During one of the periods when COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed, I drove across the Eastlink bridge on the river Liffey in Dublin. As I exited the toll, I was confronted with a full-size advertising hoarding inviting me to visit Gozo.
The image was striking. It displayed Ramla beach in pristine condition and entirely bereft of people or traffic. It was, of course an MTA ad that I suspect had been photoshopped (a not uncommon occurrence).
The ad was selling a Malta that does exist, but only just. Yet that Malta was sold not only by MTA but also by airlines and by the hotel and restaurant trade. While knowing that ad (and many similar others) has only a tangential link to the truth, we nonetheless tend buy into them, hoping or wishing them to be true.
The ad immediately brought me back to that same beach on an early spring morning, when we were presented with another striking image. A couple, a white horse and a photographer making one of those pre-wedding videos – all soft focus, angled shots, and dreamy stares.
We want Ramla to be like that and so we momentarily suspend reality. The fantasy of an ‘unspoilt Gozo’ exists even if only in our imaginations. The images conjured up in both instances cannot be said to be completely inaccurate just very substantially so. On most days, Ramla is an entirely different beast, as so many Gozitans and Maltese know fully.
What is worth observing here is that while those who manufacture such images know them to be largely false, so too do their consumers. Selling Malta, even to the Maltese is an activity riddled with the suspension of reality – on both sides.
Selling this Malta to today’s Maltese in this election is similarly an exercise in suspension – of both honesty and critical reflection. As Malta’s political machinery goes into full throttle, the spin and hyperbole are quite incredible, bordering on the fantastical.
But what is even more amazing is the apparent buy in to that dominant agenda despite its obvious and fundamental perversity. The current mess that is Malta and the fairy tales on offer about its future pose very real dangers to democracy, the environment and social well-being.
While a significant proportion of the population continue to benefit directly from the current corrupted regime, a majority seem happy to accept (or at least not oppose) what is being promised.
The current regime is taking Maltese society nowhere it should want to be. The political journey Malta needs should be honest, transparent, forward-looking, and positive with a strong sense of itself. Instead what is on offer is a loud, empty, and negative politics dominated by overbearing personalities, forever looking over their shoulder for fear of being outed.
Malta is sadly a nation busily engaged in the self-destruction of its land, sea, resources, self-respect, and perhaps worst of all its youth. The dignity and strength that is a historical part of Maltese national and international identity has been elbowed aside for crassness, greed, and short-termism.
The country is displaying a perverse kind of pleasure in that self-destruction – the worse things get, the more arrogant and aggressive the apologists and cheerleaders become. The right to endlessly mock, relentlessly lie and routinely abuse are now officially approved and practised characteristics.
The election will most likely offer a platform for their full venting. There seems little doubt that its results will inflict further serious damage nationally and internationally.
As we wait for more fake billboards selling yet more fake Maltas, we would do well to ponder the obligations of citizenship and professed ‘love’ of country.