On the day following the end of his presidency in 2021, the fact-checking service of the Washington Post reported that the ‘verifiable untruths’ uttered by Donald Trump amounted to 30,573 . This amounted to an average of 21 untrue claims per day during his presidency. 

While many object to parallels being drawn with the utterances and behaviours of Maltese politicians, it is clear that many of them (especially in recent days our increasingly panicked and precious Prime Minister) are Trump understudies. 

Given this, I would venture to suggest that Robert Abela is every bit as active in the ‘Department of Untruths’ as Trump.  He has become a leading exponent of the genre.

A linked observation emerges – Robert Abela’s followers are also every bit as ‘believing’ of such lying as Trump’s followers.  Equally, as with Trump, Abela’s followers swallow whole even the most farcical of their leader’s assertions without it damaging the credibility or electability of their ‘hero’. 

The same can also be said of Joseph Muscat and his fellow travellers and apologists.  In recent days, the ugly underbelly of Malta’s twisted politics has been on full public and unvarnished view at many social and political levels (and not simply ‘on the street’).

And, similar to Trump, Robert Abela has his own adoring and unquestioning ‘tamed’ media ever alert to ensuring their leader’s utterances are appropriately headlined and padded.  Predictably, social media is awash with similar (and worse) blind loyalty and ‘mindlessness’ as in Trump’s case. 

As in the context of Trump’s ‘communications’, threats, and intimidation spill over, most recently onto independent, investigative journalism and across into public discussion and debate.  Even the PM’s ‘requests’ for calm are constructed to sound threatening.

Each of us know from personal experience and from observation locally and internationally that words have meaning and consequences even (perhaps especially) when they are contested – witness the debate around Robert Abela’s attacks on his undefined ‘establishment’ here in Malta and even beyond in Brussels. 

And then the barely veiled threats from Joseph Muscat and his sycophants.

In his writings on the link between language and politics, George Orwell was at pains to remind us that when words have an effect, that effect can become a cause in itself, reinforcing the original message but in a much-intensified form.  Witness Robert Abela’s targeted attacks on a particular judge or journalist which are readily transformed into a generalised attack on the courts and on journalism – again, something with which we are very familiar in the case of Donald Trump.

Not only is this dangerous for the targeted judge or journalist, but it can also rapidly become dangerous for anyone, or any institution engaged in critical debate, in political protest or even in localised and limited public discussion.

Language and concepts are turned inside out as lies become truth and truth becomes a lie, routinely to the point where the undiscerning can no longer tell the difference between the two. Continuous repetition of (even the biggest) lie helps to reinforce its intent and impact regardless of logic or veracity.  

In this way, words not only corrupt language and its meaning, but they also corrupt thought, individuals and communities and therefore behaviour.

Part of the political chaos we are currently experiencing grows out of this deliberate undermining of language and its meanings.  Perpetrators of crime are transformed into victims – victims of invented ‘traps’, a vague ‘establishment’, its deviousness and the lies and schemes of those determined to undermine the ‘country’. 

Banalities, meaningless words, and phrases are magically transformed into profundities, specifics become generalities and abstractions and eventually, they become foundation stones of ‘our’ DNA.  Lies and the process of lying becomes ‘our’ way of doing things.  The indifference to truth and the ever-bigger lies become the substance and the strategy - truth an irrelevance.

As soon as certain topics are raised (currently the Vitals investigation) the specific melts into the abstract (‘conjecture, supposition, assertions’) and speech becomes the mere repetition of unconnected and senseless slogans. 

Words and sentences are deliberately designed to defend the indefensible - defending that indefensible becomes a badge of identity and of honour.  We know from experience and from history, that this is a potentially lethal cocktail.

Malta is currently paying a colossal price for decades of dysfunctional and twisted tribal politics.  Many, many heads (of all hues) should hang in shame that we have been reduced to this.

Yet, we know there is another brighter, more decent, and honest Malta out there...it urgently needs to be nurtured and encouraged.  Standing aside while observing cannot be an option – it is time to stop being concerned ‘about’ Malta and become concerned ‘for’ Malta.