State of the Nation: party dominance reveals state carved by political, not citizens’ interests

President George Vella yesterday closed off a second, national conference from the State of the Nation series at the Verdala Palace.

Four panels each with a series of individual guests, social partner stakeholders, public intellectuals and social and political activists, debated various themes on the concept of Maltese nationhood and citizenship.

“Today’s national conference enabled us to take an introspective look at ourselves. This is always the first step one must take to improve oneself,” Vella said.

Data from a national survey carried out by convenor and statiscian Vince Marmara showed the importance of the immediate family in Maltese society and decision-making, and the waning interest in politics after the 2022 election, as well as the strong faith in God but necessarily religion.

Vella pointed out the need for active citizenship away from political parties, and whether the Maltese were started to become less interested in politics.

“In the heated session on the environment,” Vella said, “there was a clear call to go beyond the buzzwords, to address mistakes and bad decisions in a concrete way, and to revise laws related to this sector.”

Vella said as the fourth pillar of democracy the media remained crucial for the rule of law, reaffirming the importance of factuality of reporting. “It seems that nowadays an informal trend has emerged where everyone became a journalist... in my opinon, journalists should devise agendas themselves, rather than giving the public what they want to hear.”

Vella also remarked that “true independent journalism” was becoming rarer.  

Prime Minister Robert Abela and Leader of the Opposition Bernard Grech also addressed the State of the Nation conference.

In his closing speech, convenor Lou Bondì questioned whether identity politics were undermining a sense of nation and collective conscience, and that the death of ideologies had allowed a space to be filled by electoral decisions guided only by what voters “see in their mirror every morning.”

Taking Malta’s independence in 1964 as a starter mark, Bondì suggested that the Maltese state had been indeed designed by political party leaders in a way that set it apart from active citizens, by treating them as spectators “waiting at the porch rather than being allowed inside the State’s castle”.

Bondì’s speech also reflected observations raised throughout several of the day’s panels, that the Maltese tended to consider institutional and ethical issues, or corruption and abuse of power, only through the prism of their party allegiance, rather than as matters of State.

“Maybe that’s why we find it difficult to criticise an idea without attacking the person who holds that idea. Maybe that’s why people fail to see the contradiction of denigrating those they claim ‘spread hate’ with an even bigger dose of hatred. Maybe that’s why the centrist space bereft of a debate between the Left and the Right has been taken up by theatre of the absurd.”

A former journalist, Bondì paid tribute to the investigative press in Malta and to the European presence necessitated by the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

But he had a barb for what he said were self-styled narratives of the media and bloggers spun against the parties. “Could it be that they have blurred the distinction between fact and opinion, with truth drowning in this sea of stormy narratives?”

And referring to Labour’s super-majorities in the last two elections which found the majority of the independent press against the government, Bondì said the Maltese press had shown itself incapable of understanding their own readers.