughfare to Mellieha and Gozo!

It seems that many politicians think that it is their way or the highway irrespective of what others think and this PL government is becoming increasingly arrogant and authoritarian in its affairs. The reality is that things need to change, the change of how things are done, development of mentalities and personal behaviour, and the development of and acceptance of other ways of thinking. Henri Bergson's idiom springs to mind here. "Being is becoming", nothing is cast in stone. The Msida Greening area suggested by a professional body of architects and enamoured by the Msida Council is also a case in hand. We badly need more green areas in our urban zones. Planning regulations must change, corruption which is a present bane of uncontrolled proportions must be reigned in, responsible persons, not party stalwarts, leading entities through meritocracy, not incompetent, blind party affiliation. Things must change and change quickly, unless politicians compare themselves to the never changing God and have projections of some ideas of grandeur. Which brings me to another point, does God change?

Of course, theologically here, the correct answer is both no and yes. In the famous Christian hymn Abide with Me, the end verse of the first stanza is "Oh thou who changes not, abide with me". Therefore, this implies a classic 'No', because God's existence is identical to His essence. God is an omniscient simple being (without parts), unlike we human beings who have a separate intellect and will, nature and matter. Thinking about going to work and actually doing so, are two separate matters, all rolled up into one. His existence is His essence and this does not change in an eternal being.

Does however God change in a relational way? God is Trinity and this means family. All are equal in nature, power, and eternal quality, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not necessarily in authority. Many describe the Father as the Primus Inter Pares, the first among equals. The Father generates the Son by thinking about Himself omnisciently, begetting the second Person, the Son. From the relation of the Son and the Father between each other in Love, proceeds the Holy Spirit termed a spiration. There is here a relational connection between the three separate different persons but one eternal being. Of course, one cannot talk of a movement in time here as all this happens in eternity and words are at a loss to describe it.

However, God changes His relationships with us. Did something change in God, when he became incarnate and took on a separate human nature inferior to His Divine one, in His single substance? Did something change in God during His crucifixion and death, exultation, resurrection and glorious assumption? There is now a human being in the Trinity! St. John's gospel intimates that all these events on our own human historical timeline, were united in Christ's death as one event! So yes, God does change! So God can change after all, and if any politicians would like to emulate God maybe they should emulate Him in the fields of relationality and change, not in their dizzy designs of self-grandeur.

I had a professor acquaintance from the University of Bologna, a professor of economics called Stefano Zamagni. He always thought me that in any proper economic and political model, one did not only look at financial and monetary assets, but a complete economic model would also include relational goods where one considers human relations as assets in the equation together with any financial market assets. Without relational goods, any economic model is destined to fall short. Any fool in Malta today will tell you that the type of economic model the Labour party has built in these last eleven years is based on imported cheap labour which only considers the financial advantages without the social relational assets. A new economic model is sorely needed to cater for this necessary reality, and it is important that it considers social relationality, money matters and environmental aspects as the three pillars of a new economic beginning.