Another year has passed, another Christmas is with us, and yet I’ve never felt less Christmassy than I do this year. I feel bereft; I feel like I should be in mourning, but for what exactly I am yet to surmise. After all, it’s not like I ever believed in any of the flowery, saccharine spewings used by both sides of our deeply spilt country to begin with.
I deeply resent the fact that just a couple of years ago I could write about why you shouldn’t give your significant other socks for Christmas, and a mere two years on I am here trying to understand how we could all collectively let our country and our institutions get to the point we’re at today.
In the latest of what has fast become a tragicomedy of stratospheric proportions, the former chief of staff has claimed he lost his phone, the police have compensated for this by seizing his children’s laptops (maybe to watch extended episodes of Peppa Pig, at this point who knows?) and the former prime minister, who is clinging to his seat like Leonardo di Caprio should have clung to that door in Titanic, is saying that the late night meeting he had with Keith Schembri the night before everything began to unravel was nothing more than a meeting to discuss Schembri’s wish to resign.
It’s all starting to remind me of those children who come to you with chocolate smeared faces while telling you that they haven’t eaten any.
We cannot remain silent and become complicit in taking part in someone else’s dirty secret
So, since we are currently all about believing myths and fictional creatures, here’s my Christmas list for Santa this year:
1. Truly independent media: In order for the people to start truly being able to see things the way they are, all party-owned or party-backed media needs to go. For too long they have profited off the people’s ignorance and blind loyalty, and it has done the country no favours. They have used their voices to distract and guide people’s thoughts down the wrong avenues for their own gain. It’s disgusting and it needs to stop: 1984 (the book, not the year) was meant to be a warning, not a manual.
2. For people to be less scared of using their voices: I have seen the fear in my family’s eyes as they uneasily look at my column. I have seen how politics has ripped families apart and emptied them of love and warmth. I have read the books, I have heard the stories, I have seen the physical and mental scars left over from the 1980s. It is little wonder that so many are so very scared of saying how they feel. We need to get our voices back. I appreciate every word of encouragement I have received in the past few weeks and every squeeze of the hand in a dark corridor, but we cannot remain silent and become complicit in taking part in someone else’s dirty secret. Be active in whichever small way you can, and yes, speak the truth, even if your voice shakes, because there is nothing more beautiful.
3. For people to stop attacking each other for no reason. Instead of channelling your anger at protesters and journalists, target the people who have really disappointed you. If your wife cheats on you, it’s easier to be angry at the person she cheated with, but ultimately, it’s your wife who betrayed you, and the other person owes you nothing. You elected these people to protect and serve both you and the country: they have done neither. They deserve your anger, and everyone out there on the streets protesting in the cold is basically just doing your job for you. Maybe you shouldn’t cut off your nose to spite your face this Christmas.
4. For Schembri’s phone to be found. Last night, I dreamt that Edward Zammit Lewis was singing My Heart Will Go On while the police were dragging the ocean floor for Schembri’s phone. These are the depths to which my subconscious has sunk. Maybe someone, anyone, could trouble Go, Vodafone or Melita for what information was on it, just so that we can eventually all move on with getting our country back in any kind of order and have a better 2020.
Merry Christmas everyone.