Salt, pepper and Robin Hood

What has happened to us? What happened to the gentleness and kindness we Maltese were commended for in the Acts of the Apostles? Not a week goes by without someone either being shot in the back or callously run over while the law courts are full of the most revolting stories. Vandalism is rife; school libraries torched and the Prime Minister’s family grave desecrated; twice. Now the latest atrocity is the bombing of the transport authority; a tragedy that has left innocent employees permanently disabled and which could have cost lives.

What is fuelling acts like this? What is causing such mindless criminality?

We are continually reassured we have overcome or avoided the worst effects of the world recession and, yet, if we watch the international news the recession is far from over with the governments of Greece and Ireland being bailed out by loans from the EU and demonstrations, that occasionally resort to very ugly violence, in the UK, France and Italy against the austerity measures that are necessary to keep the national deficits just as Angela Merkel would like them.

Therefore, the light at the end of the recessional tunnel is still very far away and we are equally far from being in the clear. With all this, although our tourism figures seem healthy enough they will not remain so when the word gets about that tourists are being fleeced not only by the usual thieving touts but also by a government that sets bad example by charging non-residents double for public transport. Enough said.

I am convinced this unrest is being caused by the uncertainty of the times and our inability to formulate a coherent argument without resorting to inconclusive free for alls à la Xarabank. There is also the mentality that, should one criticise, one will be exposing oneself to reprisal; an understandable reluctance to nail one’s colours to the mast lest it be held against one in the present legislature or the next is a national trait that prevents many people from speaking their mind. Hence, the sheer frustration that leads some people to resort to underhand criminal measures like torching a school library, the work of a sick frustrated mind surely but symptomatic of a sick frustrated and, above all, inarticulate society too.

The average lifestyle of the western world is too dependent on sources that have a limited life: a car per person and air-conditioning and heating to beat the elements. Throughout history luxuries like these eventually become necessities. In the Middle Ages, salt was so valuable it was used to pay one’s taxes. The gabelle, as it was called, was collected by the gabillott. Today, one would not remotely consider salt to be a luxury as one would not consider pepper either, which, in those far off days, was worth its weight in gold by the time it made its way to Europe from far off India. This is the story of civilisation.

Today, the western world has evolved to such an extent I believe we cannot sustain the situation indefinitely. The world wherein air-conditioning is a necessity not a luxury must not only maintain itself but also carry the added burden of maintaining the millions who haven’t the foggiest as to what an air-conditioning unit looks like! Something has to give.

To preserve our European lifestyle not only must we mind our Ps and Qs with our maverick neighbour the Colonel and pay out of our nose for his oil but also contribute to the €5 billion annual levy he wants to police his coastlines and keep Europe white(ish)! Is it at all surprising the average African looks at Europe as the land of Milk and Honey?

The prices of everything are escalating along with the relative taxes that will have to be calculated to include items like Muammar Gaddafi’s petty cash requirements and the huge cost of maintaining a juggernaut of a civil service that simply cannot be reduced and whose mission statement is to maintain the status quo.

So as we write cheque after cheque to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue or scrutinise our shrinking pay and pension slips at the end of the month, it is hardly surprising that many are those who feel they have lost control and, because of their powerlessness and frustration in the face of such problems, resort to violence and theft possibly thinking they are a latter-day Robin Hood. Yet, despite all this, the roads are chock-full of luxury cars built like armoured tanks guzzling petrol like alcoholic gremlins, cranes rotating like Whirling Dervishes and jackhammers drilling like monstrous versions of Woody Woodpecker. There is something that does not add up in this equation. Will someone try to explain it?

kzt@onvol.net