Reading the contributions by my friend Desmond Zammit Marmarà, a number of professors and doctors and the report about the President’s speech on the September 8 events, one might conclude that the vital issue on our little republic’s agenda is that of the national day.

I am sure the people who visit Dar Papa Franġisku begging for shelter and/or a meal, those who do not know whether next month their income will suffice to pay their rent/mortgage, the many suffering because of the colour of their skin and/or legal status, those providing services in the mushrooming ‘massage’ industry under God-knows what conditions, the increasing numbers enduring psychological problems heightened by our lifestyle, those who will no longer have any open spaces and/or countryside where they can breathe because of overdevelopment, those who have to work two jobs to scrape a living and many others will be punching the air in sheer elation when someone will finally make a decision.

Given what engages the mental juices of those involved in mainstream bourgeois erudite discussion in Malta, may I humbly make the following suggestion? Let us retain five national holidays but have five consecutive days starting on Giovedi Gras.

Thank goodness, on Victory Day some sense radiated from the pastoral letter of the bishops, who addressed the concerns that are really besieging the flesh-and-blood human beings that belong to the lowest echelons of our society.

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