People in general deal with the most tragic and demanding situations in a remarkable fashion. Most of the time we see this happening from a distance. People like refugees from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and individuals who lived all their lives in a state of relative comfort and suddenly found themselves catapulted into a different world where the pleasures of life are rare and scarce. They find ways of surviving, they move on despite having lost everything. You do not have to go far to see how people make sacrifices; those that lose their job, or raise a disabled child, or care for a sick relative. Overnight, their priorities change. What used to be important becomes irrelevant. The dining room becomes a bedroom, the kitchen in constant disorder, the corridor a mess. The order inside our homes that comes with our modern social chores suddenly disappears. All of a sudden we become pragmatic and discard superficiality and appearances.
We eat into our savings, forget about the protocols of life, care little for possessions, give little importance to niceties. All our adrenaline is focussed on what is essential. We become logical, survivors and think of today and not tomorrow.
I try very hard to ignore politics and the reality that convinces me that politicians are Machiavellian imbeciles and egotists.
Politicians understand problems, yet most of the time they ignore the solutions. They only share the same viewpoint if they are after your vote. When your vote does not count then they consider you an addendum or simply a worthless appendix.
When this small nation-state faces a crisis of growth and a grave economic slowdown, and a challenge to sustain its social fabric, our politicians – or rather our young finance minister – thinks of spring-cleaning.
Just imagine for a minute that you have a bedridden and terminal relative at home and you think up of a great idea of painting the house, doing up the electricity and plumbing right in the middle of all this. You would be declared insane and insensitive by everyone. Hardly anyone does such a thing, even those who are the most selfish human beings.
In this crisis which we have seemingly ignored or minimised Mr Tonio Fenech’s talk of rounding up offending or fraudulent single mothers in a bid to cut the costs of government.
I guess Mr Fenech really thinks highly of himself. Can anyone sincerely believe his words when he portrays errant single mothers who abuse of social policy funds (my words) as the reason for government’s financial crisis? Instead of accepting the fact that Fenech does not know the economics of a pastizzeria, let alone a country, we need to get him to understand that we need to give more attention to single mothers; not less.
In his witch-hunt for offenders Fenech misses the wood for the trees. Here is a minister who looked the other way when minister Austin Gatt went into spring-cleaning mode at Enemalta. After 18 years in government, Gatt realises that Enemalta is a bloody accounting mess – and the one way to solve this problem is to raise the tariffs. And when do they do this? When the economic is spiralling down. So typical of politicians who never ran their own business.
So Tonio Fenech raises his bazookas at single mothers, as if these people were the problem all along. When in fact they, like any other segment of Maltese society, need more support.
Fenech should know that business, like the economy, is all about a good feeling. But tell that to an accountant. As he talks of unleashing his fraud-busting brownshirts on single mothers, Tonio Fenech says nothing of all the other extraordinary expenses of his own government that are monumental compared to his populist, fundamentalist, over-zealous dig at single mothers.
I guess after we cut more social benefits and fail to respect many of the promises that were made on the eve of March 2008, Tonio Fenech will rethink Renzo Piano. Yes Piano, the Piano project that will use millions in public funds. If we were serious we would be out in the street burning effigies of Piano. Who the hell wants Piano at a time when we are being taxed more and more? If Fenech is so sure of Piano, why does he not ask the public for a verdict on Piano?
Which takes me back to spring-cleaning in a time of crisis. People in crisis act like they are in a crisis, and do things to feel better to survive. They do not act like our politicians. Mr Fenech needs to take a few lessons from life. That is what happens when all you have in your armoury is a big smile, a glorified accountant’s background and the gift of the gab. Fenech needs to realise that the world which he plans for in his budgetary decisions, is a world where people have little time for politicians and are more concerned about living.
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You do not have to go far to see how people make sacrifices; those that lose their job, or raise a disabled child, or care for a sick relative. Overnight, their priorities change. What used to be important becomes irrelevant. The dining room becomes a bedroom, the kitchen in constant disorder, the corridor a mess. The order inside our homes that comes with our modern social chores suddenly disappears. All of a sudden we become pragmatic and discard superficiality and appearances.
