It’s been two long weeks of vitriol, anger and confusion, the likes of which many of us have never seen before, and while it’s nowhere near done, I can’t help but shift my gaze to another topic: how are we all going to live together once the dust has settled?

A wise woman once told me that two people arguing are not two people who hate each other but two people desperately asking each other to be heard, to be understood. A quick sweep of the social media that everyone has been violently refreshing every two seconds over the past two weeks goes far in showing the sentiments of many. And while on the surface the discourse is deeply divisive, it is bitterly ironic that the feeling uniting everyone is pain.

Just look at the rhetoric being thrown around. Who is not speaking of betrayal, disappointment and regret? There are many people who believed in Joseph Muscat’s shiny new world; there are many others in important positions who have always fought tirelessly and worked hard to make Malta a better place.

The men who are being accused of heinous, unspeakable things and their political allies came into many of these people’s homes, ate with them, played with their children. How then should these people be feeling as each day uncovers more disgusting rot?

A lot of people are feeling cheated and let down; however, it is not enough to merely feel these things. Like alcoholics at an AA meeting, you have to truly recognise that you have a problem before any real action can be taken.

A lot of people are feeling cheated and let down, however, it is not enough to merely feel these things

Stop protecting people whom you know with every fibre of your being have been lying to you. Stop attacking those who seek to present the truth at no personal gain. Stop making convoluted excuses for other people’s evils. Stop preferring to believe that a son who has spent two years of his life chasing after his mother’s murderers is implicated in his mother’s cold-blooded assassination. Stop being complicit by remaining silent.

This cannot be brushed under the carpets of history the way other things have before. It is not simply going to go away if we log out of our computers and close our ears. This hero worship of our leaders needs to end in order for us to be objective and open to the truth.

The very heart of the country is being eaten by maggots, and it doesn’t take The Guardian, CNN, BBC, or the European Community to realise this.

There is no us and them when we all have to stand in the ruins of a would-be Camelot together.

So where do we go from here? The process of healing can only begin once we can all agree that those who have committed crimes, be they of murder or corruption, are put away.

I know that I speak for many when I say that most of us couldn’t give two figs which party is in power, so long as that party does right by its people. Many people on the government benches have put their personal ties and gain before the country’s, and it shows.

Whoever is in power, the sun will still shine, and we will all still to have pay our taxes. What we should all be demanding, no matter our ideological persuasions, is that those who have blood on their hands and the many who have been caught with their hand in the national till pay the price in the same way each and every one of us who commits a crime should.

Shouldn’t we all be able to at least agree on this?