We need to understand that we dictate the shots

Writing helps to structure my thoughts, to remove the constant swirl, the zig zag neurone to neurone connection of the formulating of hypotheses, the drawing of conclusions.  I used to be able to get some respite.  My mind was once capable of switching off and I’d escape into day dreaming mode, some flight of fancy, some castle building. 

For a long time now, there has been no respite.  The frenetic activity of my mind mirrors the state of my country.

I am drawn to conversations with strangers on Facebook who come up with non sequitur after non sequitur:

She wrote nasty things.  You should be a magistrate because you know so much.  You just want your party to be in power.  What are you saying?  Two years later and we have 4 men in prison.  We don’t know who killed Karen Grech.
On and on it goes.  The vile bile.  The vomit.  It’s impossible to get through to these people.  But I have a compulsion to try.

My country is in a bad way.  It’s diseased.  Its institutions are suffering from a terminal illness and they are on their last legs. 

Many people lie to themselves and / or to others.  Truth is ethereal, evasive.  Instead you have truth twisted and spun completely out of all recognition.  With many it’s a defense mechanism.  They cannot quite believe the perfidy of their idols.  They’re in denial.  To accept that they have been betrayed by the politicians they idolized would be too painful.   

The truth will set you free, it is said.  Some, however, invent their own truths, which therefore are not true.  Truth doesn’t belong to one person or another.  Truth is true to itself and only itself.  Many have lost the ability to recognise truth even when it hits them in the face.

The pity is that we don’t seem to understand the science of cause and effect.  We don’t see how we’ve got to this point or the consequences for the future of the way we’ve handled the unfolding political earthquakes over the last few months, heck years.  We’re short sighted.  We don’t do foresight or hindsight or long term vision.  Even our political leaders and the people heading our institutions are myopic. 

Meanwhile Joseph Muscat zig zags around the globe on his diplomatic passport to Bethlehem, the Vatican, Dubai for 3 days, spending at least 20000 euro in first class flights, London.  His behaviour is suspicious and he doesn’t care that it looks suspicious. 

Tomorrow we start again with our protests.  Our burgeoning civil society – an alliance of different groups you wouldn’t normally see side by side - is the hope.  We have to show the new Prime Minister that we dictate the shots.  Not him.  He needs to understand that the profile of the electorate has changed dramatically.  That the assassination of a journalist was a turning point.  That the way our institutions did not cope with the fall out of her assassination was another turning point.  That the days of red and blue are no more.

Yes, there are voices all over social media that would make you think we had Malta split only between red and blue, like in the old days.  But these voices – ignorant and hateful – make the most noise.  There will be thousands today with no party.  The toxic duopoly is finally on its way out. 

I have faith that we will have a Malta 2.0 which functions, which has the citizen at the centre of everything it does or is.  The trauma and the tragedy of the last few years cannot be for nothing.  Let these years count.