Hope, faith and charity

A very prominent journalist once asked me why Greens had commented on a public health issue. It was a silly question and I was very embarrassed for him. The answer had to be phrased in such a way that it did not give great offence. In fact it had been a statement, a statement of the profound misconceptions about being Green, a statement of the assumption that the other parties did politics and Greens were ecological do-gooders restricted to the conservation of flora and fauna often smirkingly described as tree-hugging.

Sometimes I wonder how disoriented he must become when he reads our statements on economic trends and detailed criticism on such matters as the sale of the government's shares in Bank of Valletta. He probably thinks that we have no right to discuss such matters. It is a depressing account of the long way we have yet to travel to communicate who we are and what we stand for.

We are a political party, a grouping of like-minded citizens participating in the democratic process to bring about a change we regard as necessary more than simply beneficial. As politically active citizens we have a right and a duty to participate fully in the political life of the country. Our name itself, Alternattiva Demokratika, announces our profound democratic commitment, our desire of a better and deeper democracy. We feel free and duty-bound to comment on everything affecting the health, wealth and happiness of Maltese and Gozitans.

We believe that everybody who has a right to vote has a right to reliable information in order to be able to form a defensible opinion, everybody, not only Greens. Those of us who represent a political grouping have a greater responsibility to be informed and to inform, to express opinions in the hope of influencing policy, to prod and to cajole until some small change in the desired direction is brought about.

If Green politics could be distilled into a few words they would probably be: a fair and rational use of resources. It may sound politically neutral. Is this not what all political leadership should provide? It is not. Greens do not accept the status quo; we are not in the business of making the machinery run but aim at changing it significantly. While we participate with comments and proposals regarding the economic and political landscape as it stands, we let it be known that we recognise the irrationality of many of the systems which are at present accepted as a given by our colleagues, adversaries or rivals. From this perspective all other political parties are conservative. While they speak of change, it is change within the existing paradigm. It is no change at all because it accepts all the structural givens. More and more people are coming to this realisation. Far too many of them are becoming politically alienated: the wealthy spinning their cocoon and the poor becoming anarchic.

Greens are committed to empowerment. Our greatest resource is ourselves. It is true anywhere but very much more so in Malta. If we could get 400,000 brains focused on bringing about a change for the better, what could stop us? Our greatest challenge is to be able to agree on a basic strategy, the acquisition of long- and medium-term targets. It has to be a bottom-up strategy not dictated by a paternal Prime Minister and resisted by half the country because of partisan aversion. The apolitical should be asked to contribute and to own the strategy also. It would be an exercise in empowerment, a restoration of belief in the ability to bring about change, at once an injection of hope and faith in the future.

It will not happen because all others are conservative, committed to a structure and a mind frame that consistently produce zero-sum politics, economic extravagance with our few resources and mental stagnation because of the ubiquitous learned helplessness. Writing this will change nothing. The forces engaged in maintaining the status quo are immense. It is only when our feet touch bottom that we will be prepared to restructure our systems and our thinking. The cost will be awesome.

We also lack charity, not sympathy for the poor and alms giving but love. We do not love ourselves. Except for the jingoistic nationalism of the politically lunatic fringe, nobody invites us to love ourselves as a country, as a nation. Love is simply recognising that something or someone is worth it, worth a sacrifice, worth an effort. It is a recognition and profound respect for the toil and effort of past generations, a commitment to pass on the wealth we enjoy from it to future generations enhanced not debased by over-exploitation. It is inextricably bound up with having a hope and the faith to strive for it.

Greens are certain that the future is theirs. It is what has kept us going in spite of what often appear to be insurmountable odds. It is a mandatory optimism because the pursuit of the current trends leads inexorably to places where nobody wants to go. We persist. In the end the most obdurate will get the message.

The first signs that you have caught the bug is a conviction that the right to complain comes with a duty to act, to do something. It is the acquisition of ownership of our common problems and potential. Soon enough you have been extracted from your own private economy and are viewing the landscape, making out the connections and the contradictions. It is a perspective which is incommunicable to those locked into the us-and-them, winner-takes-all persuasion. Nothing will change as long as we are all tied up to the electoral logic of two political parties in a two-party system driving us all to consider their needs rather than ours.

Pluralism beyond the present minimal pluralism is not better or worse, it is altogether different. It releases the country from the totalising influence of the victor and the perpetual, inevitable negativity of the loser. It puts political parties in their place: a private grouping of citizens who must show respect for institutions which are a common good and not a private possession of the all powerful.

Politics takes a step backwards allowing space for civil society and private citizens acquiring empowerment, dignity and the right to demand accountability and transparency and not only once every five years. The energy released from ending decades of suppression and hopelessness could change the face of the country. Greens will be able to say their piece but their greatest contribution at the start would be the unleashing of the country from its political straitjacket.

After that it will be a completely different story and we will all have to learn to achieve synergies, a fundamental culture change. It is a state of mind we must achieve. Bipartisan, zero-sum politics has brought us to where we are now. Ending it is the beginning to a move to a better place.

Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party

harry.vassallo@alternativa.org.mt