Imagine living in a country that had published a sustainable development strategy until the year 2050, after an extensive public consultation process that influenced its content.

Imagine if that policy not only talked about issues like poverty, the environment, clean air, democracy, the rule of law and quality of life, but actually offered a series of strategies to achieve.

He also imagined that the government that adopted that strategy had based it on international science, evidence and effective practice and had the people, the vision and the leadership to deliver it.

Such a country would be a place in which you (and more importantly your children and grandchildren) would probably want to live. And you probably want to contribute to realizing that vision.

Such a country is likely to be democratic, progressive and focused on the future.

Unfortunately if you were to look for a place like this, you certainly wouldn’t find it in Malta, a land, and a people on the road that abandons any such claim.

Malta indeed has draft sustainable development strategy in the making but according to current norms, it is likely to be yet another document made up of words devoid of any content or intent. It will join all the other strategies and policies that the government has no intention or ability to implement.

They amount to nothing more than window dressing, shibboleths in front of Maltese ‘modernity’. Instead we have unforgiveness is a string of empty words without substance. As in many aspects, Malta is quickly becoming a place empty of substance, simply squeezed and pulled.

And the saddest thing of all, is a reality that everyone is aware of and apparently a majority are quoted as approving it (I highly doubt the validity of the survey that supports this).

Watching or reading the speeches or press releases of the current Labor regime (including and especially those of the Prime Minister) has become an almost Trumpian experience, hyperbole following hyperbole with wildly wrong claims. And, as with Trump, many Maltese have become immune to the situation, they don’t listen to it anymore or simply don’t care.

The avalanche of blatant lies and the torrent of horse manure that flows behind ministers, their lackeys and apologists is quite ferocious. Public money is used in large quantities to turn disasters into triumphs with nothing but empty words. Public discussion and the Maltese ‘debate’ have lost all meaning. As in Trump’s world, it is designed to serve the short-term interests of the regime and its controllers.

The rule of law, democracy, transparency, sustainability, etc., words that are translated and emptied when said by any representative of the current regime. The deeply cynical use of such concepts and values ​​by this regime either in the UN or on important public issues reinforces for many the belief that the values ​​and principles themselves are worthless. Witness the so-called abortion debate.

Filling our vital state institutions and structures in law, planning, media and education with incompetent/corrupt acolytes undermines those institutions and Malta itself. It also weakens the very idea of ​​law, planning, communication and learning in the minds of many. For example, the machinations around the American University of Malta, MCAST and other educational bodies undermine the substance and practice of education itself in Malta.

the debate around Commune in terms of tourism and development it also shows the great emptiness of both thinking and strategies, especially if the empty statement and the position of the responsible minister is anything to go by from it.

It amounts to nothing less than nonsense boards and is intended to be interpreted in this way by those who are “in the know”. We all know that this conversation is urgent and necessary but at the same time we all know that it is not real in any meaningful way. This lowers the issues, for us as citizens and for Malta as a living entity.

There is nothing inexorable about this, there are many, many examples of how things are done in a different way and there is, of course, another Malta although currently in hibernation.