Hasta La Revolucion Siempre
Now we're rebels looking for a cause
This was my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, 9th October.
The best way I can find to describe what’s been going on recently is that the perfectly natural thirst for revolution can’t find an appropriate outlet. There’s a lot of anger and frustration out there and it’s looking for a home.
Some of this hunger for revolution is normal, stage-of-life, developmental anger among those making the transition from immaturity to maturity. The need to change the world never changes, nor does our belief – before reality hits and we discover just how ordinary we all are – that our revolutionary zeal is unique and unparalleled in the history of humankind.
It’s the reason why so many new entrants to adulthood haven’t yet realised that Che Guevara posters were a cliché already 40 years ago.
But some of that anger and frustration are stage-of-life of another kind entirely. They are caused by the doubts and confusion that begin to set in sometime around our late 30s, when we suddenly realise that our future is rapidly becoming our past, that things have not turned out quite the way we had in mind, and that this isn’t really what we want to be doing for the rest of our lives – but we don’t know how to go about changing that.
This creeping doubt and insecurity then turns into a full-blown midlife crisis when marriages break down and futile attempts are made to recapture youth.
But there is no Maltese template for having a relationship in a post-marital context, which is devoid of the only motivation known previously: that which comes from starting out in life together and building a home and family.
Without that motivation, and with no other framework, pattern or example, a lot of Maltese post-marital relationships remain shallow and unsatisfactory, contributing to the mounting despair of the people involved in them, rather than staving off existential misery.
You know that there’s a hunger for revolution, but no appropriate home for all that pent-up emotional energy and indignation, when students – who in various other contexts would have demonstrated against war, the draft, racism, racial segregation, the imprisonment of writers, human rights violations, or even just spending cuts or sharp increases in their tuition fees – end up fussing about buses like pensioners.
I think if I were 18, or 19, or 20, I would be embarrassed to raise hell about the bus service, no matter how difficult it makes my life. The cause somehow lacks the necessary glamour.
Let’s just say that I don’t think I’d be moved enough to get myself arrested and detained in excrement-smeared pitch-darkness by Anglu Farrugia over waiting-times at bus-stops.
But things were a lot rougher then, so comparisons are out of order. To the current crop of 19-year-olds, the bus service probably seems like the greatest insult to their dignity as human-beings, because the reality is that they don’t have much else to get upset about, and everything is sorted out and paid for.
Another thing that’s different now is that 19-year-olds don’t appear to feel the need to be cool about everything, except for obvious provocations like gross violations of human rights. From what I see, getting hot under the collar about anything and everything, like those aforementioned pensioners, is the new cool.
I find this fascinating, because it’s just so different.
Even though we used the bus to get around, it took us three hours to get somewhere and back, and all buses stopped operating at 9pm except for those to Sliema (which ran until 11pm because of the wild tourists who stayed out late), we behaved as though we were miraculously teleported to our destination from our point of departure, arriving cool and relaxed – to quote a former prime minister – despite feeling hot and harried and having just released inwardly a string of expletives at the time it took us to get there.
We would have never dreamt of turning up somewhere looking hassled and going on about how long it took us to get there by bus, and which routes we took and didn’t take. We would have been acutely conscious of sounding just like our mothers, and that would have spelt instant social pariah status as the nerd from hell.
It’s the same with their parents’ generation, which is my generation now, but this for midlife crisis reasons rather than start-of-life angst. To listen to my contemporaries talk (and talk and talk), you’d think they spend the day getting around by bus, that buses are a huge part of their life, and that they have shares in Arriva and are concerned about potential damage to their value.
The way they bang on, you’d imagine that Malta is a place where 90% of the population is dependent on buses, and not where the number of cars is roughly the same size as the number of people old enough to drive.
More and more, lately, after listening to conversations and reading newspapers and the internet, I am left with the feeling not so much that people are angry about this or angry about that, but that they are angry, full stop, and that the real source of their anger is personal disquiet.
What seems outwardly to be the reason for their disproportionate rage – the buses, for instance, or the infamous ‘we need a change’ – is really just the target for anger that would otherwise be unfocused.
I’ve come to the conclusion that when people say ‘we need a change’ and believe they are referring to the government, they are projecting onto the public sphere the private and personal unhappiness they feel at the dawning realisation that they need to make serious changes in their own lives, before it’s too late.
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Excellent. You hit the nail on the head.
Fine article.
Malta now has a foundation that our society can build upon.
The past 24 years have firmly laid that foundation. This is the beginning of Malta’s future, a future we should be looking forward to and asking ourselves what we can contribute to this development.
Sadly, much of our society seems to ‘think’ that Malta has already reached its destination and they are unhappy with the result.
The article above eloquently highlights that the disquiet of so many Maltese is more inward than outward – though the words are all directed outwards.
Whatever some of our compatriots say and do, let us keep building on the foundations of the past 24 years and then let the people decide.
Even if the majority in 2013 decide to choose Joseph Muscat’s party, we must be patient and keep on building just like that young Maltese person did in Anglu Farrugia’s excrement covered cell.
Daphne, whilst I am Nationalist (no, not a GonziPNist) I still feel the need for change not necessarily Labour, but a change in faces in our camp would do miracles. I’m sorry to say but the likes of Tonio Fenech, Austin Gatt ( not running again ) and Tonio Borg do no favours for the party’s image.
True, but you just have to look at the alternatives: Karmenu Vella and George Vella, Alex Sceberras Trigona, Leo Brincat…
And what about the recent acquisitions residing comfortably in Joseph’s skip, with a few more prospects to join in soon?
Nightwing, then all you have to do is vote for new faces in your constituency. I am ashamed to have voted for JPO in the last election. I shall be voting for a new face come next election. If JPO is on the ballot paper on the PN side (I doubt) then the box next to his name will remain empty.
It is not only the Nationalists who believe that this government is moving in the right direction, even if takes detours along the way. Even Joe Muscat thinks that the Gonzi govt is on the right track.
Labour leader Joseph Muscat has promised ‘continuity’ from a PN –led administration should he be elected Prime Minister.
Speaking on Radio Malta 2 this morning, Joseph Muscat said that should he be entrusted by the electorate to govern the country in the coming general election, he will not adopt a policy whereby all that has been done by a PN-led administration would be put aside.
“I for one, and my party are here for the common good of all, and we will definitely not destroy the good which was done by a PN-led administration,” Muscat said.
there you have it, even if the above piece has been cut from MaltaYesterday.
So why do we need to change the party in government? Just change the faces.
@ Nightwing,
Where were you when politicians like Austin Gatt were needed to face down the Labour Party?
The rebel Robert Musumeci is on Super One radio right now with buddy Gino Cauchi & Co discussing the “democratic deficit” in PBS.
OK, there are far more worse problems than Malta’s new bus system
But still, we have the right to say that the service is bad or worse than before. The service is not reliable. Why should I have to leave home two hours before I start work so that I hope I get on a bus that is not full up (*) and still arrive late for work?
(*) not because more people are using public transport but of less buses on the road
I agree on most of what you have said…the rebel DNA in us, the need a change syndrome etc.
And yes, most people seem to quickly forget what we’ve been through under Labour governments.
Probably these people also forget that they have the luxury of freedom of expression, and the luxury of compalining about small change.
However, I must say that the Arriva issue is a real fiasco, and it defeated the whole purpose of why the reform has been made.
The amount of traffic and the time it’s taking me to get to work with my own car is unbelievable, so instead of minimising the traffic on our roads, the way the system is operating has led to much heavier traffic since people cannot rely on the service.
But obviously I’d rather compalin about this rather than waking up every morning not knowing what’s going to happen next.
Maltese have always been very competent moaners. The only thing that’s changed is that they’ve found their voice on the internet.
Just take a stroll though the timesofmalta.com comment-board or the closet PL Facebook group “Moviment Tindahalx” to see the levels of mass hysteria that can be found online.
Having said that, just because life was worse before 1987 doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to demand better. These Reductio ad Mintoffum arguments are getting old.
What do you expect adolescents to complain about? Democracy has been resuscitated, markets liberalised, the world (at least, the EU) is theirs, they have water in their taps, a Uni to go to . . .
And they’re too young to have noticed that this country is bankrolled by the relatively few employees on a halfway decent wage/salary.
Because THAT’s what needs a revolution – weeding out the freeloaders, the VAT cheats, the ultra-low productivity of a lot – NOT ALL – of government employees and allowing those who work hard for their money to keep more of it to spend as they wish.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that when people say ‘we need a change’ and believe they are referring to the government, they are projecting onto the public sphere the private and personal unhappiness they feel at the dawning realisation that they need to make serious changes in their own lives, before it’s too late.”
You really hit the nail on the head here, and in so many other columns of yours.
When I ask people point blank,”Ok, why do we need a change?”, all I hear is mumbling and uuuh…emmmm…No serious and mature thought.
You’re right – people are frustrated and gven that attributing one’s frustration to oneself is extremely difficult and requires a high level of intelligence, then one directs it to the usual suspects: il-gvern, l-Arriva,and so on.
Few understand that we are largely the authors of our own happiness in normal circumstances. And these are normal circumstances because there isn’t a war on.
Wooof! Qtajtli nifsi, you couldn’t have put it better. Now I love you more.