In my childhood I had my hero. It was Pippi Longstockings, and I felt good. But I grew up, as did my reality, and so Pippi shrunk and disappeared from my radar.
It was the eighties, and I needed a real hero. A penniless, acne ravaged, working class book worm, with a gender-free, hyperactive mind and a determination to live the world didn't exactly fit comfortably in the rural labour conservative background I was born in. The political heroes lauded in my childhood evolved into the cowardly villains of my youth.
My upbringing conflicted with what my upbringers were accepting as the norm. So I rebelled. I refused to fall in line. I clung to hope of unknown origin and I searched within and without. There had to be a beacon somewhere. There had to be some light at the end of the tunnel. It was just a question of being able to see it, to feel it. A question of vision.
Then Eddie Fenech Adami came along. The one vilified in my circles, vilified on national broadcasting. I took the plunge, ventured into a mass of compatriots.
Insecure, timid, suspicious, questioning the slightest nuance, the minutest detail, but still ready to listen. Mine was but a sample of the action of the generation with my background. Many shared my 'lot ', my hope, my hunger for a hero, a vision I could actually see, share, transform into the hope I craved.
That vision was provided for us. It was clearly mapped out, explained. And we took the chance, seized the moment. That generation saved our country when it was called to the polls. Openly or in secret, the violent, abusive regime was voted out by the very people it had sought to brainwash in its state schools, in its toughest enclaves.
Of course there were the other voters who had always voted PN, but it was us, who made the difference. The rebels, the thinkers, the ones that loved our country more than ourselves and sought a future for all, not for the select few.
What galvanised our support was the vision and the feel good factor it generated.
What galvanised our support was the vision and the feel good factor it generated. A vision that reflected most of the values of our upbringing and many values which appealed to us, like solidarity, decentralisation of power, unity, depolarisation, meritocracy, the opportunity and space to succeed, a free market with a social conscience, a level playing-field to operate in, an education that can play the part it should in one's advancement.
Our hero, the person, embodied that vision, gave layers of significance to his rhetoric by his behaviour, by Mary Fenech Adami's humble, unflinching, reassuring strength, even in the worst of times. The state of our society then was reflected in the choice of such a hero, with such values. The choice of our society then brought us success.
Twenty five short years followed, carried on the waves of the momentum created by this vision, this hero.
Not perfect. Riddled with warts that mushroomed along the way, true, but certainly a legacy that turned us into an affluent, proud nation, that saw major industries sprout and thrive from paltry seeds, a democratic revolution in the creation of institutions, an infrastructural overhaul that carried us into the 21st century with grace, and an elegant merging of our country's present and future with the greatest, richest nations in Europe.
This is what the PN gave us. It trashed Labour time and time again at the polls until the greedy, unpatriotic, selfish elements in the party anticipated the cyclical demise of a political party too long in government and joined forces with a hungry pack of wolves that hijacked the labour party when the latter started to show signs of healing generated by the dedicated contribution of that same generation which had brought it down in the eighties.
And Labour is no more.It is just a government carrying the name, and a rabble of hopefuls doing politics for their own selfish advancement. It has metamorphosed into a soulless money churning engine, manned and represented in Parliament by products of a Labour machine, that could only win and retain power by utterly compromising its core values and joining forces with the questionable elements that destroyed the Nationalist Party and the Nationalist Government.
The PN, on the other hand, is very much alive. It is tattered and torn, humiliated and on its knees, but it has the people within its ranks who have recognised the need for renewal and change, not least when they bravely elected two people in their ranks who were never afraid to put their country before any political party.
Our voters gave the PN a strong message. They told it in no uncertain terms that they want its renewal, they want its regeneration without compromising its basic existential value of honest, transparent, democratic politics. That was the essence of Forza Nazzjonali's vision for this country at the last general election. Country and countrymen before partisan politics.
No political party is greater than our country. We come and go, as do political groups and currents, but our country remains. It remains our children's home. A PDPN endeavour can give that home back to our children, while giving them the vision that will propel them forward.
I totally understand the pain my fellow PNers, PDers are feeling as they witness the rampage on our country's institutions, civil service, health sector, culture, energy, on our country's beleaguered character, environment, national assets, our children's future. The helplessness is excruciating. The sadness utterly profound.
For what does full employment matter when most of the population excluding party cronies, work under undignified conditions and take home insecurity, stress and miserable salaries squeezed dry by inflation?
But we have to keep our wits about us. We cannot let our pain blur our vision, distort our rationality, kill our hope. It is clear that this decadence cannot be stopped in its tracks by installing another shell as a leader, a person who does not recognize the value of uniting a party let alone a nation.
Do we want a populist that reminds us of the very gang we want to remove? Are we really thinking of going for the next election with a poor imitation of a Labour party we all abhor?
Incendiary rhetoric without a vision will just give Malta and Gozo, more of the same: progress without a purpose which ultimately disintegrates into regress.
Or do we really want to steer our country back on the right track which takes us to the leap in quality of governance Malta voted for in 2013, and never got?
Incendiary rhetoric without a vision will just give Malta and Gozo, more of the same: progress without a purpose which ultimately disintegrates into regress.
As someone said, one can campaign with poetry but ultimately has to govern with prose.
The bottom line is that PN needs a stabilising leader who harbours a vision not just for the healing of the PN and the further evolution of the Forza Nazzjonali, but also a long-term vision for Malta and Gozo that can fire our younger generation with the energy and motivation necessary to power Malta and Gozo 's next big leap into a brighter future for our young and old.
Once again our people need a hero. I do not see one in sight, but I can see a man who has what it takes to grow into the hero our country needs. That man is Chris Said, and I do hope that PN party members see it too.