An unusual Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve, but we’ve hardly noticed.

December is always a month that seems to rush past more quickly than others.

It is one of the longest months in the calendar and the duration of the days is the same as throughout the year, but December seems to fly by as preparations gear up for Christmas and the New Year.

With many of us readying Christmas lunch and buying gifts, it is normally one of the busiest times of the year.

But it will be a different Christmas this time.

No country is perfect, and each nation has had to contend with crises that change the shape of history.

Like the rest, Malta has had its fair share of troubles, and it was thanks to our collective resilience, sense of belonging and commitment to what is right that saw us through. The scars have remained, and it is thankfully so, because those scars mean that on most occasions we learnt from our mistakes and moved on.

But what has hit us now will not be easily overcome.

To have the Office of the Prime Minister implicated in one of the most horrendous crimes ever – the assassination of a journalist who was vocal in her criticism of the government – has opened wounds that will be hard to heal. Our collective trust in the country’s institutions, for one thing, has been severely dented, and it will take years, if not generations, to rebuild it.

There are several sad sides to this story, and one of them is that for many Labour supporters, the prime minister is leaving office a hero. His ongoing ‘farewell tour’ is attracting huge crowds who continue to idolise him in spite of the reason for which he has been forced to quit. Instead of hanging his head in shame, Muscat has to gall to organise farewell activities – simply because he is, to those led by the nose, a victim, not a perpetrator, and so they are ready to waste their Sunday morning to cheer him.

We do not feel that there is the usual Christmas spirit this year. Streets have been decorated as in previous years, but there is an overall sentiment of disquiet in the country. People may still be spending money on their loved ones – although shop owners have complained of drops in sales – but many are doing so half-heartedly, not in the right frame of mind.

We are sure that no Christmas lunch will be free of chatter about what has been going on over the past several weeks. There will be arguments, some of them heated. We know of families who will not be meeting up this year so as to avoid any clashes between people of differing opinions, and we hope that those who do get together will be able to deal with any differences civilly. It will not be easy, because everyone is on edge.

This is the situation we are in. This is the situation that we have been lumped with by a government that cultivated the culture of impunity, hijacked the country’s institutions and defended the interests of the few, rather than those of the country.

Christmas is supposed to be a celebratory period, but corruption and murder can never be celebrated.