The story of Malta and Gozo is one of overcoming odds; of beating back the naysayers and merchants of doom. We are a proud people, a hard-working people – a people who care about each other and our community. That is my Malta.
We are an island of 316 km² but that has never been a limit to the size of our ideas. Hard work matters. Integrity matters. That is what has been drummed into my generation by our parents and grandparents. That was the philosophy that drove our country forward.
To us – there was nothing we could not do. It was that dream that drove us to join the European Union, to transform our economy, to change the trajectory of so many lives.
It was that belief that meant that a girl from Gżira could be elected to the European Parliament and become its president. We did that, together, as Maltese. Your continued faith in me means I am able to fly my country’s flag proudly next to our European Union stars. I want more Maltese and Gozitans to believe as I did.
But I meet too many people who tell me how much the last years have turned that thinking on its head. We have seen a reversal in that mantra from those leading the country, with its inevitable knock-on effect on the younger generation in particular.
Perhaps we grew too complacent. We allowed new generations to take things for granted. We thought the benefits of Maltese liberal democracy, of our European Union membership were so self-evident that we stopped telling our children to fight for them.
That has led to a younger audience who have more information than ever before at their fingertips but who are more sceptical, more lonely. Who feel politically helpless.
They expect, rightly, that those running the country lead by example but, too often, the government does the opposite. Instead of striving for excellence, they try to lull us into an acceptance of mediocrity.
Instead of critical thinking, the government rewards blind loyalty – an arrangement they reinforce through their crippling of our educational system and their affronts to our teachers doing their best.
We can fix the system- Roberta Metsola
Instead of fixing our justice structures, they have denied the financing necessary to give our people and judges the peace of mind we deserve.
Instead of fighting abuse, they have built a system to excuse it. Think about how they tied themselves in knots denying Jean Paul Sofia’s parents and Malta a public inquiry, before they realised public revulsion threatened to spill over. Think about what they put Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family through, what they do still.
Instead of investing in transport and fixing the chronic traffic, they have reintroduced the idea of favours over rights. Of calling the minister to skip the queue or get your driving licence when you do not deserve it.
Instead of open spaces, Malta’s leaders doubled down on promoting the sad desertification of block after block of non-descript flats plaguing our countryside and our cultural treasures. Trees are seen as an inconvenience rather than an end. Ġgantija, once the most sacred of places, is safe no more.
Instead of legislating for a right to light for us all, government allow their concrete atrocities to deny us cleaner air, block access to the sun and the benefits of solar energy.
Perhaps most worryingly is that, instead of a battle of ideas, they turned our politics into a cult of personalities, of tribes of red versus blue. It is a system that is rigged to survive, of power simply for power’s sake.
But it is a system that is beatable. We can recapture the spirit that built the Malta my generation knows. We can fix the system but it will require a leap of faith and belief in ourselves. We can break the cycle of cynicism those leading the country depend on.
Malta must be about ideas. About finding the political courage to turn those ideas into reality. That is what has always driven us forward. That sense of hope in possibility.
We need a new way of thinking. We need more people to get involved, to help change things, to reflect on how we can fix things. About how we can reform. About how we can make Malta and Gozo less about needless bureaucracy and more about change for the better. About how we can bring Malta closer to the place it deserves to be. It is not too late.
Roberta Metsola is a MEP for Malta and Gozo and the president of the European Parliament.