A book that’s approaching its publication date will be giving due recognition to Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici two years after his death. It does this by describing and analysing the different dimensions of the character, ideas and  initiatives of this controversial and underestimated politician.

Soon after his death, what was declared and celebrated about him sought to sidestep his political commitment. Later, what was said and written focussed on some particular aspect of his career and for this reason failed to provide a sufficiently clear, comprehensive and comprehensible view of him as a person. “Karmenu – Il-verità, xejn anqas mill-verità (The truth, nothing less than the truth)” features the perspectives of people who dealt wth him over the years, in agreement or disagreement. Such an approach to evaluate his record had become necessary. As one who knew him for some years ... I won’t say from very close by but from quite near... I always felt that only in this way could one come to understand better what guided and drove KMB (as his adversaries preferred to call him) in his endeavours. 

Although an SKS imprint, contributors to the book  include personalities who are not known as socialists, far from it.

***

TRAFFIC

It’s unsurprising that we rarely hear about effective measures that could be adopted to contain the problems of excessive traffic. Two major problems account for this. In first place, truly effective measures will need to place new burdens and restrictions on driving, inexorably making it a more costly and difficult practice. No politician will take the risk of introducing them.

Meanwhile, in double quick time, public transport alternatives that are efficient and flexible would need to be introduced. Much rhetoric is expended on this issue but in reality, nobody has yet succeeded to devise and implement them, not least because the first set of measures has never been contemplated.

***

LONGTERM MEASURES

When discussing what needs to be done in the future and how to plan for it, the question that remains pending is how the desired future will be achieved.

The temptation frequently arises to respond by having recourse to vague proposals that will not go far and that can be understood in various ways, which then undermines any practical effect they might have. It happened in the past. I remember for instance from many moons ago, a project for a development plan published by a federation of Maltese business organizations and presented as the political, economic and social alternative to the policies of the then Labour government.

Now those policies had their defects, some quite big. But they were being carried out along well established, concrete lines of action, some of which were valid. I analysed the “alternative” proposals and had to arrive at this conclusion: they were too vague, or simply aimed to revert to how things had been done in the past, which was no longer feasible. One very much fears that the planning being done today is of this kind.