Trimming the sails of the materialist boat

When you think about it, we are a different type of nation. Not only do we live on an island – and there seems to be the “island mentality” (isolated communities that perceive themselves as exceptional or superior to the rest of the world: l-aqwa fl-Ewrop

There is not much that can be done about the first. An island is an island is an island, and even if you reclaim land up to Sicily, it will still remain an island. The sole consolation is that we are not the only ones. There are many others who perceive themselves as exceptional and superior to the rest of the world... a sort of elite club made up of island-mentality societies.

The second characteristic – the materialist streak – is not geophysical, it is not carved in stone. It is an ideology, and as such can be overcome, if the political will is there.

We tend to give more importance to material possessions than to other aspects of life, to judge others by their belongings, to gauge one’s success in life by the quantity of things one manages to amass. We have invested material things with spiritual value.

Needless to say, we are not the only materialist country in the world; but we do differ in that we do not value the non-materialist aspects of life. (Again, I speak about the majority.)

In other words, the Maltese seem to be a materialist-only nation. Other nations value material possessions and “spiritual” achievements. I do not mean religion or faith, but Man’s spirit, those activities which cultivate the mind and the inner world.

Poetry, architecture, sculpture, the visual arts, music, dance, theatre... and any other mode of expression which enables us to express what goes on inside us but often times fails to find proper verbal expression... these are Man’s inner world. Those among us who are able to bring them forth do the rest of us a great favour by enabling us, individually or collectively, to resolve our inner tensions and other unfinished business.

Each community has its own bards and artists, poets and actors, writers and architects, sculptors and authors... A developed, mature community treasures them, endows them with public recognition, and engenders a mentality which looks to them for an explanation.

People used to tell me that in my father’s Il-Gaġġa (1971), they found the verbal expression for the feeling of living on an island surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of sea in each direction. He tried to do it again 20 years later, with Paceville, but people were not in the mood to listen, even though I think he was prophetic. Oliver Friggieri played the role of national conscience with his Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri (1986) and his FilGżira Taparsi Jikbru l-Fjuri (1995), and, for a short while, Professor Friggieri’s name for President was mooted. But it was a counter current. The majority, and the political class, were not ready.

This does not happen in other, possibly evolved, countries. Italy, for instance, takes her artists seriously. Leonardo Sciascia – whose novels changed the country’s attitude towards the Mafia – was elected to Parliament. The poet Eugenio Montale was made Senator ad vitam. Even our own halfItalian Arnold Cassola – a Professor of Literature – was elected by the Italians. (I’m not saying he should be elected by the Maltese in the Maltese context! I’m just making a point about recognition, not about political ideas.)

But Italy is a country which seems to have institutionally rejected majoritarianism. Possibly because Mussolini’s regime used to wag its wolf’s tail at the idea that it enjoyed wide consensus among the population.

We have turned majoritarianism into a national disease. Among its numerous symptoms are low cultural standards (desolate inner world) and, even worse, abysmal environmental standards (desolate outer world).

For indeed there is an intangible link between our spiritual world and our environment. Wreck the environment, and you kill the spirit. Keep the spirit crude, and you sign the environment’s death warrant.

Let’s call a spade a spade. The Maltese celebrate the destruction of the environment – be it natural or urban – mostly because their spirit is unrefined.

The only way to refine the

My Personal Library (17)

John Gray made a name for himself with his book Liberalism (1986), a book which brims with quotable nuggets, such as this: “With the decline of the classical liberal system of thought, liberalism assumed its modern form, in which rationalistic intellectual hubris is fused with a sentimental religion of humanity” (think of Martin Scicluna, say, when you read this). Professor Gray has written many other books, criticising capitalism and deregulation, our myths of progress, our selfconceit which brings along the destruction of the world... But one thing about him leaves me with a sense of unease. George Soros actually praised his False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998). might have deserved the Prime Minister’s attention, though he received none. I discovered that last year the highly respected academic Pierre Cachia passed away. Professor Cachia had also been born and raised in Egypt, and had also had a stellar career becoming “a key architect of Arabic studies who made modern Arabic literature a serious academic subject in both the UK and the US”. Did anybody mention him in Malta? As far as I can ascertain (but I always stand to be corrected), nobody spent a word on this important academic, even though – like Mr Camilleri – his ancestry was Maltese.

My conclusion is that according to current dominant attitudes, Mr Camilleri deserves Maltese praise because he succeeded in material achievement; Professor Cachia, on the other hand, was completely ignored because he succeeded in spiritual achievement.

That’s the sorry, shameful state of the country. There is no political will to push forward a nonmaterialist ideology. The political will is the path of least resistance: trimming the political sails so that their angle to the wind of profit achieves the most power possible... to push the ship forward toward more and more... profit.