Post-independent approaches

Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami said something very apt in his Independence Day address on Saturday night. Politicians, he declared, had to be credible and not try to blame somebody else. He might try to listen to his echo and act according to his own words. The theme underlying his speech was, not to cover it with a fancy cloth, a harangue at others.

Implicitly the PM told the constituted bodies, the trade unions and the opposition they were not doing much, certainly not enough, that they had to put their actions where the national interest lies and keep their foot out of it. Certainly, everybody can do more. Definitely, the industrial relations scene in the public sector looks more and more like a battlefield, with troops preparing to fight to the death. But what, exactly, are industrialists and hotel operators doing wrong?

To complain about the policy mess that has aggravated the waste disposal problem, rather than point to some sensible solution, is not to ignore the national interest. One not intent on blaming somebody else for that mess might say the opposite. Dr Fenech Adami's swipe at "organisations representing entrepreneurs" was barefaced cheek. It was "easy" to make statements based on the national spirit as they did in the EU referendum, he thundered, but when it came to day-to-day decisions one had to bear in mind the common good.

So, whose good were the organisations thinking of when, to the delight of the PM who had marshalled them like well-dressed-up exhibits at Castille, they made easy statements on the EU? Credibility is not a light word and still much heavier to practise, as demonstrated in the weekend's premier show on the Granaries. The PM gave further proof of that with another fine statement by the PM. Politicians had to respect the people and give objective and real views of the situation facing the country, he stated. True enough.

So why does not the PM set the first example? To do so he has to make up his mind which is the real Dr Fenech Adami - the one who makes such a correct declaration or that who, a few mouthfuls later, outlines the five principal problems he sees facing the country but immediately shies away from assuming his large share of the responsibility for them? To achieve that he downplays the problems he himself identified. One was the structural financial deficit.

It had built up massively over the nine years Dr Fenech Adami had been PM when he called the election of 1996 - but he did not reveal it. Rather, he insisted money was not a problem. The underlying deficit remains huge, despite the strong increase in tax collected due to a praiseworthy effort by the tax people and notwithstanding efforts to conjure or talk it away. It will be much higher than projected before this year's general election. Yet, the PM allots himself no blame for that.

He thrusts at others that the deficit places responsibility on each and everyone because of tax evasion, particularly of income tax and VAT. Not a hint of any responsibility on his administration of the country's affairs over a stretch of 16 years, less 22 months from the 10th year. Similarly as regards the great problem that the Drydocks remains; one of the PM's current Famous Five. He harangues others, grimly telling the opposition, constituted bodies, the trade unions, the rest of civil society what he "expects" of them. He makes no effort to find the humility to admit that he - his administration - has failed in anything at all.

The PM even listed the public service as one of the five current problems, after years of throwing massive amounts of money at it, declaring how he had revolutionised it, even denying that there was any excess fat on its body.

Malta's constitutional independence could be celebrated in a better manner, such as by rising above politics, analysing our realities, and arguing persuasively why it is in the interest of all of us to devise, back and implement a national recovery programme. Independence becomes a misleading term if it ignores the great extent to which we are interdependent with the rest of the world. Democracy rings hollow if we do not use it to have an honest look at ourselves, to recognise our common position and to come up with the will to attempt to tackle it together.

That cannot begin to happen if the starting point is haughty expectation from others rather then the sense and humility to make the right conciliatory move.