There are many similarities and differences between the current leadership crisis in the Nationalist Party and the leadership crisis of the 1970s.

After the 1971 electoral marginal defeat, several in the PN were feeling that George Borg Olivier’s time as PN leader was up.  Back then a key person who worked hard to oust Borg Olivier had told me that Mario Felice was his favourite candidate. Felice was intelligent, a very good speaker and wealthy enough to fill the role full- time. The very long and arduous process eventually led to a different leader: the charismatic Eddie Fenech Adami.

Those were difficult times for the PN. During the final parliamentary vote on the constitutional changes of 1974, Borg Olivier and a small group of MPs voted against while the vast majority of the parliamentary group voted for the changes. I still remember Borg Olivier taking the oath of office while adding the words “salva validitate” causing a bit of a stir.

A split not an option

Following that split vote the possibility of a split in the party was touted by many. At least on one particular Sunday, Borg Olivier was in the Paola PN club asking for the support of the grass roots. On the same Sunday Fenech Adami, Guido DeMarco and Ċensu Tabone were at Saqqajja giving their version to the party faithful. The in-fighting between the different factions was obnoxious.

Fortunately the split did not happen and the storm was weathered albeit with a lot of pain. But the united party saved Malta in the 1980s.

The massive defeat in the recent European Parliament and local council elections is nothing compared to the defeats of 1971 and 1976. It is in fact the worst electoral result ever registered by the PN.  So talk of a split is once more in fashion and the danger is there. Those who learnt no lessons from history see a split as a blessing. I will not labour to spoil their misguided bliss.

The PN is close to a lose-lose situation. Back in the 1970s, three MPs stood out as very good substitutes for Borg Olivier. Today it seems that the PN does not have the same luxury. Today it can’t win if large chunks of its supporters keep on boycotting Adrian Delia. On the other hand it can neither win if it loses the votes of the many who support him.

If the PN is reduced to a situation when it cannot win an election it is not only the PN who will be the victim. Malta and the democratic system will be the losers.

Is there the will to heal the serious malady before it becomes terminal? There is no other option but healing it. Healing it I mean, not simply patching it.

We live in a different world

Is the crisis today worse than that of the 1970s or does it just feel worse? I will not try to answer that question. But I would like to note a major difference between Malta of the 1970s and Malta today which affects reality, perception and the influence of one on the other and of both on us.

We today live in a world that has been taken over by the internet and social networks. The group grumbling or bar banter or street corner gossip or the grapevine murmuring of the 1970s finds in Facebook a potentially global forum where all caution is thrown to the wind. This potentially global forum is often, though, limited to a restricted echo chamber.

Back in the 1970s, three MPs stood out as very good substitutes for Borg Olivier. Today it seems that the PN does not have the same luxury

Politics, relationships, journalism, the media, religion, business, education and myriad other things have been radically changed by the internet and social networks. Actor Cazzie David was so right when he noted that social media at one point looked just like a fun thing but are now a monster that consumes so many millennial lives. I add, not just millennial lives.

The following statistics from various studies published in Malta in the last 12 months show the enormous importance the internet and social networks have in the lives of the Maltese.

Seventy-nine per cent of Maltese households today have a broadband connection.

Just 10 per cent have yet to join the social networks and 94 per cent of young people in Malta are active on the social networks.

More than eight out of 10 Maltese employees (around 84 per cent) used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets or other portable devices or computerised equipment at work in 2018.

Respondents in Malta make use of websites and online social networks as a primary source of news on national political matters to a much greater extent than the rest of Europe.

Are we members of one another?

Independently of the impact that the social networks are having on the crisis in the PN, it is more important to reflect on the way they are influencing all our lives. In this exercise we who today live in cyberspace almost as much as we live in the physical space may benefit from a short document which can help us understand the reality we live in.

This is Pope Francis’s message for World Communications Day 2019 titled ‘We are members of one another’. The title, lifted from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, mirrors the electronic optimism preached in the 1960s by McLuhan who prophesised the coming of the global village. 

Pope Francis however takes a more realistic stance by placing at opposite ends the Net and the Web almost in the good cop/bad cop category. This is a welcome approach as the internet and the social networks under the influence of the capitalist corporate giants that own them have not reached the egalitarian goals many wished for.

The Net, so to speak, is the good cop. Francis writes that it is a source of knowledge and relationships that were once unthinkable, can help us to better connect, rediscover and assist one another. “The Net works because all its elements share responsibility.”

The Web is the sort of bad cop. The “web identity is too often based on opposition to the other, the person outside the group: we define ourselves starting with what divides us rather than with what unites us, giving rise to suspicion and to the venting of every kind of prejudice (ethnic, sexual, religious and other)”.

The Pope’s message goes beyond a diagnosis of the situation. It also proposes a treatment and a way forward, “opening the way for dialogue, for encounter... This is the network we want, a network created not to entrap, but to liberate, to protect a communion of people who are free”.

This can only happen if the social networks are used to promote informed rational opinion instead of emotional shouting; organised, reasoned debate, not ideological ranting or simplistic analysis.

The discussion on the social media about the crisis of the PN, like most of the other discussions about anything else on Facebook, is unfortunately light years from this ideal.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece