This is what one of my constituents told me as I was visiting one of our Nationalist Party clubs: egoism is a civil right. Faced with such a blank statement, I must admit that I found it difficult to answer. So I am going to give my answer in this article, hoping also to show where I stand on these issues.
In this day and age a trend has started to set in, in which individual interest replaces the common good. The end result is a culture summed up by what one constituent affirmed: “We only live once, what right have you as a politician to dictate how we do our things?”
I totally agree with your editorial ‘Opium for the postmodern age’ (November 9), which said: “Dr Muscat knows that, for many, it is money in the pocket that counts (opium) and not his governance.”
The introduction said: “It was Karl Marx who coined the metaphor ‘religion is the opium of the people’. Maybe, it applied to his times but, since then, religion and moral ethics have been delegated to the sacristy and a new god has emerged, called money.” It is spot on.
I would add that along with money, two other words, sex and power, have come to dominate our hierarchy of values, skewering it and turning it on its head. Money, sex and power are the three false gods of postmodern Malta. They are increasingly being presented as a formula of happiness, replacing the values of honesty, truth and respect.
Attaining them is not only justified but any means to reach them is considered a right. Never has the Machiavellian adage of the end justifies the means been more followed than in this time of ours.
I still have faith that our people will eventually unite in defeating this cycle, this ‘Mafia’ culture
I don’t intend to be a moralist, I am neither condemning nor applauding, but rather describing a snapshot of our present-day society. As a Christian politician, my main interest is that of upholding two concepts: human dignity and the spread of common good.
It seems that nowadays the spread of a secular ‘religion’ based on hedonism is literally removing these two concepts and replacing them by a world view in which money, sex and power are essential prerequisites at any cost.
Such a climate is breeding sleaze and corruption, creating a ‘Mafia’ culture where everything goes. This is the climate that has taken over our country, the climate that paved the way for Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.
No wonder that despite all that has happened lately, the majority of our people find traffic as the main worrying factor in their lives. As the same editorial mentioned above, the current state of affairs confirms that we live in a highly personalised culture, where only personal concerns predominate.
As Daphne Caruana Galizia used to emphasise, Malta is dominated by amoral familyism, where only personal and familial interests concern a large chunk of our fellow citizens.
This thought has led many politicians to adopt a materialistic approach, in which voters’ interests are looked after in an amoral clientelism. The people in turn are conditioned to accept any misdemeanour the politician does as long as they are being kept happy. This is a typical client/patron culture that creates a Mafia-run society devoid of any ethics and morality.
Yet, despite everything, I still have faith that our people will eventually unite in defeating this cycle, this ‘Mafia’ culture, which is causing the breakdown of good governance in our country. We must work towards a society wherein real meritocracy, honest work and what is right is honoured and respected.
A society where human dignity is respected and the human body not commercialised, where money and power are a means towards improving people’s lives. I agree fully with what the editor of this newspaper stated, that “since then, religion and moral ethics have been delegated to the sacristy and a new god has emerged, called money”.
My conclusion to all this is not to let God and morality be confined to the sacristy, rather let us let morality lead us towards choosing right from wrong and build a better society. This is what I hold and stand for.
Edwin Vassallo is a Nationalist Party deputy leader for parliamentary affairs candidate.