CHRONICLES OF A CRONYIST COUNTRY — I
Cronyism in Malta has become so endemic and part of the fabric of Maltese society that it is even affecting every aspect of daily life on the island. Mostly to the detriment of societal well-being and meaningful progress.
The usual, easy, dismissive explanation thrown about is the increasingly grating “It’s our culture! We are Mediterranean! We are a small country!” Grating because it has become a facile excuse to frankly reprehensible behavior not just by common citizens, but by the political class as well, the persons that should lead by example, instead of just expecting nothing but adoration from the masses.
It’s time to forget once and for all the ubiquitous image of Vito Corleone as the standard for a mafioso. In Malta, gangsters wear business suits and go to parliament, selling hard the scam that the institutions are working in the country. For as long as I have been on this earth, there was absolutely no benchmark as to what constitutes illicit, irresponsible behavior from politicians. And the bar has been set so low, even limbo professionals give up trying to pass under it.
If anything, what we’re seeing today is an almost active encouragement of such behavior wrapped around a relatively “safe” mantle of impunity. Justice is only served to make an example out of the powerless. The well-connected are given just a slap on the wrist, and off they go carried on the shoulders of the faithful celebrated as martyrs of “socialist” values. Members of the Labour government always lament that this happened under Nationalist governments too, but fact of the matter is, it doesn’t give the current administration carte blanche to even consider doing the same shit over again, with an even more barefaced impunity.
The political class in Malta needs a thorough, absolute upheaval and clean up. Small parties like the orange-green alliance of ADPD might stand a chance to change the system from within, but it would be delusional if we ignore the fact that the system is meant to keep smaller parties from making any significant entry into parliaments, unless co-opted by either one of the major parties. And if history teaches us anything, it teaches us that it repeats itself.
With mainstream parties in disarray throughout Europe and the world, with leftist parties pandering to neoliberal policies, most of the vacuum has been taken over by a resurgence of far-right parties. The US, Hungary, Poland, Greece and the UK have already gone through this. My man Yanis Varoufakis makes it explicit enough in this video that much of the responsibility of this lies on the Left, for backtracking on their promises and betraying the electorate. If the Left in particular doesn’t step up and show up, the scales will continue to lean towards the far-right establishment.
Back to the Maltese context, lemon emojis not withstanding, blaming/ridiculing the general public for wrong decisions, calling them ignorant or uneducated doesn’t do the trick. It smacks of patronizing, privileged bourgeois arrogance that only alienates communities further and further away.
In Malta, a group of gangster grannies flout Covid restrictions to play tombola or football fans go out all out festive. And we can meme our days away sniggering at them, when this attitude is propagated by a veritable lack of tough leadership. Both should be held accountable, but the latter deserves even more stern criticism. And I fear it won’t be long until we hear that culprits get scot free because someone knows someone who knows someone. Yet this attitude needs to be addressed at a community level — we’ve got to ask ourselves why people have resorted to cronyism to begin with, adopting an understanding without condoning.
Communities at large should not be fought against but engaged in a much-needed, extremely difficult conversation. Anyone who says stands on the side of the community at large might not like what they hear, at all, but it’ll be the cold shower needed to rethink strategies of engagement. In the environmental sector — and in other areas as well — I can safely say that Moviment Graffitti have been doing amazingly well in that front. They’re slowly gaining an honorable reputation for always standing alongside communities affected by the current senseless destruction, propagated by Infrastructure Malta with the blessing of a Lorry Sant wannabe. That this Lorry Sant wannabe resorts to truth-twisting PR tactics is a sign of Graffitti succeeding in delivering their message quite well to a justifiably angered public.
An angered public that is slowly slowly realizing cronyism is leaving them stranded behind, with scraps for justice…if there’s any scraps left to begin with. These communities are facing mounting pressure in accepting compromises which in the long-run have absolutely no benefits whatsoever. The sheer amount of arrogance and gaslighting by contractors who just show up without warning and notice to tear down perfectly farmable fields is definitely worrying and unacceptable. But just saying this or acting horrified or offended no longer cuts it. Now more than ever is time to put all the weight behind taking action.
There’s only so much I can do over here except to urge you to join Moviment Graffitti in their actions or even donating to their cause, because I can’t stress enough the importance of safeguarding the future of a country that’s increasingly becoming unrecognizable.
Stay safe out there!
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