Malta and Gozo never fail to delight and appal in equal measure. The delights of this little gem in the Mediterranean are many, but so too are the ugly realities and behaviours. The chasm between what we have the capacity to be and what we currently are is immense and growing.

It is as if the potential of the place exists in inverse relationship with the achievements of the dominant majority who occupy it. Malta and Gozo promise so much but consistently deliver so little.

The history and geography of the place offer a heady mix of possibilities. Straddling the seas between Europe and Africa with ready access to the East and a diaspora that is truly international, the Maltese islands suggest immense potential and on a unique human scale, but alas...

That same history and geography have proven to be a considerable handicap in the hands of a political, economic and administrative elite. The population of our islands has been ‘trained’ (in the crude sense of theterm) by former colonial and post-colonial elites to expect so little of them and then to settle for even less.

It is as if, having been blessed with so much, we remain determined to serially underachieve.  Faced with the very real probability of success, we instead constantly pivot towards failure.  If our accelerating downward trajectory is maintained (even for another decade), Malta will achieve the status of a fully captured and failed state in many core dimensions of that condition.

Analysts routinely debate the specific definition of a failed state but largely concur that a defining characteristic is that the state itself and its key institutions are hijacked to serve the interests and agendas of a minority rather than the majority.  

As a result, the normal functioning of the state ceases to be meaningfully democratic and becomes a platform for the enrichment and power of a dominant and manipulating elite.  

For me, Malta is well on the route to achieving this status, the evidence is everywhere to be seen and more importantly encountered.

Malta is now a state that is publicly and visibly corrupt, effectively immune to accountability and to a significant degree out of control. Where there is control, it is wielded by a cabal of political, business, legal, finance and administrative figures with devastating results.

The almost hourly reports of corrupt and criminal practices at all levels of the Maltese state – appointments, contracts, direct orders, jobs for lovers, family and party hacks, bullying, threats, and aggression are now the accepted norm. The government and its network have long given up even trying to defend them – the national salute is now two-fingered.

Key state institutions are deeply compromised – the police, legal systems, administrative, infrastructure and planning bodies, government ministries and official state media. We have an increasingly autocratic prime minister and a gang of ministers who see themselves as above the law and who act accordingly. The commonwealth of the Maltese public is viewed by them as theirs to be plundered at will.

Government pronouncements, putative policies, accountability, monitoring and enforcement strategies have become utterly meaningless and a source of public amusement and/or anger.  We experience government by diktat, cliché and distraction.

Malta’s failed state status is to be seen in the collapse of any pretence of the separation of powers in those pivotal structures and rules that ensure accountability and the rule of law.

The saddest and most dangerous dimension of Malta’s condition is that it is deemed acceptable even normal by a majority of the population, not all of them by any means the party faithful.  

Denying what is happening in and to Malta once again in 2023 is not a moral or credible position. Denial simply will not suffice for all Maltese and Gozitans of goodwill. Being forever locked into a circular loop of assumed powerlessness, anger or moral capitulation is a destructive dead end, personally and nationally.   

As has been said by so many, so often, it does not have to be this way. There are many credible alternatives if we want them badly enough.