It always happened this way here - the traditional professions seemed to still deserve a double status: their practitioners had to be considered as workers; and as craftsmen who had to be given a special recognition - socially, in terms of how they ran their work, and as "professionals" in terms of how their contribution had to be assessed.
Initially, the professions along with their privileges were apparently reserved only for certain families. When recruitment to their ranks fanned out among other social strata, the new recruits expected that traditional privileges would be theirs as well. At work, they expected to be better paid than others. Additionally, they would be allowed to benefit from wider prospects to find remunerated opportunities, even when they were employed by the government.
Naturally, workers in other service sectors, but not only they, strove to be accorded the same recognition. Teachers, academics, engineers, nurses, accountants, "technical" grades, journalists...
Yet the question remained open: What makes professionals different from the rest of the working class? Is it the fact that quite a number of their group work as self-employed?
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DEMOCRACY
The debate about whether democracy produces the best results to ensure that governance of a community gets carried out in the best possible way is ongoing. Some will claim that what is happening in the US with the Trump presidency shows once again that in a democratic society, the most confused positions gain voice and power.
It is difficult to refute or agree straight off with such statements. That democracy always found the best "brains" the world over to to preach in its favour is a fable. Thinkers like Plato actually considered democracy as a dangerous system and made proposals regarding how governance could be run without democracy.
We should not follow their advice. When the past is taken into account, one finds that yes, often democratic governance led to huge fiascos and disasters. But when dictatorial or authoritarian systems are reviewed, one finds that their outcomes on balance were much worse.
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ADAPTATION?
How certain Maltese artistic works that predate this century, especially in drama, are being presented is in my view, unacceptable. Top of the list the writings of Francis Ebejer.
Clearly, with the passage of time, changes that will have happened in society make a work of art look dated. This is hardly new. The same could be said of Greek drama, the plays of Elizabethan England or of the Spanish Golden Age. It never resulted from this that such plays could not be produced as they were written, in word and in spirit.
Not in this country. Works from the 1950's and the 1960's must today always be shown in an "adapted" format. Why? If you need to edit Ebejer to cut down on the length of his script, that's ok, do it. But let what he wanted to say be heard. Don't change it or adapt it to introduce marginal comments that blur what he intended to convey (not to mention changes that hardly reflect the thrust of the original script).