The people vs the PM: Different directions

It was reported last week that the Labour Party is preparing a wide-ranging listening exercise over the next two years. The aim is to gather public views to inform future policy discussions. 

It plans to reach around 350,000 voters with various political views, using volunteers, community hubs and technology. There has been no information on how much it will cost to collate and analyse this data. 

The exercise will centre around three questions: “What would you most like to see improve?”, “What should we preserve?” and “What would you like the PL to understand?” 

But is all this really necessary? I think they could save themselves a lot of time, manpower, and money if they scrapped the whole idea and just monitored social media and went outside to speak to people. One would have to be completely oblivious not to know which areas need improvement, what needs to be preserved and what the Labour Party (for which read, the party in government) needs to understand. 

But perhaps the reason the party wants to embark on this exercise is precisely because the man leading the country is really living in his own little dream world, if his recent statements are anything to go by. Maybe they need hard, cold statistics to prove to him that there is a blinding contrast between the direction he wants to take the country, and what the average person wants. 

This dichotomy could not have been more starkly amplified than in these two choice quotes from Abela’s speech in parliament: “Construction sector must keep moving, adjourning itself”; and “Government will continue defending construction sector”. 

What Abela meant by adjourning is anyone’s guess, although I suspect the English translation should have been “updating itself”. 

The second statement, however, simply confirms where Abela’s heart lies. 

Is the man, OK? Could he have possibly gone out on such a limb and uttered these very words? I was reluctant to rely solely on media reports so I listened to his statement myself and, yep, that is exactly what he said. 

It is obvious that with his position assured for another four years, Abela is now comfortable enough to tell us exactly which side he is on, and it is certainly not on our side. His obligations towards the construction lobby and developers could not be more blatantly thrust in our face and we all know why. He’s hardly going to bite the hand that feeds him. The fact that he is so confident in speaking like this, however, just underscores that he is living in a parallel universe, on some Cloud 9 where his only discussions are those with like-minded people who are making money, hand over fist, at our expense. 

If he is so cut off from the common citizen, may I suggest that he takes a look at the comments beneath each of these pronouncements and he will get a crystal-clear picture of what people really think. Not only are people angry and frustrated by the never-ending construction sites on every corner, which have ruined their peace and destroyed the landscape of their neighbourhoods, but they are completely fed up of the economic model which relies on importing foreign workers. Overpopulation is the one major concern of the Maltese people. The two are inextricably connected. 

It is the construction industry which is feeding the need since nothing can be developed without the necessary manpower. These workers then need accommodation, they will ride the buses, be entitled to healthcare, which will in turn require more staff and so the cycle continues.  By making construction the kingpin of the economy, this administration has created a monster. Those with a disposable income are buying property as a rental investment, hiking the prices up to be able to cover the mortgage they took out to buy the property, which in most cases means renting out to those in the gaming industry, who have high salaries or a group of TCNs who split the rent between them. 

Meanwhile, in case no one within his circle has noticed, the resentment towards foreign workers, specifically TCNs, has escalated so much that commentators are not even bothering to hide their vicious, racist hatred any more. 

This week, what I presumed to be a satirical FB page came out with a silly poll asking the public whether they think foreigners should be allowed to obtain a driving licence and have a car in Malta. To my astonishment, people took it seriously. It had around 3,700 reactions, and all of them said ‘no’. 

This is not something to be taken lightly because no matter how unscientific it might have been, I believe it has measured the pulse of public reaction to a fairly accurate degree. The comments were even more disturbing. Here are a few examples: 

“No licence and no free public transport either.” 

“Only give the licence to those whose job is that of a driver.” 

“Is this my children’s future?” 

“You know what’s next for us Maltese, we can just give them the keys to our homes so that we leave and they can be comfortable.” 

“We are sick of this.” 

“We need to throw them out because you cannot even move in our streets, everywhere is jammed.”  

There were hundreds of comments in the same vein, pointing to a national visceral reaction which is palpable and extremely worrying.  

If Robert Abela and his cabinet are not going to seriously sit down and examine the way this country is headed and weigh the respective pros and cons of this economic policy, I dread to think what will happen if words typed online are translated into action. 

Asking for trouble 

It is not as if violence has not already reared its ugly head. As I write, the trial of one of the soldiers, who killed Lassana Cisse in 2019, is underway. 

Lorin Scicluna and fellow former soldier Francesco Fenech are charged with shooting Cisse in the head as he walked along Triq il-Ġebel in Birżebbuġa, in a racially motivated attack. Two other migrants, Mohammed Jallow and Ibrahim Bah, were shot and injured during the same incident. Scicluna is also accused of attempting to murder May Malimi, who was injured in a hit-and-run on the same road two months earlier. 

While this is an extreme case, which we can only pray won’t be repeated, the tensions between locals and “il-barranin” since 2019 have only increased. We have to be very careful because we are treading on very tenuous ground with many undercurrents stirring the pot. 

In an ideal world there would be no such hate or racism, but when you force a small island to accept an influx of thousands of people from other cultures to fill a never-ending list of vacancies in non-essential sectors, you are asking for trouble. 

Like our buses, the country is “full up” and ignoring the fears and concerns of the common man because you are only interested in defending the construction sector, is like driving a 10-tonne truck at breakneck speed into a brick wall, despite all the red warning flags to slow down.  Although I loathe to say it, I’m afraid that one day some incident will spark nationwide unrest with devastating consequences, and if that happens, the blame can only be laid at the foot of the person who is simply not listening and his many ministers who, apparently, do not have the spine to stand up to him.