Empty words

"Words, words, words. I am so sick of words. I get words all day through, first from him, now from you. Is that all you blighters can do? "

Was Lisa Dolittle referring to our politicians?

Last week the Prime Minister uttered the usual meaningless truisms when visiting a furniture factory. In showering the manufacturing enterprise with well deserved praise, he rambled on about Maltese ingenuity and how Malta, like the enterprise he was honouring with his presence, started from nothing and has achieved so much.

During the same week the Minister of Investments, in one of his outdated speeches, claimed "... manufacturing industry in Malta is not viable". Thank you Mr Motivator. You are a great encouragement for the investors and workers in the furniture factory! So much for a government and a party who claim they have a vision and a strategy.

Adding to our pollution, we now have enormous billboards telling us that roads are being built "so you can live better". Of course we idiots thought roads were being built to make our lives miserable. In any case this word "better" that they are using means "better" than what, and by how much "better" will it be and when will it be "better"?

Instead of wasting taxpayers' money on unmeasurable, unspecific and unrealistic promises like "so you can live better", the same money could be spent on educating motorists by using a simpler and more to the point slogan like "so you can live". Then the five young people from Qrendi who lost their lives recently could still be with their families today.

If politicians can find the funds to lock up hundreds of Africans in sub-humane conditions to afford them their human rights, and if they can find money to spend on polluting billboards, why can't they find money to educate motorists and save lives? Isn't education a human right?

Before the Prime Minister cum Minister of Finance allows more public funds to be wasted on propaganda projects he should remember the words he uttered in Washington. "We must never forget the lessons of the past. Every person, irrespective of colour, belief, or race is a human being... We are a people that have always believed in values and this morning's visit reminds us of those values." If he wants to "walk the talk" on his claimed values and beliefs he should ensure that detainees are detained in a humane way, he should light a candle as he did in Washington to those people who died in Malta's detention centre, and he should start an education campaign to reduce loss of lives on our roads.

Failing this, he should spare us the empty words, or the average citizen will be more than justified in asking "Is that all you blighters can do?"