We sometimes refer to the Maltese gemgem; an expression used to describe a person who would complain about everything. I even found a Facebook page with 6,231 members and described as “the place for grumpy old Maltese men and women”. Individuals are invited to: “Enter here, have your moan and carry on with your life.”

I guess that’s not such a bad thing. At the end of the day, we all wish to carry on with our life. I am an advocate of live and let live, meaning that people should accept the way other people live and behave, especially if they do things in a different way. I truly wish our society were one where we could be far more accepting where diversity is concerned.

Many claim that we have become far more tolerant. That is good in itself. However, I fear that tolerance is a mostly passive sentiment, something sounding like – when there is nothing else left to do, well, then I just have to put up with you and your sort. Acceptance is much more than that. It’s a conscious choice made out of conviction. It implies that you no longer hold on to the idea that you are better than the other or that what you believe or uphold is superior to what others do.

One of the big problems with progressing from tolerance to acceptance is stemmed in religious belief and dogma. As Catholics, we were brought up to believe that there is only one true religion and that all other religions are false. When I was studying comparative religions at the University of Malta, I felt it rather odd that we were taught about Islam by a Dominican friar and about Far Eastern religions by a Jesuit priest who had spent many years as a Catholic missionary in India. Although, to be fair, they did try their best to be as objective as possible, the presumption was always the same – other religions may have many positive elements, however, they are not the real thing.

Not to mention being lectured in Ecumenism by a priest who, writing recently in Leħen is-Sewwa, described Martin Luther as arrogant, pretentious, biblically and theologically ignorant – “the heretic who caused immense damage to the Church, started the process of the dechristianisation of Europe, introduced large errors in the interpretation of the Bible and still causes tragic divisions among Christians and who rebelled against the desire by Christ that we may all be one”.

This does not mean that I advocate relativism. However, tolerance can never become acceptance when the starting point of a conversation is that I am always (or almost always) right and that the aim of any discourse is to convince you that you are wrong and that you should end up by agreeing with me. True dialogue requires a genuine disposition to listen to the point of view of others and to be willing to allow one’s own ideas to be challenged: I need to be open to the possibility of accepting that I may be wrong.

There seems to be no room in this country for independent-minded thinkerswho refuse to be pigeonholed

I see problems with this when it comes to religion because most religious beliefs are based on revelation. When the origin of such ‘revealed truth’ is the deity herself, then who are we to dispute that!

Unfortunately, this way of thinking has been transferred to other sectors which cannot claim any divine inspiration as justification. We no longer live in an era when kings and queens claimed to be chosen and anointed by God. However, our political class for instance still seem to reason in terms of absolutes. The presupposition is that ‘I am/we are always right’ and that whoever disagrees with me is wrong. This trickles down to most of the population with most individuals purporting to defend their political opinions and allegiance much in the same way that the Christians and the Muslims defended their respective positions during the crusades. Moreover, as a consequence, anyone who does not fall fully in line is considered as some sort of deviant.

Even when analyses of elections take place or opinion polls commissioned, you see this happening all the time – Nationalists voting Labour or vice-versa. In the 1980s they were called in-nagħaġ mitlufa (the lost sheep). Today we call them switchers. There seems to be no room in this country for independent-minded thinkers who refuse to be pigeon holed.

In all my contributions in this newspaper over the past three years, I have tried to put forward ideas that are not tied down by any allegiance whatsoever. Whether writing about religion, society or Europe – my three ‘pet’ subjects – I have attempted to present views that are the fruit of thought moulded by experience. I do not claim to be unbiased. However, life has taught me that being respectfully critical keeps me sane in the midst of a society that does not leave much room for free spirits.

I am conscious that one temptation would be to end up sounding like a Maltese gemgem. I have tried my best not to fall into this trap though I may have done so at some point. If I complain about something, it’s because I think we could do so much better and feel so helpless when faced with the inability or unwillingness of those who may act and more often than not fail to do so. However, I have also tried to put forward views and ideas that may, hopefully, nudge people to think and act in a more independent-minded fashion.

I am aware that this is an uphill struggle because being independent minded is not fashionable nowadays. Individuals seem to find solace in belonging to some tribe or other. The need to belong is not something bad in itself. Yet, it may lead to a situation where one loses her or his individuality. So much for our education system which, despite successive attempts at reform, continues to fail us miserably in terms of broadening our intellectual capacities.

I was optimistic that joining the EU would broaden our horizons and make us realise that the world out there is a much larger place than our little tribe or group. My hope lies in the younger generation who, thanks to the possibility that the EU provides them to transcend barriers created by geographic, ethnic or whatever kind of division, treat diversity as something natural and normal.