Even the Christmas party is contaminated. Nothing escapes their clutches; no opportunity or event is permitted to be just itself. Everything must be subservient to their default position of ensuring influence, power and personal enrichment.

Following a significant (but all too familiar) scandal, Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri held a ‘Christmas themed rally’ for himself and his ‘hundreds’ of supporters, following calls for his resignation. Camilleri and former tourism minister (and serial offender) Clayton Bartolo were adjudged to have breached ethics and abused power when they gave Amanda Muscat (now Bartolo's wife), a lucrative consultancy job for which she was not qualified and which she did not do. 

Camilleri was at pains to display his power base in Gozo (as the carefully choreographed photos show) as well as sending a message to Robert Abela that he would not accept a similar fate to that of his fellow conspirator, Bartolo.  Camilleri was re-emphasising his position as a senior ‘player’ in Malta and Gozo’s deformed political landscape. 

This latest scandal and the many political gymnastics surrounding it provided yet another tiny glimpse into the ‘run of the mill’, Labour Party facilitated criminal conspiracies against the people of these islands. 

In many ways, the event symbolises all too well a key characteristic of what 50 years as a republic and 60 years of independence has been reduced to in 2024.  Malta and the Maltese are now paying an enormous price for this specific version of a republic. And that cost increases each day the current economic and political regime remains in place.

The cost can be measured in immediate and obvious terms. The Amanda Muscat scam highlighted just one such cost - the theft of public resources (or our ‘commonwealth’) and their transfer into the private bank accounts of individuals. 

Malta will never know the full character and scale of such thievery and its impact in recent decades. It is well-nigh impossible that this wealth will ever be recovered by its rightful owners or used for its rightful purpose.

It is a textbook example of the corruption that many of us look down our noses at when it is carried out in what many disparagingly call ‘those banana republics’. 

Events such as this (and its many larger scale and even higher-level precursors) highlight yet another cost – the loss of the value and benefit such wealth could have generated. Health, education, infrastructure, social well-being, culture and our battered environment could have been immeasurably improved through the proper ‘social’ use of such wealth.

These benefits have now been denied to all in the interests of the anointed few. And those few deem it their right and entitlement to behave it this manner and with these consequences.

We can only wonder how they justify this criminality to themselves and to those around them. Any time I have challenged such individuals on their behaviour, their response has been immediate aggression, complete denial and the assertion that it is just another ‘media’ fabrication. 

Discussing it with others in the community most often results in the shrugging of shoulders, the assertion that the ‘others are just as bad’ and the infuriating insistence that there is ‘nothing that can be done’.

In facilitating theft on the scale witnessed in recent decades (e.g. land deals, hospitals, schools, energy, contracts, employment) the country has lost out yet again. The fundamental public institutions of the republic from the police, the army and courts to the civil service as well as public bodies have been effectively castrated and rendered effectively powerless.

Many such institutions have been routinely (and evidently) stuffed with friends, family members, ‘persons of trust’ or party (or individual politician) loyalists, many of them incompetent and corrupt at the basest of levels. 

The overall damage to the DNA and to the ‘heart’ and ‘guts’ of the republic is simply immense.

And given the attitude and the aggressive demeanour of senior government politicians and functionaries (including the PM) alongside the participation and/or compliance of too many citizens, the damage looks set to continue for the immediate future. 

Unjustly, this agenda has now come to overshadow and significantly define Malta and Maltese society, nationally and internationally. Brand Malta has been deeply sullied, most especially by its current ‘leaders’.

Our republic remains deeply divided and at risk. Malta’s sense of itself and its values have been deeply compromised. Our public life is increasingly debased, demoralised and sclerotic. At a time when all Maltese should be loudly celebrating the achievements of their republic, we are left wondering how things have been reduced to this pitiable state. 

In this context, it is worth reflecting at some length on the words of Fr Joe Borg in this paper last Sunday when he noted that many do not have the courage to stand for what is right and, instead ‘humiliate’ themselves, exhibiting an attitude of ‘serfdom’ in areas such as education, work, church and politics. 

Self-evidently there is ‘another Malta’ as evidenced by the Republic Day honours list, a Malta that is amazingly creative, resilient, quite unique and distinctive and, on its good days, beautiful. 

Sadly that Malta is currently ‘on hold’ or subservient.