We live in the most enlightened of days. There’s never been a better time for us lot. The world might be on fire and the climate crisis at a tipping point but we have never had it so good in Malta.
Progress is palpably here for all to enjoy. Life cannot be better and, if anyone says anything to the contrary, it’s either because they have never visited our country or they are green with envy.
We live in the best of times as politicians from both sides would tell us.
The Labour Party is solidly in power. The PN is steadfast in opposition and seemingly sinking under the burden of its own success at being such a positive opposition.
At this rate, Labour will be in power even if they have Eddie Privitera or Manuel Cuschieri as leader of the party.
The country has become a joke.
The joke, dear man, woman, and child of this land is on us. On us all. Or, rather, more on us of little means than the rich kids who can soon zoom off to pastures new.
As the world suffers from extreme heat and worsening climatic conditions, we go on totally oblivious to it all. We keep adding more cars. We use this addition as a badge of honour to announce to all how mobile, how modern, how unshackled we all are.
We build high-rises and roads to service the new cubicles in the sky. We pour tarmac in all country lanes, destroying more and more virgin land. We chop trees like they are our worst enemy.
We are slowly inching ever closer to being rid of all open spaces. And if, by some miracle of urban unplanning, we stumble upon an open space, we make sure we give priority to cars, their fumes, their noise and the congestion they create.
But who cares, who, besides the few of little faith in our special status of supermen and women of the Maltese archipelago, raise their voice against the state of affairs in Malta?
We, the Maltese islanders, have throughout the ages been favoured by the gods. From our temple ancestors to our present-day people we have always had a profound belief in ourselves. In us being god-like, Marvel heroes untouched by the horrors that bedevil normal humans.
At this rate, Labour will be in power even if they have Eddie Privitera or Manuel Cuschieri as leader of the party- Victor Calleja
We are so special that we obviously do not feel the heat which an abundance of trees would lessen. Or the fear of what this intense heat and weather conditions mean.
We feel so special that we think our lungs are not suffering and will not suffer. We are also sure that no amount of noise can affect our hearing or our mental well-being.
We are Maltese and, therefore, demi-gods. Afflictions will not get to us like foreign idiots who envy our special status.
Our politicians are pleased because they see a happy crowd of people, eating contentedly, building blindly and earning good or illicit money. Business owners are happy as, the better the economy performs, the more cash their tills accumulate.
The authorities and the institutions that should be doing something about overdevelopment keep allowing more development and more abuse of our land.
The developers keep swallowing up parcels of land which they turn into their cash cows for their own piggy banks. The developers keep growing in stature and control politicians directly or indirectly. They are now even swallowing up football teams, water polo teams, village band clubs and God only knows how many other businesses and organisations.
And yet, and yet, because we are superheroes we do not care. This is what we want, what we’ve been dreaming of since time immemorial. To be totally in control, to make Malta all ours.
If it means we have to destroy all we have to prove we can achieve anything, so be it. We are, after all, superheroes and we can do what we want to at our own party.
vc@victorcalleja.com