Let's start with a bit of cheer. Yesterday was our beloved country's day of independence. So, happy birthday Malta, you've come a long way from the pauper you were in colonial days. Now you've grown up and become a nation of well-to-do, modern, people.
Congrats. The present Duke of Edinburgh will be visiting Malta in October to mark the event. This is to tie in with the then Duke of Edinburgh who, in 1964, came over to present us with the letters of Independence.
The new duke is coming with his wife, a commoner who became a duchess - and noble - just by marrying the queen's son. So the commoner is gracing us with her presence. But, back in 1964, the duke left his wife back home. Now if she back then had come it would have made good sense: she was after all the Queen.
This queen was Elizabeth II, a woman who, it is said, adored Malta. Adored Malta so much that when Malta was granted independence she did not find the time to come and do the honours of bidding us farewell and thanking us for all we did for her and her subjects.
If protocol or whatever infernal reason kept her away, it could easily have been broken. Because, is being subjugated for nearly 200 years part of protocol and good form? Was the fact that we, as a nation, were left, nearly barefoot and hardly educated, an act of nobility?
Thankfully, the doomsayers who did not think we would survive as an independent nation have been proved very wrong. We moved on: we qualified to accede to the EU and subsequently the euro.
We managed to move on from a country which depended mostly on revenue from the British Forces to a country which sought, and achieved, economic sovereignty and a good standard of living.
On the local front, independence was always a bit of an issue. There were never-ending controversies and, as in all the big steps we took in the national arena, politics and petty piques played major parts. Instead of showing unity in achieving the best for our country, we squabbled and had never-ending spats. Instead of debate we descended to silly parochial fighting.
In the 1950s and 1960s the two main parties, then as now the dominant political powers, had totally different ideas about the way forward for Malta. Which proves that nothing really changes in our lives.
The PN had moved from part independence to demanding full independence. Surprise, surprise, once the blues wanted that, the reds decided to do the very opposite. Remain a colony? Nothing as basic and dumb as that. Good old Dom wanted to outdo the PN by proposing the ultimate in madness. The Labour Party, always the party with great ideas, wanted full integration with the United Kingdom.
History sure teaches us a few things about our Maltese psyche. Dom Mintoff, the Labour Party leader, wanted to forget about going it alone and taking the reins of power. He wanted, and his party and supporters willingly followed him, to be a small part of our own colonisers.
This was beyond thinking out of the box: it was totally weird. We didn't manage to get it Dom's way. Otherwise, yesterday, or some other auspicious day like April Fool's Day, or King Carnival Day, would be for us locals a celebration of Full Integration Day. And we would be belting away our national anthem, God Save the King.
Instead of being part of the EU, we'd have exited that organisation when Brexit happened. We'd have been excluded from all EU benefits. And one of the few good things to have happened to Malta in these last few years - Roberta Metsola and her place in the EU - would have been a wild dream.
Yet this is Labour then. They haven't learned much, however. They surely have never changed. They opposed the EU and the euro with all their might. Some of them even opposed Metsola. Because Labour, sadly, do not change, will never see the real power of looking beyond their own party as a cult and their leaders as demi-gods.
In their last 11 years in power they have torn this country apart. They have diluted the true essence of good governance and rendered practically toothless all the institutions needed to safeguard Malta's inner core.
Whatever happens, whatever wrong is unearthed, whichever scandal is exposed, the Labour Party is always mainly concerned with the survival not of Malta and its integrity but of the Labour Party.
Independence brought with it a new need for unity. For at least belief - as a nation and not just paying lip service to it - in the independence of the institutions, in true democracy, in real freedom of expression.
The politicians have let us down in all this. It's true that one side of the political divide is definitely more to blame for this situation. But now - a day after our celebrating independence - is the time to reassess, recalibrate and reenergise our vision. It is a time to unite and truly start the road to freedom from lies, from brainwashing, from rampant corruption.
We need to find a vision again for this country. For a country, 60 years is but a short blip. For a human it is quite a milestone. Humans start thinking of winding down, taking it easy, retiring.
It would be terribly sad if what we achieved through independence turns into a millstone, not the milestone we are cheering about.
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