The insanity of it all

It’s been coming a long time. Several years marked by a lack of leadership, with no vision to speak of, and what appears to be an insatiable need for power.

This was somehow sustained by a recipe for disaster, where the major claim remains that of an economy that “works for everyone”, even when it was clearly schizophrenic to claim that you could create wealth by any means—including legalised forms of piracy—and then somehow assume you could sustain a welfare state based on a continuous promise of anything that keeps the people happy.

We were told that you could develop a politics, which is “economically on the right, and socially on the left”. A fiscal conservativism that somehow is socially progressive, as if the circle has now been squared. It’s a recipe that keeps going and going and going.

In terms of winning elections, the recipe somehow worked because the promise of an economy that keeps growing ad eternum became a quasi-doctrine, if not a mantra. Labour politicians promised their faithful all will be fine as long as we let developers do whatever they like, we keep building and building, and when we need human labour, just as we do with everything else, we can import it.

Serving God and Mammon

This doctrine failed to explain how it could work, particularly when we got the impression that you could serve God and Mammon at the same time without anyone noticing. Somehow, within the context of Malta’s post-independence history, the people got the impression that they could keep Dom Mintoff’s vision of a neutral welfare state that is equitable and fair, sustained by Eddie Fenech Adami’s vision of unbridled free trade within the EU which will sustain a society that is kept going without ever questioning creeping inequality, as long as people see themselves on the up.

So, when, after Lawrence Gonzi, Joseph Muscat took this logic to its conclusion, he and his successor, Robert Abela, promised everyone that from now on all Maltese people will be “sinjuri żgħar”, literally implying that somehow the whole society is going to shift into middle class mode.

Any dissent is now regarded as either being too negative, or siding with the opposition, which basically had nothing different to offer, if not becoming treasonous towards Malta itself. And so, when the consequences of this adventure resulted in over development, a sense of inevitable growth that could only lead to an oversized lifestyle which is unsustainable, and by implication one fifth of the population imported as cheap labour with the aim of servicing this wonderful economic recipe, the proverbial hit the fan.

The parable of the snail

Ivan Illich, that inspiring and controversial thinker who warned us about anything that appears to be benign turning into its own opposite, compared incessant growth with a snail. The snail, Illich reminds us, cannot keep growing endlessly, because it will die under its own weight.

As we know from Malta’s long and rich history, size matters. It matters both in terms of its advantages, as well as what remains detrimental to how we go about living and using the space that we have. And when I say “space”, I do not just mean land or air, but also how we, as a society, choose to live with each other.

When our politicians decided to promise heaven on earth in order to retain power, they forfeited any vision on which they made such promises. This is why, as a country and as a society, we now find ourselves rudderless.

As we hear politicians moaning about overpopulation while complaining about a low birth rate, it becomes evident that there’s something wrong with how the political imaginary has evolved on these small islands. First off, to say that you’re over-populated and then complain about a low birth rate implies a nativist argument. It is nativist because it claims that only a specific group of people are deemed to be “Maltese”. The consequences of such reasoning are, to say the least, worrying, if not terrifying.

Another contradiction comes with the reasoning that while we worship and idolise growth, at the same time we are now complaining that the means by which we entered into this adventure, is now fettering our own way of life. If overdevelopment and an aging population needed more service to sustain the claimed comfort on which the political parties tend to premise their promises, then why are we complaining about a workforce which readily and enthusiastically our leaders have invited to Malta while giving carte blanche to employment practices which are often discriminatory?

The cruel voice of resentment

What’s even more worrying is that the growing resentment by which many loud voices in society and especially on social media are sowing hatred, if not outright racism, remains unchecked. Gone are the days when political leaders represented a moral compass. Loath them or love them, iconic political leaders which emerged after WWII, such as Pawlu Boffa and George Borg Olivier, and those who played a major role in Malta’s achievements of independence and republican status, like Mintoff and Fenech Adami, sustained their politics with an ethical vision. In contrast, today our leaders look like managers and entrepreneurs, who may be well-groomed and soft spoken, but are as bland as dishwater and as exciting as batshit. 

Lacking leadership and vision, Maltese society is being increasingly played by a continuous hatred towards both the other and each other. With the exception of a courageous few, politicians are now inclined to go with hollow statements, parroting those ghastly influencers who seem convinced that an iphone and a wall on social media is enough to form opinion and run a country. And it seems to work because those who are courageous enough to push back on such hatred, are immediately ostracised, labelled as being treasonous, or belonging to the opposite tribe, or even accused of “hating ‘the Maltese’”.

Pleasing “the Maltese”?

It is plainly insane to argue that in order to please “the Maltese”, everything goes, including measures which directly target and discriminate the very same people who were invited to Malta in order to sustain its growth-crazy economy.

As we have seen in the last few weeks, such discriminatory measures have not only gained noisy support from those who claim to be “Maltese” beyond anyone else, but have fomented a social and political culture which will eventually destroy the moral fibre of society itself.

This may sound apocalyptic, but actually we have seen this happening elsewhere. Alas, in Malta there reigns a sense of exceptionalism which seems to blind us from seeing this danger.

In a world that is increasingly become more diverse and mobile than it has ever been, one cannot sustain a notion of a welfare state that is reserved for “the Maltese”. Besides, just like today’s immigrants coming to Malta to sustain the service industries, those who see themselves as Maltese today have an ancestry, which once came to the Maltese Islands for one reason or another. It doesn’t matter how long one has been in a country. What matters is how we all come to belong to societies which we might not have even planned to form part of—as indeed, many migrants will confirm.

To think or say otherwise, is plainly dangerous. This is not a matter of opinion—to which everyone has a right—but a matter of understanding that the choices which we have made, demand that we now live up to them.

Doing otherwise would be plain political insanity, and with all due respect to our leaders, this is what they’re failing to understand. They can go on winning elections, but the consequences of their actions will eventually catch up with them as well and that would not be pretty at all.