While the cost of the disease has been high in both human and economic terms, the cost of its cure will be many times higher and that of its legacy incalculable.
I am referring not to coronavirus, but to the political and social cancer that has become endemic in Malta since 2013.
Recognising that the rot did not begin in that year does not in any way mitigate its scale since then. As a result, Maltese society is faced not just with the immediate cost but also with the longer-term cost; a sort of ‘long, long COVID’ for society at large.
To any reasoned analysis, the costs now and into the future are horrendous. Those costs will be paid largely by those who least shaped or influenced events and they will extend beyond this generation. The costs are obvious to everyone, and in an election year are worth repeating over and over.
Sadly and unjustly, the agenda has come to overshadow and define Malta and Maltese society, nationally and internationally.
The most immediate and obvious cost is in the theft of public resources and their transfer into the private wealth of individuals. Malta will never know the scale of this stolen wealth now resting quietly and secretly in many offshore accounts across the globe. It is highly unlikely that this wealth can ever be returned to its rightful owners.
And those who have stolen it from their neighbours will use it to reinforce their power and influence, most likely at Malta’s further expense.
This large-scale theft leads to yet another cost – the loss of the value and benefit such wealth would have generated. Education, health, culture, the environment, infrastructure, and social well-being could have been immeasurably improved through the proper use of this publicly owned wealth.
These opportunities are now lost to Malta.
In facilitating theft on this scale, the country has lost out yet again. Vital public institutions from the police, the army, courts to the civil service as well as economic institutions have been castrated and then stuffed with party loyalists, many of them utterly incompetent. They have now turned these public institutions into personal fiefdoms to be used to further their own, their families’ and their network’s self-obsession.
Inevitably, Malta’s government and its immediate institutions have been transformed into a black comedic circus with a cast of characters worthy of a b-grade mafia movie or a Dario Fo style farce. One lie begets another even bigger lie, as public trust and belief are shattered and officially promoted corruption becomes the DNA of governance.
Malta remains deeply divided. The country’s traditional political tribalism has been strategically manipulated with many Maltese buying into it, believing that ‘magically’ others will pay the cost. Malta’s sense of itself and its values have been deeply usurped. People are either oblivious, angry, or simply disengaged; public life is debased and demoralised. This could yet prove the most serious cost of all.
Normality apparently continues, but people have become experts in looking over their shoulder at the country, its direction and at those manipulating it. And young people either think about leaving, or go ahead and do so.
The road back from here will be long, costly, and dangerous. But there is no choice but to embark on it. In a travesty of justice, Malta’s emerging demographic will pay the real cost of today’s avarice and piracy.
As someone who has chosen to live in Malta, it is my duty to speak up rather than sit in sullen silence, believing it is solely a matter for Maltese people. I am angry and disgusted with those who actively plunder these islands. I am angry and disgusted with those who manage and facilitate that plunder and with those who benefit from it, justify it or who look away pretending innocence.
I am deeply saddened that this continues to happen in my adopted country, a country that on its good days is amazingly beautiful, unique, and welcoming.