Last week I met one of my closest and oldest friends who reminded me that Roberto Benigni once said:
“I nemici della Costituzione sono l’indifferenza alla politica che è amore per la vita e il non voto. Non ti tirare fuori, se ti tiri fuori è terribile, dai il potere alla folla che sceglie sempre Barabba.”
Basically, he was admonishing all Italians to vote last year. Not voting is terrible since it leaves power in the hands of the mob, which always chooses Barabbas.
This quotation fits well with the two major events that are dominating the minds of all Maltese now. The first is the upcoming election and the second is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Let’s start with the second. Vladimir Putin is maniacally fixated on recreating the Russian Empire, which had been much bigger than present day Russia. This loss of size and influence, coupled with fear of the encroaching ideas of democracy and rule of law that have been getting closer to the heart of Russia in the last 10 years, have moved the despot to action.
Most of the breakaway former Soviet republics decided to join the EU or NATO. A few taken over by despots, like Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, remained on the fence trying to be both Russia-friendly yet independent at the same time.
The Navalny movement, so violently and despotically crushed by Putin at home, and the stolen Belarus elections last year, with the violent crackdown helped by Moscow, also showed that even the hardest controlled parts of the Russian empire ruled by Putin began to show cracks.
Putin, in his madness, begins to claw back as many parts of the empire as he can, while cracking down on dissidents at home. He is as sly as a fox. If Stalin were a bear, Putin is a fox. Both are dangerous to our flocks.
Putin has been preparing for many years by getting his oligarch friends to invest the stolen roubles abroad in shares, property, gold, bank accounts in sterling, euros and dollars. Many of his friends bought golden EU passports to be able to stash away the hard currencies without disclosing Russian origin. Cyprus, Malta, Britain and Bulgaria all assisted these oligarchs knowingly and willingly. I am glad the Maltese government has now suspended Russia and Belarus from its cash-for-passports scheme.
Not voting is terrible since it leaves power in the hands of the mob
Putin waited for Angela Merkel to leave and to have a weak government in Germany, to have Emmanuel Macron at the end of his term and Boris Johnson entangled in parties during COVID. The EU is weak, with its Polish and Hungarian rule of law-breakers threatening to wield vetoes to save their own funding and, in the US, we have a weak president unable to act with determination after Afghanistan and the heritage of his predecessors who invaded Iraq on false pretences.
Europeans today, like the Roman Empire in the fourth century after Christ, are in degeneration, where citizens want ease of life, holidays and are averse to war even to defend the few remaining values. Having discarded all the values of family, culture, trust in the future, innovation and religion, Europe, like Rome before it, is on the way down to the bottom and, like a ripe apple, will fall at the least pressure.
Putin knows this and the Huns who invaded Rome in 476AD knew it. Rome fell! What will Europe do?
The second issue is the coming election. We know that the entire society in Malta, and especially in politics, is characterised by a propensity to cheat. We are also becoming, like all other citizens in Europe, an older, lazier, less-thinking and mostly money-oriented society. Few think of the benefit of the common good or to uphold values.
We can be the “folla” of Benigni that always chooses Barabbas without thinking. We can be voters who think before they vote or we may opt for the “non vota”.
The first category of Barabbas protectors will always exist. They are around 80 per cent of all societies and they are the sheep who follow blindly one or the other party. We have heard that with more education, with a greater number of university graduates, with more travel and meeting other cultures the Maltese will become less tribal, less mob-oriented or surer of themselves.
But no. We do not change. If we have changed, how can one explain that Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered over four years ago and the prime minister of this country has yet to visit the place of her murder or attend one or more vigils in her honour.
We will not change the Barabbans.
Many voters vote after thinking. Here, I think of the large number of switchers in 2013, which actually made the whole difference. Many voted in the same way a second time in 2017 but that was before Daphne was killed.
They switched for many reasons, some good, others for purely pecuniary. Yet, becoming rich in a decadent, anti-environmental and corrupt society that has led Malta to be greylisted and to lose many of its beauty spots to concrete and high-rise monsters after the murder of Daphne is indefensible.
Switchers who intend again to vote for Labour in this first election after Daphne’s death should reconsider. Think hard before voting.
Finally, in the coming election we may have, for the first time, an element of abstention or, as Benigni calls it, “il non voto”.
When one is unhappy with the present government but cannot stand the opposition for old social, family, local or other reasons, not voting is not the answer.
We should all vote and vote with a clear mind and with a vision for the future.