Last week, social media was buzzing with people ashamed of being Maltese. This was subsequent to a video that went viral, showing onlookers filming a man ‘on the edge’ (both literally and metaphorically) of a Valletta bastion and then goading him to walk (or jump) the talk. The video gave ‘suicide watch’ a whole new meaning.

Now, while I can understand why people were shocked by such callous schadenfreude, I fail to understand why everyone was so quick to jump on the bandwagon of ‘national shame’. 

Frankly, I don’t think this incident is representative of our national identity at all. It has very little to do with being Maltese and everything to do with being something rather different. I think we really need to grow up and acknowledge that Malta is part of the big, bad world. Social media has just brought reality – both good and bad –much closer to home.  

So, when Sean Meli braved rough seas and risked life and limb to save a Chinese boy, I was met by waves just as high – waves of emotion. But inordinate national pride, like national shame, I did not feel. And when, later, in a rather bitter-sweet turn of events, we learned that Meli had not been the only hero to brave the storm that evening, we had it confirmed that heroism, just like cowardice or meanness of spirit, transcends nationality. 

Another man, Majed Shahin, had jumped into the sea to try to save the boy from drowning and he was actually Libyan, not Maltese. While this, of course, doesn’t detract one iota from Meli’s heroic selflessness, it proves my point that innate goodness, like evil, is a purely individual choice and responsibility, which is why collective shame makes absolutely no sense at all.

Yes, we were delighted to hear that Meli had jumped into the sea and I’m pretty sure the news inspired us.  And, yes, at some level, perhaps, we even wanted to believe that the Maltese are naturally strong swimmers who can outperform others.

In a world where we have grown accustomed to looking at the tax deducted from our payslips and wondering which unqualified person of trust we are keeping in clover, noble and selfless acts of heroism are like manna in the desert. But trying to pass this off as part of our Maltese identity is a stretch. Let’s face it: in the same circumstances, most of us would not have done the same. 

Yes, our fear of death together with our own limitations would have stood in the way of saving that Asian boy. But that does not make us bad people. We can’t all be heroes, even for a day. Yet, we have also to acknowledge that there are people who can’t let a day go by without being hateful, bitter and unkind. And we saw this unkindness when the Libyan hero, Shahin, was suddenly the butt of racist abuse online, with some people even suggesting that he had pushed the Chinese boy into the sea.

That upset me a great deal and I hoped Prime Minister Robert Abela would set the record straight by thanking Shahin publicly for his act of courage, much in the same way as he had applauded Maltese-born Meli.

Perhaps the prime minister did so privately, and it wasn’t reported, which would be both a pity and a huge deficit.  Let us hope, therefore, that I just missed it. I say all this because our leaders do need to lead by example. And this would have been the perfect opportunity to set aside a xenophobia born of insularity and stupidity.

Let’s make a conscious effort from now on to be nicer to people, both on and offline- Michela Spiteri

Shahin’s words inspired me that day, reminding me that, despite all the ugly things we witness on a daily basis, inherent goodness still exists:

“Sean is Maltese, I am Libyan, the boy is Chinese. We didn’t think about where we come from, we just thought we are in Malta and there is a human life in the water there and we have to save it.”

I very much want to believe that the vast majority of us do choose good over evil. I want also to believe that we were deeply saddened by the cruelty directed at that man on the Valletta bastion, just as we were disturbed by the online cruelty directed at Shahin.

And let us not forget Jaiteh Lamin, cruelly abandoned on a pavement a few months ago and, yet, on the receiving end of a huge outpouring of love and generosity. Here, we need to ask ourselves whether, like the Good Samaritan in the bible, we would have stopped to help Lamin that day. Or would we have driven past, afraid of becoming ‘too involved’ and then blamed our lack of engagement on being busy or preoccupied. 

You see, it’s easy to pay lip service to the idea of something but quite another to follow through. And this brings me to those passers-by in Valletta who taunted that poor man on the bastions.

I suppose I was simply incredulous. Yet, most of that incredulity derived from the fact that these people had not been afraid to show their faces, something that somehow (ironically) blurred the whole incident and made it slightly less sinister.

I suppose I am always far more exercised by keyboard warriors who hide behind pseudonyms and anonymity and insidiously drive people to very dark places through systematic cruelty and abuse.

The record shows that undercover cruelty online is not exactly new: it has been around for well over a decade. So, let’s make a conscious effort from now on to be nicer to people, both on and offline.

And, the next time you are rushing to share news of another person’s misfortune (even if it’s somebody you don’t like) or are about to say something mean and nasty, think about that nasty group in Valletta.

And think again.