On a clear day...

Flying back from a short but very pleasant holiday in La Belle France on Thursday night I was invited into the cockpit by the captain for the landing. I had never had this privilege before and, as we hovered at something like 25,000 feet somewhere over Agrigento, I could understand what a unique thrill it is, as, like some modern-day Bellerophon on his winged horse, we could see the lights of Africa twinkling in the distance. Malta lay somewhere in between. They say that on a clear day you can see forever.

As we approached Malta, gradually descending, the fireworks of Żurrieq, like massive dahlias, exploded over a huge patch of blue and white lights. The road network sprawled and zigzagged across Malta and Gozo and the Comino Tower stood like an eerie sentinel in a patch of inky blackness that became deeper and denser as one looked across that surrounding sea. I could not help but think how terrifying being wrecked in that unrelieved darkness would be.

That wine dark sea has in recent years claimed the lives of countless men, women and children who leave Africa in a continual stream in search of a better life and who, tragically, find only death as their consolation. Ironically, such a man was 21-year-old Abdurrahman Abdala Gedi who, along with Karmenu and Theo Bugeja, and Noel Carabott perished, in the terrible tragedy that rocked Malta last week.

After having survived escape from mayhem and imprisonment, not to mention the salty perils of immigration, Mr Gedi drowned in that selfsame sea convincing me that lightning does strike twice in the same place.

That huge expanse of darkness that envelops our tiny island has claimed the lives of thousands who attempt to ply across its perilous surface in leaky boats in search of a new life.

Despite Frontex, despite the Draconian measures taken by some countries that we have recently read about, despite the repatriation schemes, despite the concentration camps, despite the open centres and the high-level discussions between Silvio Berlusconi and Lawrence Gonzi, the human stream continues unabated and will, like a gaping wound on a hemophiliac, never stop flowing unless Africa's great ills are redressed which, as you know and I know, is a virtual impossibility.

So here we are in a lose/lose situation attempting to stanch what is tantamount to streaming lava. Governments must, pour epater tout le monde, be seen to do something about it but the haemorrhage will never ever stop. It is now as natural a phenomenon as the migrations of wildebeest that, like one mindless swarm, brave the jaws of the waiting crocodiles as they scramble up and down the steep banks of practically dried up rivers to find new pastures.

The natural world is so full of parallels. What actually occurs most of the time is due to ability or inability of man to harness or control the forces of nature in some way or another. In a dictatorship these forces are merely perverted. This has always been the story of our lives. This is why governments are elected every five years as the democratic process dictates. The process requires that a number of capable persons present themselves to the electorate to be entrusted with controlling the elements, the resources and the people themselves. Nothing, however, could be more quixotically bizarre than this so-called democratic process as the various so-called safeguards added over the years that are transmogrified to suit one party or another.

As I watched Malta's lights becoming larger and clearer from my tea tray in the sky, I kept thinking about how deadly serious our political realities are in a place that is hardly bigger than nearby Catania. Malta has, by the skin of its teeth, achieved, after being someone else's appanage for over two millennia, sovereign status; a feat not to be sneezed at. Which is why, now that the electoral dust has settled, discussions to enhance our electoral laws must resume at once.

Yes, on a clear day you can see forever. To be clear-sighted in the mucky world of political realities is a rarity. Can the politicos achieve the nirvana of impartiality that will produce electoral regulations that will reflect as minutely as possible the real will of the people? Unless they can reach the detachment and view the archipelago from the lofty height of 25,000 feet; a godlike view if there ever was one, the opinions and arguments will, like in a marshy pond full of vociferous croaking frogs, go on and on ad nauseam, full of sound and fury signifying nothing, till, once again, we are faced with elections in 2013 and people like this columnist starts wailing about "voting with a gun to his head" all over again. What a bore!

kzt@onvol.net