Wednesday and Thursday of this week will see members of the European Parliament debate citizenship. The debate was sparked by the international media outcry against the plan of the Muscat government to sell Maltese – and as a consequence European – citizenship.

The leaders of all the political groups in the European Parliament decided to dedicate a two day debate and a vote on the subject. The debate will probably go beyond the programme concocted by the Labour Government.

This had to happen as media of all sorts, sizes, nationality and commercial/political orientation made fun of Malta because of the plan. Where ever any Maltese goes overseas one’s legs were being pulled because of the plan.

Malta has not been the recipient of so much bad international press since the 1980s. The dire situation of human rights in Malta was then front page news all over the world.

Besides all this bad press, there is another connection between the current situation and the 1980s.

The fashionable dreaded phrase during that infamous decade was “tixwix kontra Malta” (incitement against Malta). The word tixwix was bandied around with great liberality and brought with it the wrath of ‘the people’. The Times building was burnt because of its so-called tixwix. People were tortured in the Police headquarters because of the ‘T’ word. Others were luckier. They were just continually transferred from one place of work to another. Gozo, the current mecca of many a Maltese holiday maker, became the punishment ground for many.

During those years according to the mentality of the ruling elite ‘Malta’ equalled ‘the Government’ and ‘the Government’ equalled ‘the Party’ while the latter equalled ‘the Leader.’ So anyone who dared criticise the Leader or the Party or the Government was guilty of harming Malta; particularly so if one dared to vent his thoughts overseas. ‘The workers’ and ‘the people’ did not take lightly to all the tixwix that was going. You cannot blame them, can you. Vox poluli, vox dei. Therefore it was reasoned that whoever gained the ire of the people had also to face the ire of the gods, though the people (read: the party thugs) pretending they were exerting punishment in the name of the gods.

Those who came up with this nefarious equation were not original thinkers. This concept was copied and plagiarised to the bone. The despots of yesterday believed the same doctrine. Was it Louis XIV or some other Louis who said ‘I am the State’? Of similar opinion are the despots of today. The doctrine was very common in the Soviet blog. It was also popular with the Latin American dictators. Criticism against the rulers and their actions was deemed to be against the national interest. Anyone who was against the government was deemed to be against the country.

The pedigree of the doctrine so popular in Malta of the 1980s is horrible and obscene.

I am not going down memory lane just for the same of memory revival. I am doing this because this doctrine is once more polluting public discourse. People who are criticising the citizenship for investment or sale of passports scheme (take your pick) are branded as being against Malta.

If this was just a phenomenon present on the social networks I would not have bothered to write about it. But this doctrine is being fomented by some elements in the pro-Government media and by elements in the Government itself. Such a thing is unacceptable.

The Government is not the country. The interest of the former can be in direct conflict with is in the interest of the latter. Criticism in Malta and in the fora of the EU can be a duty. All of us remember the statements of the Labour MEPs who had promised to do their best to stop the EU from funding projects in Malta. They were doing so not out of spite but because they believed that that was the best way to serve the national interest.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the same measure should be applied to MEPs from the side of the PN.

Accusing critics of tixwix or of working against the national interest is a throwback to an era no one wants to go back to, I dare hope.

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