How do we fix the problems of Malta? We of course appoint a Guardian for Future Generations, a certain Chev. Maurice Mizzi, who has the job of safeguarding intergenerational and intra-generational sustainable development. And who in an interview last Sunday (‘Guardian for Future Generations sees threat to ‘Malta of the Maltese’, May 26) presented his solutions for the preservation of Maltese society.
His solutions include keeping out everything that is not ‘Maltese’, including migrants who want to build a life here. His solutions verge on bringing back the Spanish Inquisition and eradicating any form of religion or belief in Malta other than a draconian version of the Catholic faith, which is militant in its desire to oppose integration (an attitude the modern Church does not subscribe to as noted by the comments of his Excellency the Archbishop of Malta on how to do integration properly).
Yet the problem is not integration, as many of the dinosaurs in our public service and elected officials in Parliament would have us believe. The issue is one of policy, of governance.
Why, in fact, is the minimum wage so low? Is it because the migrants that move to Malta are happy to work for little money? Not at all. Anyone who is running a business would do their best to pay their labourers a minimal amount of money so that they can maximise their profits.
Hence, if there is something that Chev. Mizzi can do, as the government-appointed commissioner for sustainable development, it is to make sure that employers give their workers a living wage by getting the legal minimum wage to be raised.
This culture leads to lack of respect for basic human rights and basic human dignity
Do not put the blame on those who are working, for they have no choice but to do their best to survive. It is the Guardian’s job to make sure that they are living a comfortable life in the next five, 10, 15 years of their life.
And how can immigration be acceptable if there isn’t enough space for us to live in? Another comment regularly made in social media, by people ranging from officials to people who travel by bus, is, “Sorry, full up ħi!”
It is an absolute disgrace that while everyone is building everywhere – up, down, sideways, yoga hotels, illegal roadworks, pools and petrol stations on ODZ land – no one in power is ready to take responsibility and come up with a structured, sustainable plan. Instead, they have left us with a free-for-all engaged in by those who feel they do not need to act within the law, that the law can be bent or, in absence of such a law, that they can carry on as they wish without the introduction of legislation to prevent further unsustainable development. This culture leads to lack of respect for basic human rights and basic human dignity. It fosters the idea that if we can make money, then let us put people inside horse stalls and let us fill cow farms with humans instead of providing adequate housing.
Yet these failings are never the fault of government. Instead we blame the very people who find themselves in such a predicament. We have become experts at playing the blame game, while those in power make sure we fight among ourselves for scraps.
There exist qualified people in various competences who can propose sustainable solutions. Instead we have an increasingly emotional governance that points the finger of blame but offers no solutions. Bad education, bad governance, congestion… the only common factor in all of this is one: governmental shortcomings past and present.
Rather than come up with sustainable solutions we seem satisfied to carry out shoddy jobs to patch up the problems as they come up, with no long-term plan in place.
So in the end the solution for some is to find a scapegoat; find those who have no voice, drive down a street in Ħal Far and gun them down, because they have run out of cats to shoot at.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece