General elections in Malta have morphed into a circus of competing gift-giving — a kind of potlatch financed through accelerated economic growth that, in turn, opens the way to ever more get-rich-quick schemes. It is dizzying, yet strangely plausible.
Foreign workers, on whose labour this temple was built, are weaponised in a battle where both sides accept their necessity while competing over how much to exclude them from sharing in the wealth they helped create.
There is no ideological battle for the soul of the nation. There is just an auction to be paid from the proceeds of economic growth generated by profit driven capitalists.
Sure, I have a love-hate relationship with the modern, post-2013 Malta. I prefer living here now than I did 20 years ago. It is a more cosmopolitan place, even if it remains limited and unsophisticated in many ways. But I resent the incestuous relationship between the state and big business, the erosion of public spaces, and the Disneyfication of others. There is now a clear convergence around what increasingly resembles a country that has struck oil without ever having found it. From my angle, the opposition will only aggravate matters through its socially regressive fiscal policies.
All this said, I do not see much hope. The only fun aspect is the anthropology of it all. Someone should really write about how masses are mobilised and energised in a situation where they are clearly being used to prop a benign regime composed of two rival branches. Still must admit that I have a soft spot for conviviality, albeit one colonised by dominant elites.
Given my line of work, I cannot really escape it. But in times like these, one comes to appreciate more joyful subjects and encounters. For the first time, I am considering political disengagement a sensible option — albeit one that would regrettably reinforce the status quo. Still most civil battles are not won in elections but in the streets.
