I sit down and open Facebook one fine evening and what flashes up as new ‘News’ is the fact that Michelle Muscat, the wife of the Prime Minister, has cast doubt on the ‘Egrant’ magistrate’s new line of inquiry. It was posted by a Nationalist politician whom I like to follow. The status that came with it commented on the implications of the whole thing.

I scroll down once and up comes a live feed from Brussels as Julian Assange and others discuss the safety of journalists at an event in honour of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Her sons Matthew and Andrew are also talking. A few scrolls later and up comes a video of Anna Gomes saying that they are speaking to people who were too afraid to speak up in Malta.

This is what my Facebook feed is full of.

Not cats, cakes or funny badgers, or how to make a cake in 10 minutes. One page after another is the same. There are a few intervals, but then the comments steer things in some bizarre direction and before you know it someone’s even brought up abortion (whoops).

This is the sort of country we live in, right now. I don’t see much to be happy about.

Don’t take it personally. People here can, and do, offer something vital and special to the world. Sadly, few of them seem to have gone into politics.

We lack civic-minded people, but a country has to be governed or everyone will just go mad. So along comes a failed lawyer here, an amateur architect there, and before you know it you have a whole group of people who were never trained or educated to be statesmen mingling among those who were and have to make do.

And this is the result. We live in a country where this is ‘normal’. We expect corruption and we expect to be discriminated against and gas-lighted, and all the while we have to disassociate ourselves from all the sleaze and corruption we see around us or hear about.

As we walk the streets and watch our heritage bulldozed ever more, we sigh.

There is so much that I love about Malta, but each day a big piece of it is taken away. One day there won’t be much left

And as we wait in our car for ages knowing nothing will ever change, we huff. And when we finally find some place to cherish in our country, someone’s come along and built ‘Manionette Flats’ in its place.

Few people in Malta seem to recognise who the better politicians are and vote them in. Despite our high voter turnout, it’s a responsibility few take seriously enough.

Such is life in this country of ours that promises so much, but gives so little.

And life is worse when you are foreign or don’t speak Maltese that well. You go to a shop expecting your change to be short, your service to be done haphazardly, and your garage door blocked because some wise guy decided it wasn’t fair that he had to actually walk from an available parking space to his final destination 10 minutes away on foot. The selfishness is palpable.

With all this said, my one and only question is: why?

Could it be because most people in Malta have no moral compass? A country full to the brim with Sunday churchgoers, and they haven’t even been able to take away the most basic tool for life: a conscience.

How else might they so easily brush off the assassination of a journalist who was uncovering all that corruption we know must be happening behind the scenes?

How else can they subject those who are suffering to further suffering out of sheer incompetence and stupidity?

And how on Earth can others support these sort of people?

I have come to the conclusion that democracy truly is an ethical choice made by a people who agree on a simple and obvious code of ethics.

We don’t like it when bad things are done to us, and we don’t like it when bad things happen to others, so we establish things like ‘rights’ and laws. In Malta, there is no such morality, only amorality.

Amoral people will use democracy amorally, and it is up to us, the voters, to recognise who those amoral people are before they take too much power. We must elect good people who are good politicians to form good governments, not some spineless, ‘well-meaning’ weaklings who are part of a gang, who turn far too many blind eyes to blatant abuse of power.

We must react with outrage to news of secret companies. You should stop bad business and find a way to do without bad people, rather than convince yourself you won’t get caught and join in. And don’t you dare say that I am ‘just’ being negative, either.

There is so much that I love about Malta, but each day a big piece of it is taken away.

One day there won’t be much left. I hope those responsible for all atrocities carried out are exposed, and I hope those who expose them feel good doing it. And I hope that we will rise to the occasion and sort our country out once and for all. Justice must be done, not just ‘seen’ to be done.

Edward Caruana Galizia is an actor and studied psychosocial studies at Birkbeck University of London.

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