As Malta moves towards a general election in two months’ time, we should ask ourselves what societal mould we would like to embrace. The political parties will revel in their manifestos, bearing promises and beckoning to new, if unfathomable, horizons. They may set alluring targets, enticing us with visions of a renewed and relatively flourishing Malta in a capricious global setting.

Evolving Maltese society has to establish its goal-posts to understand the challenges posed by a liberalising economy- Salvino Busuttil

Apart, however, from harping on economic and social goals which they assure us they can attain for us, voting citizens, the votaries of polity may need to ponder on the texture and contours of a Maltese society that, at the dawn of the third millennium, craves for change, even if it grapples with the nature, finality and direction of that mutation.

Evolving Maltese society has to establish its goal-posts to understand the challenges posed by a liberalising economy in a rapidly unfolding technological context, and in a physical and social milieu offering risk and opportunity.

Permeating that scenario is the desire of all Maltese to live and develop in a society which, while guarding traditional values, is nonetheless open to the exciting vistas of a society in dialogue, one which pluralistic in composition and expression, reflects a more participatory structure and behaviour.

To that end, a group of persons hailing from the Church and from civil society have, over the past year, gathered in ‘conversing’ over a journey that together they undertook to ponder on where we are today, where we want to go and how to get there. Conversing on their views and conclusions, without offering any immediate solutions to precise issues, together with a wide spectrum of fellow citizens from every major sector of our society, the members of the group were inspired primarily through a perceived aspiration to help in constructing a prospering Malta imbued with a spirit of fellowship with neighbours, colleagues, families and friends in a socio-cultural environment conducive to an authentic well-being of the integrated human being, dignified in the fullness of his personal and societal personality.

In that perspective, we need, lest we are absorbed in the vortex of destabilising physical, economic, environmental and social risks besetting the planet, to harness, through appropriate structures of governance at all levels, the considerable potential of a socially novel island, avoiding untamed cultural upheaval through infusing a sense and space of balance between creativity and organic growth. With Malta’s expanding awareness of, and rapid technological prowess in, information and communication technologies, we are producing a fresh pool of innovative talent that, with the increasing diversity of our population, promises an enviable future for all our citizens.

That future would be better secured if we can ensure that our legal, financial and political institutions, all unfortunately battered in one way or another in the last 12 months, respond fully to the rights of citizens while seeking transparently the common good.

In identifying correctly the nature and destiny of that common good, be it in social, environmental or economic terms, we have to practise solidarity, subsidiarity and participation. Malta’s core values, bequeathed to us through our millennial religious and cultural history, offer us strong yet flexible instruments to share in the discovery of a more socially and culturally pluralistic spirit of place.

Third millennium Malta, a very small country which has achieved so much with so little, can and should radiate to the world community a model of a polis where bias and injustice no longer stifle individual and group aspiration and potential. Perhaps in an amended constitutional framework, the ‘new’ Malta could eventually boast of a renewed and updated system of governance, including a more transparent administration of justice. It should also be characterised by a public policy through which social and economic measures serve, above all, the marginalised and forgotten in our society. Leaving them out would make all of us poorer.

A thriving and forward-looking Maltese society is there, waiting for us to build it.

(The group referred to above has published a booklet “What Kind of Society would you like to live in?” which is available for free through the Pastoral Formation Institute, The Catholic Institute, Floriana).