No matter how much the matter gets fudged, the essential challenge that the Maltese community must overcome is still that of having remained a society in which major and minor decisions depend on personal influence and power. It still needs to become one where transparent structures of genuine consultation and reflection are deployed to settle what needs to be done and how. In this, it made no difference that Malta became a full member of the EU - despite all the predictions made by some good souls 23 years ago, about how our public conduct would be impacted positively. We continued to prefer dealings arranged by friends of friends, rather than become subject to "institutionalised" rules. Such a preference applies to issues big and small.
It is difficult to understand what has determined this collective behaviour. Is it because we are of Mediterranean "stock"? - or is it an inevitable consequence of our being so few? In many modern technical sectors, we soon have learnt to modernise our behaviour. In how we choose to order our collective behaviour, there is little that distinguishes us from our ancestors who lived under the Order of St John... or earlier.
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UNCERTAINTIES
The Trump administration did not trigger the uncertainties which have characterised contemporary international relations, but it has certainly contributed to heighten them. Russia's war in the Ukraine and the terrible destruction in Gaza began when Trump was still a candidate for the US presidency. The same applies to the recent accelleration of climate change.
Yet his administration's approach to these three issues creating global uncertainty served to make them more hazardous, not least because of the erratic changes in how American policies about them were announced and implemented. In addition, there came US policies applying new tariffs on goods imported from the rest of the world, and then most of all, in recent months the war against Iran.
Never before has the US been considered by the rest of the world as such a source of uncertainty. When this happened in the past, it would mostly be among US adversaries. Today, the sentiment has spread among its allies as well.
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PREDECESSORS
I recently found time to look through the archives of Maltese newspapers published some 70years ago, in the 1950's. Obviously across a number of areas, life has changed radically. For instance, the presence here of the British military base stands out in how it was at that time, so salient in everyday life.
Yet, certain complaints and interests expressed by many people in the 1950's are also being made today. For instance, about too much traffic - tourism and how it is getting on - ways by which consumers get shortchanged... Even the disputes that would arise between a newspaper's readers mirror many of the controversies we used to read not so long ago in today's papers - before that is, polemics migrated to the social media.
On many counts, it is true that the past can be seen as a foreign country. Not in all aspects though: I had to conclude that there is not a lot to distinguish us from our predecessors, by way of aspirations and ways of thinking about things.