First off the disclaimer. I am a "foreigner" whatever that might mean for we are all of us "foreigners" in so many ways. Rather than simply being born here, I chose to live here and to contribute (I hope positively) to Maltese society. There are clearly many like me, whose rights and responsibilities are precisely the same as native-born residents.
Many remain convinced that things here will get worse before they inevitably get better. However, all the signals suggest that the Maltese public is finally becoming disillusioned and even exasperated with not just the direction of the country but also with those plundering and underdeveloping it.
Change is in the air even if the direction of travel is not yet clear.
Despite this, our most dominant politicians, all members of the cabinet, many business and legal "heavyweights", state and institution administrators, our law enforcement elite as well as many "leaders" in Malta’s social, religious, and cultural life, routinely ignore, deny, or lie about the utter rotten mess this land currently endures.
Saddest of all to observe are the die-hard party acolytes and sycophants who mindlessly defend, praise, cheer, and vote for (or incredibly even "love") anything their leaders or party suggest or increasingly demand.
In such a context, when blame for this mess is simply attributed to a small group of devious "oligarchs" and a handful of malign politicians, it utterly misses the point.
Analysis is at its shallowest, and worryingly it is most potentially dangerous when it implies that somehow ‘foreigners’ of diverse backgrounds, roles, and cultures are also centrally to blame for the rotten state of the nation.
This is far too superficial a position especially when flavoured with mild, severe, or extreme xenophobia or worse. It is a highly dangerous trope with a long and wholly negative history in Europe and elsewhere, one with immediate and longer-term threats for millions.
It should be a matter of the most serious concern to us when the "foreigner bashing" agenda is given oxygen as is the case not just here in Malta but currently in England, the US, South Africa, India etc.
Blaming the "foreigner" rhetoric and behaviour is not just lazy and vacuous, it is simultaneously toxic and often deadly and no amount of handwringing after the fact absolves the guilty.
First and foremost, in order to tackle the criminality that brand Malta now officially promotes, we need to acknowledge the truth that the economic, environmental, and political dead end we are hurtling towards is overwhelmingly the responsibility of Maltese people "in the round".
It must be immediately stated not all Maltese people but far too many Maltese people.
Not just those who deliberately and knowingly did (and do) wrong but crucially those who silently stand by and watch, who choose shoulder shrugging and inaction or who claim it as part of a historic and widely practised Maltese "way of doing things".
To now also fall for the recent and deterministic "future" scenario of the "800,000 inhabitants" where, it is erroneously claimed, the Maltese will inevitably be in a minority, is to swallow whole the bona fides (and weird maths) of ministers and commentators who specialise in, at very best, quarter or half-truths and routinely in downright lies.
This suggested scenario has generated howls of shock, protest, and knee-jerk demands that heavy-handed (and often rights-abusing) interventions be immediately implemented by the government and society. This is very dangerous territory as is evidenced in some of the language and concepts employed in subsequent interventions, some of it bordering on fascist.
To argue that an imagined yet somehow "real" but vague Maltese "way of life" is in immediate danger at the hands of a cabal of economic and political interests and an undifferentiated mob of foreigners is not just simplistic and dangerous, it is also fundamentally dishonest.
Admitting that we collectively share a major cultural, political, legal, and democratic crisis is an unavoidable starting point for addressing our woes.
Arguing that all is ultimately agreed and well in this "real" Malta is madness and somehow partly blaming "foreigners" for our own sins is devious.
It has the effect of ensuring we avoid those deeply unsettling questions around what has not just been designed to happen but also allowed to happen by either omission or commission. It plays into the hands and agendas of those who refuse any responsibility or accountability, and it once again launches the ever-popular scapegoat option.
So, the populist phrase "Malta for the Maltese" immediately begs the ironic response "but, surely that’s the problem"?