Have you ever witnessed an event but didn’t immediately process what you were seeing? That was me yesterday. I saw piles and piles of hands on top of each other in what looked like a desperate, begging motion and I thought I was looking at a photo of people waiting for a humanitarian airdrop in a war-torn country. It took me looking at the comments beneath the picture to realise what was happening. I can’t even describe how the feeling inside me switched from pity to boiling, bubbling disbelief and disgust.

For a long time, I have thought that we couldn’t sink any lower as a people but a new circle of hell seems to open up every few weeks. At the highest institution in our country, a supposed hub of education and enlightenment, someone thought it was a great idea to release €1,000 out of a massive green balloon like we were on some extended episode of Squid Game.

There was no care for health and safety and even less for common decency. The one faint consolation is that, at the very least, the University of Malta has issued a statement saying it had absolutely nothing to do with this cheap stunt.

I have thought that we couldn’t sink any lower as a people but a new circle of hell seems to open up every few weeks- Anna Marie Galea

Can you imagine Oxford University or Trinity College doing something like this? Of course not. This isn’t a fun fair or a strip club: it’s the most critical supposed temple of education we have in this country. It has a proud history spanning centuries: how on earth would anyone think this was remotely appropriate? Does no one care about what kind of message this sends?

What made the whole stunt even more poignant was that at the same time this was happening, images of women in Iran, arms outstretched to the skies, were being published. Instead of these women trying to catch a stray €5 note, they were actually protesting over the death of Mahsa Amini that happened while she was in police custody a couple of weeks ago.

After years and years of repression and oppression, they are marching and showing their religious leaders that a woman’s worth stretches far beyond her ability to keep her hair covered.

But perhaps what was most heartbreaking about this circus trick was that it served as a sobering reminder of what we value as a nation. Where were all these people during the countless protests that have taken place for years? Where is this enthusiasm when it comes to activism? Whenever I attend any NGO meetings, it’s always the same 50 people I see. There are so few people willing to get their hands dirty that many are in several different groups simply because no one else shows any interest. You can’t even fill the chairs for most public lectures, yet the photos I’ve seen of this week’s spectacle are full of young, fresh, eager hands upturned to the sky.

Ultimately, it’s not the students I blame – which young, broke student wouldn’t think free money is a good idea? It’s just an insulting shame that someone thought our university and our youth didn’t deserve better. Are we really so poor that all we have is money? How about a proper campus bookshop instead?