When you read this, it will be the exact date that the Panama Papers began to be published on in 2016, which is pretty fitting for what I would like to talk about today. It was on that day that a chill began to descend around me, one that has gotten colder and colder with time, one that brought me to this column, and to my current way of thinking when it comes to Malta and the community we form part of.
A few have sought to dismiss what I have written in the past, based on what they feel are privileged roots. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have been raised in a hard-working family who made a life out of practically nothing. When my parents got married, all they had was the belief that learning was the key to success, and they spent every last cent they had on giving me what they deemed was the best education possible. With that came the unshakeable beliefs in truth, beauty, honesty, fairness and justice. For me, these aren’t just throwaway words, they are the basis on which I have built my understanding of the world.
When the Panama Papers were published in 2016, with all that was uncovered with them, I felt shocked and dismayed. But if I had to go back to where that reaction came from, it wasn’t the fact that our politicians had allegedly cheated us that got under my skin; it was instead the nonchalant attitude that many people had towards the fact that the country was being swindled. I couldn’t understand it: why weren’t people angry?
When Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered outside her home a mere year and a half later, things got darker and more sinister than they had ever been. Perhaps now people would see what a snake pit we had built, I thought. Yet again, this was not enough to move most people, with many using the rhetoric that her death had somehow been earnt. I was frustrated, disgusted, confused. What were people not seeing?
How can we hope to do better when we already think we’re the best?- Anna Marie Galea
I have spent the years since trying to understand what motivates the Maltese to act in the way they do as scandal after scandal has rocked us, as our environment continues to be destroyed, as we continue our merry way down the path of international shame, but it was only when I saw an enormous room of people clap for a man defending corruption that I knew something for certain: I couldn’t relate to anyone who was in that space.
After last week’s unsurprising election result, many people are calling for more dialogue between people and parties, but the truth is that neither side can build a bridge with the other simply because we seem to be at least two or three very different groups of people who have been forced to coexist with each other, even though we have precious little in common. There can be no gaps filled when there is no sharing in common culture, ideals, values, and when worse still, we can’t even agree on the truth we are seeing before our own eyes.
Today I offer no solutions, just the bitter pill of understanding what it means to be speaking a language that very few understand when the translator went out for a break hours ago and didn’t come back. I truly don’t know where we go from here: how can we hope to do better when we already think we’re the best?