I don’t know about you but I am feeling that, with each day, we are sliding towards new depths of iniquity and mayhem. The other day, the law courts were held up, yet again, with no fewer than two bomb scares that entail total evacuation and, hence, disruption of the already meandering courses of justice. Tragically, octogenarian Rose Garroni was brutally mugged and “murdered” at 6.45 p.m. in the middle of Sliema, all for a few cents. It was the latest in a series of deaths in both cold and hot blood which have luridly coloured the newsstands with alarming frequency in the last couple of months.

You may say the bomb scares at the law courts are random because they happen so often. However, although you may think I watch too much Poirot on television, I would have, long ago, held a record of the times of these bomb threats and tried to find some common factor. If it is not a person or persons unknown trying to sabotage a particular case from being heard then there simply must be far more stark raving lunatics on the loose than we thought.

We are teetering very closely towards a situation where the language schools will be unable to claim how safe Malta’s streets are at all hours of the day or night. I feel we are fooling ourselves about this in the same way as we keep patting ourselves on the back about our honourable mention in the Acts of the Apostles vis-à-vis our renowned hospitality which has, with the realities of irregular immigration, long gone up the waterspout. It is possibly the very one that keeps appearing off Tigné Point every year with monotonous regularity.

Are the police doing enough to protect ordinary citizens from the depredations of the unscrupulous, the desperate and the criminally insane? In certain crimes, people talk about drug addiction, playing down the culpability of an attacker by implying s/he is not fully responsible for their actions. This brings me to the crux of today’s musings.

The Justice Ministry shot down, out of hand, the proposal by Sedqa clinical director George Grech to legalise certain drugs declaring “the decriminalisation of drug use in Malta is not in the table”. In other words, “not on the table” is understood to mean “not even to be discussed”. I daresay NGOs such as Sedqa and their officials must know a damn sight more about the implications of drug abuse than the Justice Ministry, therefore, the latter should not be so hasty and categorical about it.

Ben Elton’s 2002 novel High Society is about this junior MP called Peter Paget who hits on the idea of legalising all drugs. Only Ben Elton could have woven such a plausible and vivid tapestry of a state of mind that reflects, pervades and is interconnected to all sections of society. The reason for the eventual abandonment of the Bill, as anyone who has read the book will know, has nothing to do with the morality of the issue but is the result of cold and hard calculations that take into consideration neither the cost in human lives nor the social ruin caused by this terrible malaise.

Had the Justice Minister read this book I am quite sure he would not have shot down this suggestion so high-handedly, especially as decriminalisation seems to be working in Portugal. Proposals like this may appear outlandish and impractical at first, however, like divorce, about which all Malta and his wife have a divergent opinion, the legalisation of drugs will only happen if the government, together with the police, work hand in glove to stymie the average drug baron’s line of business by having these substances sold above and not under the counter for a price that all can afford.

I am fascinated at the various ways the Prime Minister sets the example by squirming out of even talking about issues like divorce while saying that while he is in office his personal religious beliefs will not get in the way provided it is for the common good, which he knows full well is not so. The Minister of Justice seems to be cast in the same mould.

Much as I like and admire Lawrence Gonzi I cannot take utterance after utterance that makes it obvious he is straining hard not to actually say but imply “not in my legislature” and “not by my government”, which would make him sound too undemocratic. This obstinate refusal to discuss basic social issues causing great distress and harm for want of serious debate with the people who matter is showing up a man who is torn by his democratic principles on one side and his religious ones on the other.

Since the St John’s bunker was debunked, this government has taken up the curious tactic of non-engagement whenever a hot topic is on the cards, be it the opera house site, censorship, drugs or divorce. It is merely procrastinating for these developments are inevitable. As they say in neighbouring Italy, “tardare si, scappare no”. May I assure you the bullets will be far harder to bite and the toad far more disgusting to swallow the more time passes, so it would be better to get it over and done with as soon as possible.

kzt@onvol.net