Across the years, the left in Maltese politics - effectively the Labour Party - would be accused (still is) of not showing sufficient respect towards the island's institutions - in first place, the courts and the religious Catholic establishment.

Over that time as well, various efforts were made from different angles, to clarify and smoothen the lack of trust that existed between the parties involved. Somehow or other, I too participated in a number of these approaches. Today the situation has eased and problems have diminished in a big way, although to believe that they have completely vanished would be a mistake.

Historically the fact remains that within the ranks of the Catholic Church and of the legal professions, there exists a systemic social bias against Labour. It could be said that the PN has had to face a similar bias in the trade union movement. Yet it faded down faster than how matters evolved in the clerical and legal arena.  In my view, to deny that this systemic bias forms part of the social profile of this county is tantamount to ignoring an important component of our reality.

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COARSE LANGUAGE 

When I was very young, a very active religious organization used to conduct massive propaganda against how Maltese people would express themselves in everyday discourse - by indulging in profanity and foul language of all shape and colour that would surface at all turns of a conversation. One has to note with displeasure that the initiatives of this organization did not meet with much success. Indeed one is tempted to claim that since then, matters have deteriorated to the extent that coarse - to be diplomatic - expressions and exclamations have become an integral part of the general parlance of adults, not to mention children. In everyday life, they're considered a normal pattern of speech.

At the risk of being taken for an out-and-out mental case obsessed by conservative, traditional values, I must confess to greatly disliking this state of affairs. Nor do I accept the claim in mitigation that "abroad", an acceptance of coarse language has been taking place, sometimes much faster than in our midst - which is debatable. So, what if the US as usual showed the way with the vulgarisation of the dialogue in films for the cinema that they produced? What consolation is that?

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THE MEDITERRANEAN AND EUROPE

"Europe" has a new strategy for the Mediterranean. One finds it difficult to keep track of how many strategies there have been since the beginning of the 1970's. For every decade or any shorter period if you like, the EU had some proposal for the Mediterranean that was projected as a model for the optimal cooperation between the northern and southern shores of the Mddle Sea. But actually over the years, progess resulting from such initiatives that really marked an improvement has not been significant.

At present the European Commission has a post of Commissioner that is assigned for relations with the Mediterranean. On the 16 October, the Commission published a Pact for the Mediterranean with the grandiose title of "One Sea, One Pact, One Future", which it  claimed, will continue to build on the Barcellona process and on the plan for Mediterranean investments drawn up in 2021. One can hardly have much confidence that a radical change is now about to happen in relations between the Union and the rest of the Mediterranean. The Europeans do not have a truly effective commitment as "Europe" to ensure that progress is meaningfully achieved.