Living in Malta feels very strange sometimes. It’s as if I am living in one of those dreams that repeat themselves without the possibility of ever waking up. As a country we learn very little from our past mistakes. And apart from that, we live in the illusion that things will change for the better one day, even though we keep making the same mistakes.

Why am I saying this? Let’s examine what happened in the recent past with the introduction of divorce. I’m only going to analyse the process, rather than the divorce issue.

So the need for divorce had been felt for quite a while. Governments dealt with it by constantly shovelling it under the carpet. Then, one fine day, people couldn’t take it anymore: they formed a movement that pushed for a referendum and divorce became law in no time.

The referendum passed because people were irked. Everyone knew someone who was suffering from a broken marriage, yet the government had turned a blind eye for many years. 

Even though the path chosen might have been effective, the problem with this approach is that the most vulnerable rarely have a say in such discussions. At the same time, the real underlying issues remain buried. It is a superficial way of solving a problem.

Very few institutions in our country ask themselves why marriages break down and actually do something about it. And then we stare in amazement at the divorce statistics.

I’m not saying this to ruffle feathers. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed subject. I’m saying this simply because I notice the same pattern in other contemporary issues. 

Take the decriminalisation of cannabis for recreational use. Lobby groups have pressured the government to push forward, and the government published a white paper. We all knew it was coming.

But once again, the country that so vividly debated the outfit of our favourite Eurovision singer has not found the time to discuss the cannabis issue seriously.

If we keep the issues locked in a closet, we will never find a solution to the real problems inflicting our society

Worse than that perhaps, we as a society did not ask ourselves why people need to escape from our world and hide in the smoke of cannabis in the first place. 

Now take the decriminalisation of abortion. We all knew it was coming. At least 300 women perform an abortion every year. Why didn’t we look at the issues leading to abortion and take action to help these women a priori?

We say that these women have their infant’s blood on their hands, but I tell you that we (as a society) are equally guilty if we turned a blind eye to their suffering and did nothing to try to prevent it. 

While I’m not trying to justify abortion in any way, we must admit that there are complex situations where the issue is not so clear-cut. 

Consider that pregnant mother undergoing chemotherapy. Should she be the one who decides whether to continue with her treatment or not? 

Consider a young girl who is the victim of abuse. Her world has just collapsed. Can we treat the demons which lurk in her mind and save that baby from an abortion? How is our society supporting her? 

Every situation is different. We have to do our utmost to protect the most vulnerable, but if we keep the issues locked in a closet, we will never find a solution to the real problems inflicting our society.

The same is happening with the uglification of Malta. The institutions who “know better” and should have been protecting us have failed us. What do we want out of our village cores? Concrete jungles? Metal cemeteries? Towers? No one seems to know.

Most of Malta appears to be a hotchpotch of soulless buildings devoid of character. We quickly pulled down the few distinctive ones and sold our heritage in adoration of the money god.

Why don’t authorities organise serious discussions about what is happening in the localities? We should listen to what people have to say to create localities that satisfy their needs, and not the other way round.

The ugly truth is that we are more interested in whether an outfit is shocking pink or silver rather than discussing the future of our families, the problems faced by young adults, or the uglification of our beautiful country.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

I’ll let you each decide in which category you want to fall. But the truth is that if we continue in this direction, we are simply missing the wood for the trees.

Sometimes I wake up and ask myself, what will Malta look like in a couple of decades? What inheritance are we leaving for our kids? Which values are we passing over?

The president, politicians, NGOs and other organisations should wake our country from its slumber and kickstart a nationwide discussion on these crucial issues.

More than that, we should ingrain this in our culture, from when we are young. Only by doing so can we hope to start discussing things that really matter and eventually change our tiny island for the better. 

Alexiei Dingli, Professor of Artificial Intelligence