The Maltese people have not really changed at all, and not just during 10 years of Labour but throughout history.

That’s the verdict of researcher and associate professor of social psychology, professor Gordon Sammut.

The Labour Party swept to power in March 2013 on the promise of an “earthquake” by its leader Joseph Muscat. So what sort of changes has Sammut seen?

On the face of it, Malta might look different now – it has generated more wealth and boasts of more progressive laws. But beneath it all, he argues, Maltese people have remained, essentially, the same.

“We have the best laws for LGBTIQ people, but we’re still a homophobic nation; we have the largest number of people from foreign countries living and working among us but we’re still as racist as ever; we built world-class flyovers, but a wheelchair and a pushchair still struggle as ever to navigate our streets because we still haven’t mastered the simple idea of a pavement; we spent millions to widen the roads but we get stuck in traffic as much as we always used to; we instituted financial laws and regulations that are stricter than ever, but we still evade tax and seek to avoid VAT whenever we can.”

“And it goes beyond 10 years of Labour. We’ve been in the EU for 20 years now, yet we continue to struggle to even understand basic democratic principles, let alone maintain strong institutions,” Sammut said.

Historical political afflictions and the partisan culture of clientelism are just as intense, people complain about environmental destruction as much as their forefathers used to, news headlines are still as bleak, and life is generally just as easier for those who have money and connections while just as incredibly challenging for the poor, people with disabilities and people with mental health conditions.

We’ve been in the EU for 20 years now, yet we continue to struggle to even understand basic democratic principles, let alone maintain strong institutions- Gordon Sammut, researcher and associate professor of social psychology

Sammut believes the problem is deeper than we think – the country does not know what it stands for and is yet to form true and profound aspirations that distinguish it from other nations. It is a reluctance that goes back centuries.

“We are small and relatively weak – we latch onto a superpower. Alone, we’re probably doomed, but if we’re with a superpower, we might actually win,” he said.

“We like to believe that as a people we decided to fight the good fight against the Ottoman Empire for instance, but truth is, it so happened that the Knights were here at the time and we latched on to the political superpower that they were. And we won, but only because the Knights won. It was through no virtue of our own.

“In the last century we then latched on to another superpower – the British – and it so happened that they won the war, so we won, but again I’m afraid that if Malta had been ruled by the Turks in the 16th century and by the Germans in the last century, we wouldn’t have fought the ‘good’ fight – we would have latched onto them and fought alongside them, because those were the superpowers, and we would have lost.”

'Malta has struggled to develop'

Sammut said Malta did manage to muster a true aspiration when it fought for independence and later to become a republic and gaining political sovereignty was a bold move for such a small nation. But it has since struggled to develop the way nations like Iceland, Canada, New Zealand and the US did.

“And when we started to feel too alone what do you think we did? We latched onto a superpower – the EU – and instead of understanding its values, we continue to see how we can best milk money out of it. So, we may survive,” he said.

“We have self-determination, which is priceless, but we still don’t know what to do with it. We’re a young country that still hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be when it grows up.”

Meanwhile, we’re wasting time bickering about partisan politics and working on projects that have failed us too many times.

“For how long are we going to keep obsessing over winning the Eurovision, for instance? And if we actually want to win at something, why are we not investing heavily in it?” he said.

“Let’s pick something we want to excel in and focus resources on it. But we cannot expect to be the best country to retire in when the elderly still cannot walk on a pavement.”

But Sammut is hopeful. A radical shift in the way Maltese people think about themselves and the world is still on its way. Maybe we are yet to discover it, but we must aspire, imagine and innovate.