How many times have we heard that “it’s not what you know but who you know that counts here”? Our culture is ingrained with beliefs that corruption and clientelism are just part of the way things are,  because we are a small country, because our politicians are corrupt, because everybody does it, because that is the only way there is.

Don’t blame the government, don’t blame the opposition. This is who we, as a society choose to be and that choice is not always visible to us.

I am tired of living in this culture and, yet, I am part of it. I research this subject and, yet, my voice fails me to speak because of how many political and religious labels will be attached to this article. Well, I am choosing to speak up as a person who has been researching the subject of unethical decision-making in organisations for the past three years.

We are living in a state of ethical blindness where we have created a society which accepts corruption and clientelism as part of who we are. This is called normalisation and we can no longer recognise what ‘is’ from what ‘ought’.

Last week, Mark Said wrote about ‘The decline of our moral values and spirituality’. Our society is changing fast and,  agreeing with it or otherwise, the role of religion has changed. Bar the outburst of religiosity when the pope visits, many are rejecting religion.

I am not blaming or challenging anyone’s beliefs here. The matter is that the decline of religious beliefs is accompanied by a decline of ethical values and, although it’s nice to see that religion and values are tied together, one can survive without the other. Therefore, in a society which is increasingly saying that religion should be kept out of decision- making (again,. here I am taking a neutral stand although I do have an opinion), it is important to say that values should not be kept out of decision-making.

We need to define a set of values that are important to us as a nation. Well, the expression ‘need to’ is superfluous here. It would be a good idea to define a set of values. If not, we do have an alternative and it is where we are leading ourselves into: a spiral of lack of responsibility towards the other and the belief that I need to come out on top of everything.

People, wake up. We are a nation that knows that times sometimes get tough and our natural instinct is to protect ourselves and our loved ones because we love our families. So we will do whatever it takes to never leave our family behind. In doing so, we are being bitten back because everybody loves their family over everybody else’s and this leaves us with a nation of people who choose to cheat as opposed to cooperate.

We are living in a state of ethical blindness- Corinne Fenech

Thus, everybody will build a block of apartments instead of nanna’s house because my children have nowhere to live, everybody goes to their politician to give their kids a job as,  otherwise, they will be left behind. And, then, we are shocked that our island is all built up, that our politicians are corrupt and that more than half of our young generation would rather live anywhere else on the planet.

We have the opportunity to turn around the culture we have built for ourselves but we want others to do it first. We will fail along the way and people will throw mud and say: “I told you so.”

This is my own personal dilemma before writing this article but I know that I am living in this society too and, sometimes, I make mistakes too.

I want to live in a society whose members help each other rise when they fall and not in one which says “oooh we have such a corrupt government” but “aaah, but your government 20 years ago did it too… even worse”. To move on and up, we need to look forward with compassion. Don’t be fooled into thinking there is no other way.

There are other options and they are the options we have taken over and over again ever since I can remember. But we also have the power to change course. All we have to do to not change is to leave it to the others to take the first step.

I am choosing to take my first step and hoping that, when I fail, because we all do, I find a society that helps me rise and not rubs my face in the dirt, feeling superior because they are better than me.

Corinne Fenech, PhD researcher in unethical decision-making in organisations. The research at the University of Glasgow is partially funded by Tertiary Education Scholarship Scheme (Malta).