No, the end isn’t nigh
There is a thick fog of discontent in Malta and there has been for several months now. It is not the discontent of worry, or of financial troubles, or of concern about utility rates and job security. It is the discontent of boredom, of people treading water, not knowing what to do with themselves. It is the mood of people who have enough money but think they don’t, who have a job but think others have a better one, who have a home but think no more homes should be built, who are comfortable but think they’re not, whose mood is brittle and irritable and who are ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
Is anybody looking at Iceland and telling themselves that there but for the hard slog of the few and the votes of the many goes Malta? Not from what I’ve heard, and Labour’s brass-necked front-runners are too busy zipping around on the gravy-train, trying to get on it while pushing others off, reinventing themselves as Europhiles, or persuading us of their Damascene experience to point this out. Or maybe they’re just too embarrassed to say: “Look at Iceland. That’s what you’d be contending with right now if we had got our way, and what’s more, with Sant at the helm to steer you through it – and without the hot springs or the cute puffins.” For Joseph Muscat to admit with five years of hindsight and the experience of four years in Brussels that yes, EU membership is OK (not that great, but OK) is one thing. It takes a lot more guts than that to admit just how much of a hash of our lives he and his boss Sant almost made.
What does a good leader do as the public mood becomes bored and negative? At the outset, he makes sure not to mistake bored negativity for worry and fear as Muscat has done. Then he speaks and acts in such a way as to get the country to snap out of it before a real crisis comes along and does the trick. Public moods are like personal moods – no different except for the grand scale. On a national level, the consequences of morose brooding are quite obviously so much worse. They can bring about a recession, for example, or a change in government that risks throwing the country’s foreign policy completely off course and changing its taxation regime, both with disastrous consequences. This happened another time when people were edgy with boredom, in 1995/1996.
When people are bored, they look for trouble, even if not quite consciously. They pick fights and start arguments or have adulterous affairs – anything to remind them that they’re still alive; anything to get their adrenalin going. Edgy boredom can provoke the electorate into switching a good government for a bad one, a capable prime minister for one who hasn’t a clue, a solid future for a short blip of gratification in the here and now.
The prime minister appears to be doing his best, reminding us that our fate would have been Iceland’s, that Malta is one of the few European economies not in recession, that there are fewer people unemployed now than there were at the beginning of the year, that the banks are solid and stable, that there is so much liquidity that when a company issues bonds tens of millions of euros’ worth are snapped up within minutes. But the sound of our bored nagging is drowning him out. We don’t want to be reminded how lucky we are to be living as ordinary people in Malta right now, of how frightening and insecure our lives would be if we lived in those countries we are so accustomed to looking up to as some kind of economic nirvana, where people are paid so well and work conditions are so much better, except that you might lose your job and your home tomorrow. No. We don’t want any of that. We want trouble. And people who are looking for trouble usually find it.
You know how it is when you are moseying around through a blue period, fed up of everything in your life, of your home, of your spouse, of your job, of battling with the children, of not being Paris Hilton or George Clooney – oh poor me, I’m so hard done by, I want more? And then the phone rings, and you get the news that a dear friend has been diagnosed with advanced cancer, that another friend’s son has died after years of fighting a horrible disease, that a colleague’s husband drove out on an errand and wound up in the hospital morgue. And you are shocked into your senses, bargaining with God, if you are religious, or with the Fates if you are superstitious, that if you are spared such great horror you will never be ungrateful again. You will never whine again. You will smile and never grumble. In fact, here you are, God and the Fates, busily counting your blessings right now as you speak. But the weeks go by and you forget. You forget that you have petitioned God, the Fates and the universe to spare you from trouble as long as you live, and instead you go looking for that trouble yourself.
The same thing happens at a national level. If the Zeitgeist is negative, bored, edgy, looking for the adrenalin of trouble and strife, then trouble will turn up. People who are in this mood rush towards trouble, they seek it, and they welcome it with open arms. It sounds perverse, but it’s human nature. We crave that adrenalin so much that we will get it at the expense of our safety, our security, our health, our marriages, and our sanity. Some people even get it at the expense of their lives.
In this mood, we are rushing ourselves headlong towards a recession that will be almost entirely of our own making. There are people about who actually seem to crave it, who insist that we are in recession already, despite the official economic statistics which show otherwise. They are talking about it, writing about it, commenting about it on the internet. They want the incubus. They are doing their best to raise it with their spells. They want it because the cure to human boredom is not, as so many appear to believe, some real reasons to be happy. People can have all the reasons in the world to be happy – lovely homes, beautiful, clever and healthy children, enough money, a decent spouse, holidays, comforts, clothes and jewellery, and they will still be bored. No. Reasons to be happy are not the cure. The cure for human boredom is fear. It is worry. It is that sick feeling in your gut that tells you what has happened or is about to happen will throw you right off course, destroy your plans, keep you awake at night, drive you to sob with despair, make you wish you could go back in time to when you were bored, only of course, you wouldn’t be bored this time. You would be grateful.
When the public mood is what it is today, and when people show no sign of snapping out of it, no number of gentle reminders that they have money, they have jobs, they have homes from which they are not going to be evicted, are going to change their mood. The only thing that will change their mood is the trouble they are looking for: a giant recession with thousands losing their jobs, empty shops, failing businesses and the flight of our youngest and our brightest to other countries in search of a living. If we want it enough, we will get it.
As for Joseph Muscat, he doesn’t disappoint those who had no expectations. But he is disappointing others. As people become ever more jittery, more nervous, as they gear up to spoil for a fight or for a nice spot of trouble, what does he do? He tells the government that it isn’t trusted by the European Commission (what, and he – with the track record of a weathervane in a force seven gale – is?). Oh, and he metaphorically puts on a red wig, pretends he’s Astrid Vella, and creates a ruckus about an underground museum beneath St John Street, not St John’s Cathedral, that has yet to go through the tortuous hoops of fire of the planning process. As for the rest, it’s quite beyond him. This is the time for inspirational words, for attempts at firing people up with enthusiasm, for ‘we can do it’ pep talks and for rallying-cries. He just doesn’t know how to do it. He just hasn’t got what it takes. He hasn’t got the credibility, or the nous, or the political maturity, or even the brains.
Muscat and his supporters mistook Obama’s rallying-cry of ‘Yes, we can’ to mean ‘Yes, we can win this election’. And that is how they are using it themselves – yes, we Labourites can make it. Yes, we Labourites can seize power. Yes, I can become prime minister. But that is not what Obama’s rallying cry meant. It was a call to unity: together, as a people, we can get this country back on track. It was not about him, or his party. It was not about hunger for power.
Malta doesn’t need to get back on track. It’s on track already. The prime minister appears to be doing what he can to remind us that we’re not on track by accident, luck or chance, but by design, and that it’s going to take collective effort to stay there given what’s happening in the world economy. What would the leader of the opposition do if he had true leadership qualities? He would pull together with the prime minister and try to knock some sense into our heads, instead of hoping that we will dance straight into the fire so that he may find it easier to persuade us that he is the solution. The last three Labour leaders before him will go down in history for putting themselves before the country. We don’t need another one to do the same.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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Daphne,
Last night on the Swiss evening news there was an interview with Ernest-Antoine Seilliere ‘Patron de Patrons’ Business Europe who said he had been to Malta the day before. He was full of praise for the banking people on the Island who had mainly managed to steer clear of the madness that had seized the rest of the world. One more positive for the island?
This is all true, however I still think that Muscat, being young and fresh (although inexperienced), can offer a good alternative. He’s better than his predecessor for sure! I have my doubts whether the PN can hold on to its government for long.
[Daphne – Why do you have those doubts? The economy is sound, there is no unemployment, except of those who don’t want to work anyway. No people are being evicted from their homes because they can’t pay their loans. And there is no struggle for power in cabinet. Also, the prime minister is psychologically stable and will not be going down to Birgu to pick a public fight with a renegade backbencher any time soon. I never cease to be amazed at the way people can’t distinguish between wishful thinking and a pragmatic analysis of the situation.]
quote: “I never cease to be amazed at the way people can’t distinguish between wishful thinking and a pragmatic analysis of the situation”.
No wonder. You live in Malta.
I don’t really agree that the economy is sound. ST is not doing well and many companies are on a 4-day week. The new energy bills have affected a lot of people (although many are still waiting for them) and this does not bode well for the economy.
The struggle for power in the cabinet is not there for all to see. This is the way the PN works. Unlike Labour, where everything is done in public. Gonzi knows that he has only a one seat majority, and as in the latest case of the St John Co-Cathedral, he might be in for an embarrassment as his MPs are called to vote.
Mine is not wishful thinking. I voted PN last March and in 2003 but I’m afraid that the PN we have now is a far cry to the PN with Eddie as leader. Gonzi only managed to beat Sant by 1,500 votes and I don’t think he will manage to win another election, unfortunately.
[Daphne – Well, he won’t win another election, obviously, if people continue to reason with their rear-end and think of their vote as a tool to punish and reward leaders, rather than a ballot with which to choose a prime minister. Again, this is typically southern Italian thinking, but I don’t want to go there – there are anthropological studies on people’s attitudes towards voting in the regions of southern Italy around 50 years ago, and they are identical to ours. Every election brings a choice between one man and another, not between one party and another, as our history has made amply clear since 1971. If you have a choice between Gonzi and Muscat and you choose Muscat, deliberately or by default, then the choice is yours. But you can’t blame Gonzi when you end up with Muscat as prime minister – as so many of my acquaintances blamed ‘the Nationalists’ when they ended up with Sant as prime minister in 1996, after they had voted for him themselves.]
F Chircop: Certainly Muscat “can offer a good alternative” – to his predecessors.
Do read this brilliant piece. I chanced on it just now while researching the Land of Cockaigne. It pretty much sums up the prevalent mood in Malta: we’d dreamed of plenty, and now that we have it, it’s not quite what we thought it was.
I especially like this ‘rule of thumb’: if you’re not sure you live in plenty, then you do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/twentyminutes/pip/ho1si/
At last a real pro Europe Joseph Muscat I can vote for.
http://josephmatthewmuscat.com/site/
James
Daphne makes a very valid point.
I visited Malta just recently and was amazed at how little the country seems to be effected by the international crisis which is raging in the U.S.and from what I read most of Europe.
Just to give you the picture from someone living it up close. In the U.S. at present there is record unemployment and people are just buried in mountains of debt of their own making. You go through some neighborhoods and every third house has a for sale sign on it, bank owned etc due to the foreclosure crisis. By way of example, my property value has dropped 60% in just a year. If I had got a home equity line of credit which is what all the banks were urging people to do I would have negative equity in my property. Millions splurged by tapping on the equity in their homes and are now up to their necks as the interest rates on their balloon mortgages have escalated or as the banks have pulled the financial rug out from under their feet. Had I followed my stock broker’s advice and invested in “brick and mortar” by buying now worthless real estate mutual funds my investments would be down 60%. I am the exception not the rule – nearly everyone I know has seen their life savings axed by two thirds. Their retirement funds decimated. It is practically impossible for people to get financing to do anything – invest in a business venture or even buy real estate. The market is full of speculators (read vultures) snapping up properties from distressed owners at a fraction of cost. The court dockets are jammed with foreclosures and people bringing actions to rescind contracts. Good for us lawyers who have been able to change practice areas to specialize in new fields of practice but bad for everyone else.
So thank your lucky stars that Malta has some smart people making economic policy decisions and managing investments soundly. If that was not the case you would all be in the same boat as the rest of the free market economies of the world – which to use an American term would mean that you would all be up s**t creek.
This is not to endorse the PN, or to rubbish the MLP – it is just stating the facts the way I see them down the barrel of my telescope.
Well, as Frank Herbert rightly said in his book Dune:
“..He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us ‘The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door.’ And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning “That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
“I’ll miss the sea, but a person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
The human race needs change and chaos in order to evolve and survive. Otherwise, if we are pampered too much we will loose our drive. We must not live to simply exist, but rather exist to live!
Those who say (as David Casa did) that Iceland’s financial troubles are a consequence of their not being EU members shows how ill-informed they are. What happened in Iceland was that their three main banks had tapped heavily into the US derivatives market, dishing out unlimited credit to the whole world. So when the bubbles started bursting, they collapsed and burdened the Icelandic government and taxpayers with the residue. Had Malta’s banks acted in the same way we too would have had to crawl to the IMF for substantial loans.
Why compare Iceland with Malta? Iceland was effectively a ‘hedge fund in the North Atlantic’ with great amounts of money being borrowed and invested in a bubble. Iceland decided some time ago that its future lay in banking, and all was geared towards that with the total borrowing and investment many times the country GDP, hence its downfall when all went sour and the government had to fullfil its guarantees.
It is very misleading (and opportunistic) to compare Iceland with Malta; they are two different realities. Iceland was very adventurous with its banking system (the Viking heritage perhaps?) and Malta was not, and this eventually was its downfall.
I am sure Iceland will bounce back in a few years; I am lucky enough to have been twice, and was amazed at its natural beauty and good service industry. It has lots to offer and would recommend to anyone.
[Daphne – Iceland’s problems are compounded by its currency and by the fact that, even more than Malta because we at least grow most of our own produce, it must import every last scrap of food and almost everything else, too – which becomes increasingly difficult when your currency is in free-fall.]
@Daphne/bbc-twentyminutes
Brilliiant piece indeed!
-‘If you are hungry, you really, really need a slice of toast.’- I always wondered about the fact that a lot of those ‘on a high level moaners’ on the Rock can afford to live in a spacious house, drive two cars, spoil themselves with a brand new and ludicrously huge plasma TV and other silly electronic toys, flashy expensive furniture which are protected by plastic covers, pompous new dresses for the annual village festa and last but not least a camera phone for each of their children.
But then water and electricity has to be God-given.
Re: [Daphne – Iceland’s problems are compounded by its currency and by the fact that, even more than Malta because we at least grow most of our own produce, it must import every last scrap of food and almost everything else, too – which becomes increasingly difficult when your currency is in free-fall.]
True, indeed. But let us not make it sound like Malta’s fate would be like Iceland had we not joined the EU and Eurozone.
Germany is in the Eurozone but still is in a crisis. We don’t have a credit crunch not because we’re in the Eurozone but mainly due to “our” banks’ policies. Unless we decide to become an autarky, which I don’t think you would like, we’re likely to suffer an economic downturn with the rest of the world (even if, we must keep in mind, Malta’s GDP grew in the 70s despite the global economic slowdown and stagflation).
[Daphne – Please don’t cite 1970s Malta as an example of economic success or I shall be forced to send the men in white round to your house.]
@Uncle Fester
Perfectly described.
I live and work in Germany and I’ve never seen such an alarming amount of financial and personal breakdowns before.
As regards the claim that the island is not suffering any unemployment the ST situation is a cause for concern as is this just recently published press release:
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions Malta
Press Release
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions Malta is still experiencing a drop in the order-book as a result of the current global economic situation.
As of 12 January 2009, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions Malta entered into negotiations with the General Workers Union to reduce its staff compliment by 102.
As previously announced, over the past few months the Company has taken various measures to mitigate the situation and had also implemented a four- day week for all its employees which ceased as of 1 January 2009
I find the recent statements by our Finance minister and the PM on probably recovery by the third quarter highly irresponsible and misleading.
[Daphne – Gerald, you are one of those people I wrote about today: spoiling for a spot of trouble, actually seeking trouble out. Try abseiling down Dingli Cliffs. It will give you the adrenalin rush and excitement you seem to need without imposing an economic crisis on the rest of us. Thank you.]
@Gerald and F. Chircop
Manufacturing is very much akin to the living cell cycle – there is a period of rapid growth, stability and then aptoptosis (programmed cell death) – but new cells would grow and replace the death ones. I can already tell you that in 15-20 years time the pharmaceutical industry in Malta will go through its terminal phase (i.e. if it does not re-invent itself in becoming a real, research and innovation driven sector).
So as long as new investment (and this does not necessary mean manufacturing as we know it today – but most probably the “manufacturing” of intellectual property) is attracted to the country, the end result would be a merry-go-round of workers and an actual increase in employment.
To Daphne – A well written article and a very accurate picture of the Maltese mentality!
quote Andrea: “I live and work in Germany and I’ve never seen such an alarming amount of financial and personal breakdowns before”.
Indeed, how true. I am in a lucky position now, but my junior, who has just finished an IT internship with Metro AG in Düsseldorf, will have a hectic future considering the wave of discharges and insolvencies in Germany. He is moving on to Hewlett Packard in summer but both Metro and HP have announced that they will be reducing staff, as is the plan of many other significant companies such as SAP, BMW and Mercedes.
Anybody who says that this country’s economic problems are not serious is unable to read (or interpret) economic figures and lacks good judgement. Malta’s budget deficit and national debt were unsustainable even before the crisis began and now they’ve got worse. Despite the prime minister’s efforts, economic output is deteriorating alarmingly. How can anybody deny this? It’s true that so far we haven’t been hurt but things won’t remain as they are. Just watch tourism predictions for 2009 and you’ll get an indication of what we’re in for.
And you can’t blame readers or call them alarmists for pointing out these facts when their views are backed by official data. They have a right to express their concerns.
One must seriously heed what J.Bonnici has written, especially if one wishes to believe John Dalli with respect to reform of health care and hospital services.
Re tourism, why does no one in Malta mention that the low cost airlines will be withdrawing their services between Malta and Germany?
The feeling I got when reading this article was similar to that of listening to a sermon in church, in which the priest admonishes us that we should not grumble regarding our miserly existence, for the fires of hell are surely awaiting us if we wish for something better, and if we deviate from the sacred truth. Its policies are unassailable, are the plain truth, and whoever voices different ideas is stupid, or mad.
It seems the Nationalist Party is turning into a religion, complete with high priestess and saints (or, rather ONE Saint, our Gonzi).
Is it possible that the majority of the Maltese people accept that their aspirations and their worries be treated this way?
I can’t believe we are now being made to believe that other European countries are almost looking at us and admiring us how we perform miracles every day.
As Mintoff used to tell us that we can teach democracy to the western world, now we are being told we can teach economic managment to America, Britain, Germany.
Once again, when the going gets tough, we begin hearing the “Malta fior del mondo” drivel and our “opinion makers” being to lecture us on how good we now have it. Oh, and why does the guy “who lives and works in Germany” not leave that hell on earth were people are falling down dead in the street, and rush back to din l-art helwa?
The ideas one hears in this country are getting more twisted by the hour. It IS good fun, though, I have to admit, especially when sharing what is written here with my foreign friends!
[Daphne – I don’t know about you, Albert, but I spent half my life under a Labour government and the other half under a Nationalist government, and my considered view is that Labour governments go out of their way to kill aspirations and to increase worry levels to the point of apoplexy, while with the other lot, it’s the other way round. Not being mad, prejudiced or chippy, I go for the sensible bunch, and not for the factory seconds.
‘The guy who lives in Germany’ has been there since the 1960s. It’s his home. That’s why he doesn’t leave and come back here, because this is not his home. As for your foreign friends – I think it’s so amusing when people feel the need to refer to their foreign friends for validation and affirmation, a Maltese opinion clearly not being good enough, even if the foreign friends are probably from some suburban hell-hole or backwater and have hideous desk-jobs in a company that employs a thousand people. But never mind.]
On this count, I fully agree with Daphne. Moaning and fear bring more fear and then truly we will be in the doldrums. We Maltese in these troubled times must take up the call of Eddie Fenech Adami: Kuragg, Maltin.This must be our battle cry for the second time.
Some time ago I was discussing the global recession with an old man of few but wise words, and I would like to share his words with you. He said “I compare what’s happening to the world to someone driving a car at top speed. He cannot keep speeding forever but at some point he will have to press the brakes. He might have to brake slowly because of an obstacle, keep driving at slow speed for some time, and then gather speed again. On the other hand, he might have to brake suddenly to avoid a nasty accident and then drive on slowly rather shaky from the near miss. If he’s reckless, he might brake when it’s too late resulting in very serious consequences which might turn out to be costly, painful or worse still, fatal. But the fact remains that he cannot keep going at top speed forever….and neither can the world”. How wise and how true.
@Leo Said
It’s quite a disillusion. I’ve been freelancing in the TV and movie industry for more than ten years now and the job situation is getting ridiculous. Most of my fellows ‘threw in the towel’, since we have to cope with massive ‘price dumping’, short-term contracts, a pretty rough working atmosphere due to increasing competition or simply with the lack of job offers.
All the best for your junior!
Considering what is happening in the world these last few months, this is one of the most level headed and sober articles I have read for some time now. The pity is, this is an article that will be ignored by the majority of people who should instead be reading it!… Only those who have spent some time living abroad will better appreciate what a happy and lucky island we are, in spite of the thousand and one problems we face.
I’ll consider abseiling down Dingli Cliffs although it’s been around 16 years since I last did something similar.
Why are there so many deals in BOV shares?………What did Dr Gonzi actually discuss with Deutsche Bank?
Turkey’s prime minister storms off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, after a fight with Israel’s president:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/29/mideast/peres.4-419000.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7859487.stm
quote Albert Farrugia: “Oh, and why does the guy “who lives and works in Germany” not leave that hell on earth were people are falling down dead in the street, and rush back to din l-art helwa?”
Mr. Farrugia, for correctness’ sake, it was our friend Andrea who wrote the words which seem to have irritated you. I believe that Andrea is a native German and, as such, Germany would be Andrea’s art helwa. I live in Germany but I do not work. Moreover, I have not yet met any person “falling down dead in the street”. Finally, I genuinely wish you the best of luck in all that you do.
@ Noel Buttigieg Scicluna
You write the following: “Only those who have spent some time living abroad will better appreciate what a happy and lucky island we are, in spite of the thousand and one problems we face”.
Please tell us more about your particular, individual experience/s.
The problems Iceland is facing at the moment are due the reckless banking policies their major banks adopted. Had they been more prudent in their lending policies, Iceland would not be facing the financial meltdown it is facing now. To pin it down to the fact that Iceland is not part of the EU and more importantly the Eurozone is being overly simplistic.