We need a national project - distanced from all political interference and all prejudice - to generate a history of Malta over the last 400 to 500 years not only as a narrative of who ruled and who invaded. More that that - it would be a history that covers the deep background of who governed (mostly foreigners) and of the "natives" just living their lives here. The wide focus of such a historical narrative would need to cover both the geostrategic tentacles that bound the ways by which life was lived in this archipelago, and the socio- economic conditions which defined the lives of the population.
As of now, this story has been attemped only in episodic mode. So it couldn't reflect the way by which life conditions evolved. Or it was done anecdotally which is of course an interesting method. But it disrupts the sense of continuity in the narration of life outcomes, with the ups and downs generated by historical processes.
We possess huge talents in the fields of historical research and writing. Interest in their output among the public is also significant. What seems to be lacking is the organizational spark, coming from the government or the academic community to mobilise the resources needed for such a project to be launched. Someday it's going to happen. As of now, it does not seem like there's enough political and academic interest to get it done.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
One reads/listens to very interesting articles/advice delivered by artificial intelligence experts. They discuss how useful the technology is and as well, how much damage it could do. They discuss how it improves our ability to process the information that we get, and how pernicious it could become if badly used when we try to understand the information that reaches us.
From all this, one must conclude that nobody really knows to what terminus this technological step forward (one doubts whether it merits being branded a discovery!) could take us.The important point to note is that eveybody is investing in it... and so everybody has an interest in praising its usefulness.
I might be exaggerating when I say everybody! But people who warn us about what could happen with the unrestrained application of AI seem not so sure that their predictions about the future are really trustworthy.
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THE US
What's going on in the US? - a country which ranks as the most important in the world and for which practically during all my lifetime, like others, I held a sense of admiration and gratitude? It's true that in the years of its existence, the US was constructed on the basis of enormous contradictions, like - a declaraton of freedom for all individuals side by side with slavery - the opportunity for everybody to get rich alongside the worst levels of poverty - the declaration of national freedom for peoples backed up by the most violent warfare against anti-colonialists.
Despite all this, the US remained a beacon for those who believed one could envisage a better future for all nations...
But today, as the US were once again recording a spectacular achievement with the space mission to the moon, all the effort was extinguished in global news by the deadly and grotesque posturing of the current US President with the wars he has triggered in the Middle East, as if he were taking part in the wrestling matches for TV that he so delights in.