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All in all, we do have a Christmas to celebrate: good health exceeds all our other expectations of wealth, fame and abundance. I am sure you will agree with me that as we grow older our priorities change and we tend to focus more on the simple things in life that render our life serene and healthy.
However, Christmas decorations remain a must because they serve as a boost to our morale and our psychological fitness because they are a means of thanking our creator for giving us another year on this earth. Although it is true that the nature of these decorations has changed in the flow of time, yet the effect and the message remain the same: after a year of hard work and hard time, every human being must find the time within himself or herself to pump up the energy that has been burnt during the year.
This does not mean that Christmas cannot also be the time where loneliness is felt deeper usually, but we can be in a house full of people and yet feel lonely. I think that loneliness is the curse of this century and it seems that the curse is getting bigger and bigger and deeper and deeper because no matter how many gadgets we devise to alienate us from our inner self, ultimately we realise that all that we have been doing is going round in circles and coming back to our point of departure.
There is no doubt therefore that we must do something so that the Christmas decorations for this year be worthy of their purpose. It is so true that Christmas and consumerism seem to have made a strong match but it is not the perfect match because even if we have at times, or rather many times, fallen into this trap of bonding them together, this bond was only temporary because it did not bring us to our destination: peace of mind and peace at heart.
I am not worried at all when they warn us about the consumerism at Christmas time. I know that every human being wants at one time in his life to live this experience of indulgence, and I also know that this experience will not last a lifetime because it is our inner self, soul or call it whatever you like, that determines the extent of this indulgence. We can have all the wealth in the world and yet, be poor and empty inside and when that happens, that will be a poor Christmas indeed.
It is usual for this time of the year for me and my colleagues to dedicate the Christmas contribution to the highlights of this year but rather than that, I would like to highlight the need there is today more than ever for this festive season. Although the message has remained the same – that of solidarity with the poor and needy – the audience has now extended to a very wide spectrum. It is no longer those that are destitute that are the poor and needy, it is those workers who know that next year they will get no pay cheque and for whom the Maltese brethren felt no compassion in their charity campaign; it is those graduates who are unemployed or who are being employed for puerile salary of Lm200 monthly; it is the divide between the rich and the poor that is bigger and bigger every year.
The biggest challenge that this government will be facing this year is to control this divide and to re-establish the working middle class. It is easy to fall into the trap and assume that everybody is living your lifestyle and if the government has no worries about paying domestic and other bills, we do. The more taxes, duties, excise, VAT, licenses and other burdens that are introduced, the more the divide between the rich and the poor, and unless a miracle happens next year and investment comes to our rescue, the spending power will continue to be less and less.
Our country’s development cannot be calculated on the basis of how many roads get surfaced every year – the profit out of that goes to the very few (although let us be honest, it is these few that are generating jobs at the moment). Our country’s development shall be defined on the number of productive jobs that we are creating and not on the number of people we strike off the employment register. Having 9,000 boarded out with the majority of them in their 30s, having 9,000 on early retirement, having 45,000 working on part-time basis… that is not healthy indeed.
Statistics do not have a human face and what this country needs is a human face because at times we tend to fall into the trap of Christmas consumerism and focus more on the decorations than on what lies beyond them. And just as the bubble of consumerism blows in our face at one stage or another in our life, so will the bubble of statistics blow in the government’s face at a time when it is least expected. So, please inform the EU Commission that we cannot continue to consider people as statistics and that for the EU project to have a future, it must embark on its people and not on figures and statistics!
I was reading an article in the Guardian this week saying that children were getting less and less interested in toys and that research shows that children do not really have toys on the top of their Christmas list from the age of about six these days. Until a few years ago, Barbie was sold up to the ages of 10,11 or 12 but today the surveys show that Barbie dolls create massively negative feelings among 10-year-old girls as they think they are childish. There is no doubt that kids are getting older at a faster rate nowadays and it is precisely this point that should drive us to act fast so that human development is no longer calculated on GDP and statistics but on humane considerations such as education, housing, health and all that humans, and not statistics, consider relevant.
And speaking of health, I must share with you the latest research reported this week in the journal Nature Today stating that aerosols do not cause global warming. The research conducted by the scientists at the Meteorological Office and the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report found that aerosols actually have twice the cooling effect that was previously thought and that therefore, cutting air pollution could trigger a greater surge in global warming suggesting future rises in sea level and other environmental consequences have been underestimated. Believe it or not, the researchers already predict that everyone would be getting asthma, but the environment would be cooler!
So let us all make an effort this Christmas so that we put a stop to those in power who are using us as Christmas decorations and like Christmas decorations they expose us for a short time and then stack us away in the dust and the dark until the time comes to put us on show again for the next Christmas. Humanity must prevail not only at Christmas but throughout the year.
A healthy and peaceful Christmas to you all!
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