“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is... fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”.

Franklin D Roosevelt delivered these seminal thoughts in his inaugural speech as the 32nd president of the United States. The year was 1933. The United States was at the peak of the Great Depression. In the very same month when Roosevelt became president, across the ocean, Adolf Hitler took over control of Germany.

Two nations faced by suffering, hardship and economic failure chose their path. One country chose to fight fear. The other to harness it and use it to inflict untold horror.

We are living through difficult times. Our freedoms have been curtailed. Some of us have lost their jobs. Others have taken a severe cut in income. Some of us are isolated at home because they are deemed to be vulnerable.

In these circumstances, it is natural to be afraid. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of whether things are going to get worse before they get better. Afraid that things will not get better.

Faced by this dire situation, we have a choice. We can allow ourselves to be taken over by fear or we can choose to fight that fear. We can lose our faith in humanity or we can unite and fight this battle together: without fear and without losing sight of our humanity.

The choice is ours. It is a choice that we have to make as individuals, as members of a family, of a community, as a nation and also as members of the European Union. We can stand alone in fear or we can work together to come out stronger and more united.

Fear makes us irrational. It distorts our vision. Which is why we should, as Roosevelt said, only fear fear itself.

In normal circumstances, none of us would let a child drown. None of us would stand by and let a boatful of people sink. This is not who we are. This is not the Maltese way of life. This is certainly not the hospitable nature of our people as depicted in the Bible itself. This is not the European way, the European values to which we readily aligned ourselves nearly two decades ago. This is fear turning us into what we are not.

If we believe, as I am sure most of us do, that life is sacred, then we must do everything in our power to save lives. That should not even be up for discussion. Having saved lives, we then need to work together with our European partners to make sure that no country is over-burdened with the weight of irregular immigration. This is how we always acted as a nation in the past.

This pandemic cannot and should not make us less humane

The COVID-19 pandemic cannot and should not change this modus operandi. This pandemic cannot and should not make us less humane.

As an opposition, we have made our stand clear. We are pro-life. That means we will fight to protect the life of a human being from inception till its natural death.

We will equally fight to protect the national interest by ensuring that inward migration, be it through legal or illegal means, does not put the welfare of our state in jeopardy. The two positions are not contrasting. In fact, they complement each other. Both policies are built on the assumption, on the belief that politics exists to serve humanity and not the other way around.

This is to convert retreat into advance. It is the time to take positive action on many fronts, including that of irregular immigration. The world tomorrow is going to be radically different from that of a few months ago.

This change process we are living through is both irreversible and irrevocable. We have tried and tested different ways of communication, of interacting, of socialising, or working.

We have changed our lifestyles. We have changed our consumption patterns. Most of us learnt that we can live with less. Some of us will by choice, chance or circumstances, be making these changes permanent.

Certain industries will adapt to these new consumer choices, others will fail to adapt and will be taken over by events. The economic cycle will take its time to return to normality. It will be a difficult and painful process but one we should use to instil a higher sense of urgency to address the abnormalities of what we considered as normal before.

We accepted that it was ‘normal’ to poison the world. We acted that it was ‘normal’ to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

We accepted that it was ‘normal’ to allow modern day slavery to underpin economic success. We accepted that it was normal to consider speculation as a better measure for societal advancement than well-being.

We have an opportunity to change all this. We have an opportunity to build a new normality. A normality where life, all life, is considered sacred. A life where we are as strong as the weakest in our communities. We have an opportunity to build societies that care and are cared for. Or we can chose fear. The choice is ours to make.

Mario de Marco, Opposition spokesman on finance