I don’t know how it was in your families but the volatile, explosive 1980s in Malta were not a readily available topic of conversation in our home. Of course, there were clues here and there, certain memories my father had of his time at university, my uncle’s knee that still plays up decades later after he had to make a run for it and fell as a gathering was attacked, my mother packing chocolate bars into overstuffed suitcases when we were going to holiday here in the summer; however, most of the things I did find out came from the books that my father has collected since he was a teen.

I don’t think my parents actively sought not to talk about what the country had been through; I just think that, like many of their generation, they just wanted to forget. Boomers don’t tend to dwell in the way younger generations do; they just press on.

Of course, this way of dealing with trauma serves a purpose for them (God knows, no one can live perpetually in survival mode) but, sadly, it has left my generation woefully ill-equipped to deal with understanding the blood with which “modern Malta” was built. It also means that we have no real knowledge of the fragility of peace and how quick and easy it is for us to lose it all. We have been given a false sense of security that makes it easier for us to ignore headlines that should have us on our feet in anger.

Just last week, stories were published that the bomb disposal unit was called in as harassment against Birkirkara mayor Desirei Grech escalated with her claiming that she sometimes didn’t feel safe going to the council.

This story was followed up by writer Mark Camilleri saying that he had been threatened and stating that the threat had been read by the police but that he was not contacted by them, and, a few days after this, lawyer and former ONE TV and radio host Luke Dalli took to his social media to speak about the chilling note he found at his mother’s house when he went to drop off his son. Despite the fact Dalli’s family provided the authorities with a video of the alleged perpetrator, it took almost six weeks and him publicly saying that his family had yet to get any feedback from the police for an arrest to take place.

The threatening note received by Helena Dalli.

Read individually, these cases are worrying enough but keeping in mind they happened within days of each other paints an even more troubling picture of the state of affairs in this country. I don’t know what it’s going to take but things cannot continue to go on and on like this. The authorities must send strong messages that wayward behaviour cannot and will not be tolerated. People cannot keep doing what they want and threatening others as they please. This isn’t the Wild West and no one should be going around acting like John Wayne. Our citizens need to feel safe, not like their lives are cheap and expendable.

Let’s limit those 1980s throwbacks to the dance floor; they were horrific enough the first time around.