Now, more than ever Malta needs not just one national conversation, but rather thousands of such conversations. To be meaningful, these conversations must not be organised by Malta’s political, cultural, or economic elites.
They need to be organised and delivered by local, community, sectoral or issue-based groups – civil society in all its diversity. Above all, they must be beyond the control and manipulation of established elites and their agents.
It is clear to all that this government cannot be trusted with the Malta of today let alone the Malta of tomorrow. It is clear that the state and its institutions have been hijacked and are being used in the interests of the current Labour Party leadership, its funders, network, friends, and supporters.
In recent weeks and months, it is also clear that the different factions and agendas within that party have cost Maltese people very dearly in financial and political terms and also in broader social wellbeing. This dark reality is unlikely to change in the short term and will continue to cost Malta dearly.
It is also clear that the official opposition cannot be relied upon to oppose in any effective or realistic way in its current incarnation.
The country is severely damaged environmentally, politically, economically, educationally, and socially. The normal checks and balances that make for a healthy and functioning democracy have been deliberately squashed and are struggling to survive.
Malta as it is currently configured and operated is simply not sustainable except for those who loot it every day. Its national physical, economic, and cultural assets are up for sale at fire sale prices for the ‘connected’ few.
Quite literally, the country is in crisis and its ‘leadership’ is not only incapable but actually not interested in tackling that crisis.
Think, for example the Vitals, Enemalta, Pilatus, Air Malta, ODZ scams; the so-called ‘Planning Authority’, traffic chaos, Comino, rampant construction illegality; the abusive behaviour of Ministers, their operatives, legal agencies, and even key police officers.
It is clear to all honest and right-thinking citizens and residents that Malta needs entirely different conversations, actions, and strategies. Continuing with yet more of the same would be utter national lunacy.
Waiting for change until the next big event or election is not a realistic option. Waiting for a ‘conversion’ within the Labour Party or a transformation in the Nationalist Party are equally unrealistic in the timeframe immediately required.
Relying solely on the actions of individual mayors, councils, public representatives, or organisations such as Repubblika or Moviment Graffitti or Malta’s many able environmental groups is insufficient. Leaving it to ‘others’ to do the heavy lifting is not only unfair, but also deeply negligent; it places an unfair and dangerous burden on some.
Maltese society already possesses the structures and capacity to affect far-reaching transformation. Malta does not need to ‘re-invent’ itself; it simply needs to realise, galvanise, and animate existing social agency.
Faith-based, women’s, youth, disability, sporting, and cultural groups etc. all need to organise local, regional, and national conversations that grapple with the key issues, that discuss different and diverse options and take them into the public domain. Trade unions, business interests, companies, groups of professionals (doctors, architects, lawyers, accountants etc.), artists and musicians all have considerable responsibility and opportunity, if only they exercised it.
Educational entities, structures, and schools (teachers, students, and administrators) have a particular responsibility to not just contribute to different national conversations but to actively stimulate and support them.
Individuals, families, ‘streets’, village communities and peer groups are also capable and powerful entities for such conversations.
In pursuing such an agenda, all of us have a particular responsibility to protect and promote honest and truthful journalism and to challenge government-sponsored propaganda.
The current dominant economic and political elites rely heavily on complacency, hesitancy, fear (imagined or real), tradition, bribery, and tribalism to achieve their agendas. They also rely heavily on secrecy, doublespeak, duplicity and not inconsiderable structural and direct violence to defend their interests and their stealing.
Keeping our fingers and toes crossed, hoping that what we fear won’t happen and depending on others to challenge our U ijja culture simply won’t wash as a strategy for Malta’s future.
A growing public culture of disquiet, disagreement and dissent is vital to the future well-being of all Maltese, regardless of inherited or adopted political affiliation.
An entirely different and civil society-based set of national conversations is long overdue and urgently needed if we are to salvage what’s left of our environment, our civic life and most of all, our self-respect. In short, an exercise in real, living and experienced democracy.
Other societies worldwide have overcome far more difficult and dangerous crises, in this sense, Malta is by no means unique. Fundamental change is not only needed, but also entirely feasible. We just need to want it enough to become active.