Can’t a few people stand up and be counted in this country?

What’s wrong with us? What holds us back? Why are we so scared of facing truths, challenging lies and confronting institutions?

“The more the corruption was rampant and the horrors obvious, the more the government of Joseph Muscat gave out permits to all developers to keep the whole wheel turning.”

What is scarier is not that we are so quiet, so acquiescent, so ready to pander to the authorities. The scariest thing is that we saw it all happen the minute the Labour Party was voted into power back in 2013.

Everyone, or practically everyone, knelt in obsequiousness to Joseph Muscat and his gang. The worst culprits were the organisations – or most of them – which comprise the various groupings of professionals and other bodies of people.

Some of these leading ones include: MHRA, Malta Institute of Accountants, Finance Malta, GWU, the various Chambers of architects, of advocates, engineers. The list is endless.

Their silence, their let’s not upset the government, let’s be super nice even if atrocious stuff was happening, was despicable.

When the Panama Papers debacle hit this rogue country, hardly any of these institutions spoke up. If they did it was behind veiled words, never attacking the real core of the problem.

Joseph Muscat mesmerised the whole population.

Corruption and the slow but steady annihilation of all institutions’ backbone was accepted as normal.

The head of one of the business associations confided to me that, in retrospect, now in 2020, they realised they had been blinded by the flow of business and the feel-good factor of a bulging economy.

The Labour-led cabinet was awash with money and it made sure the people, particularly businesspeople, stuffed themselves with the largesse unleashed by the growing economy.

The more the corruption was rampant and the horrors obvious, the more the government of Joseph Muscat gave out permits to all developers to keep the whole wheel turning. Money was coming in from everywhere. The financial sector was moving brightly, tourism was never so big in numbers, sales of cars and property were through the roof, everyone was coming to Malta to work, to holiday or to settle. Passport sales were helping to prop up the economy on stilts.

But as we zoomed along, as the country was being tarmacked and degraded into a rogue state, nobody had the guts to utter more than a few words. As the horrors happened the so-called leaders of our society stayed silent. Or at least most did.

Why grumble when our tables were full of juicy meats and all types of food and our pockets were, like the economy, filling up rather nicely?

Then the whole edifice came crashing down. Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona, Lawrence Cutajar, Peter Grech were ousted. Too late in the day because few had tried stopping their gross horrors in time.

Finally, in November 2019, most of the organisations in Malta decided to speak up. They rose nearly as one with some outspokenly condemning all the horrors. They also called upon Joseph Muscat to go, some demanding he leaves immediately. About time but better late than never.

They found the courage to speak up only when what was going on could no longer be ignored. When it was not courageous to say the words: BARRA! (OUT, as in resign) but just part of the national cry for justice and a return to normalcy.

Malta was still under the premiership of Joseph Muscat. This abnormal situation was leading to the country being perceived as a country with criminals in power and the people in Castille helping, or even harbouring, criminals.

My impression is that the associations and most people wait till they have full proof to speak out. If they do speak out.

Associations and people in all walks of life should not drag their feet to stand up and speak out when the dots are there to be joined. When the horrors do not need to be spelt out in a court of law, where huge conflicts of interest are flagged and attacked.

When people are caught doing anything which is wrong or ethically reprehensible the leaders of society should stand up and condemn it.

When a regulator considers it normal to accept an all-expenses-paid trip from and with someone he should be regulating or used to regulate, then life in Malta is truly reaching an abyss of no return. And to top it all the Prime Minister finds nothing wrong with that.

That the MFSA CEO has selfsuspended himself is even more embarrassing for this country’s reputation. Because if he can self-suspend without anyone questioning this, then he could easily unsuspend himself when he – and presumably only he – thinks fit.

If the various chambers and other prestigious bodies only speak up when buildings topple down, then do we need to be further buried under rubble for any form of revival of normality to be felt in this country?