“No, you can’t, nannu: you’re old!” protests my six-year-old granddaughter whenever I tease her – as I am wont jestingly to do – that I shall be joining her in class for playschool.  A predictable response on all counts, of course.  ‘Elementary’, as that legendary sleuth proficient in studied observation would forthrightly concede. 

For little children grow up associating old age with inability, with limited capacity, with weakness.  The physical scars and marks of old age enhance this perception.  Everybody readily empathises with the innocent judgement of a young fertile mind. As much as older youths feel tempted to refer to their parents as ‘my old ones’.  One wonders whether such a representation of one’s progenitors is more contemptuous than affectionate. 

Intrigued I remain to this day as to why our public transport authorities have labelled the travel cards they issue to Kartanzjan 60+ holders and to people with disability as ‘concession cards’.  Is the discounted card somehow being proffered out of pity to the eligible commuter?  Could not those bureaucratic boffins have sniffed out a more considerate term for the ‘platinum’ users of their services, one that mirrors more encouragement than compassion?

Usher in the era of ageism.  Coined half a century ago, the term relates to discrimination against seniors, that prejudicial treatment on the grounds of a person’s age.  At the start of my career as a 17-year-old clerk in the civil service, my paymaster would not even pay me a salary at the minimum of my scale, at the time linked to an 18-year-old threshold. 

I had to be content with one increment below the minimum.  Fast forward to the present day – with that incongruity thankfully sorted out – and yet here I am drawing a pension that is less than what I would receive had I been born after 1 January 1962.  As a post-war baby, I had already soft-landed on planet earth by that ‘golden’ date: yet destined was I alas to a less lucrative future despite my being the earlier bird.

Is there no silver lining to this story? 

Ponder well, dear readers: do you not agree that the grey beard, the creases and the wrinkles, the difficult gait, the broken voice swathe wisdom, not to mention considerable experience and honed competence?  Mind you, these virtues have not been lost on imaginative film-makers, exuberant writers and influential artists who have unrelentingly described, detailed and depicted those approaching the end of the human life cycle as venerable. 

Be it fiction or fact, religious or mythological the belief, we are regaled with a cascade of elderly heroes replete with acumen: Gandalf, the white-bearded wizard of the ‘Fellowship of the Ring’, the knowledgeable Seven Sages of Greece, and – why not? – the iconic Almighty Father Himself, leading so many others that blend old age with merited reverence for the later stages in one’s life.

What better way to approach old age than nearing that pit stop where, with a change of tyres and by filling up once again, one is able to keep on going?

Not everyone, unfortunately, shares this adulation for senior citizens. Birthdays come and go, approximating the state pension age.  Thus does the time for that final handshake come up, that instant when one is politely shown the exit door through which to pass into forced oblivion.  All because of an ethos that aged people deserve to be fossilised. Morbidly reflecting how the guiltless intellect of the infant has dramatically morphed into a flawed sizing up of one’s elder peers.

I was once challenged what my intents were once the time to hang up my boots by the door arrived. With an amusing twinkle in his eye, my questioner lunged at me: “If you feel up to it, never retire,” he advised, “but re-tyre!”

The age of retirement should be that other pit-stop for the adventurous and for the ever-active young old or even old to reach.  Just imagine: putting on a new set of tyres, revving up and moving on once again.  “Bomba!” as any teen would nowadays cheer.

Renée Laiviera, commissioner of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE), in an opinion piece in the April–June 2018 issue of the National Council for the Elderly’s publication L-Anzjan Illum, lashes out at the mindset of those employers who perpetuate stereotyping of elderly workers, considering them inept and past their expiry date.           

The commissioner vibrantly ratchets up against the supporters of ageism: older workers can be very productive, can offer a wealth of experience at the workplace and can perform better than their younger colleagues by being more creative, flexible and versatile, can process information more quickly and are less prone to work accidents and heavy absenteeism. I challenge the practice of ridding oneself of aged workers who have reached their retirement age in spite of their wanting to stay on, and unashamedly I label the system which embraces it as downright inhuman and discriminatory.

To add insult to injury, neither is the world of the golden agers a Shangri-La.  Those in authority swiftly rush in to douse the energetic spirits firing elderly stalwarts.  Because the age of retirement, they decree, is just that – retire, give up, retreat, pull out – legislate they do, and execute they do – in the sense that rather than being the executors, they are the executioners.

The adequacy of the different pension levels meted out is pitted against the expense for their sustainability.  Retirees receiving service pensions from their former employers are isolated from those who do not, and are treated less favourably at that.  Startlingly, the death knell of a just income-related pension scheme is being rung: the principle of more responsibility - more pay - higher Social Security contributions - better State pension is being shamefully turned on its head.  Pensions are no longer defined as equitable deferred compensation.

Ageism and unfair treatment based on a person’s age have no place in the annals of this 21st century.  Not in Malta, nor anywhere else.  What better way to approach old age than nearing that pit stop where, with a change of tyres and by filling up once again, one is able to keep on going?  Being acknowledged, respected, not discriminated against, adequately compensated.  After all, as the Maltese proverb aptly urges, the race should end at the willed finishing line, and not before. 

Let nobody forget that.

Gaetan Naudi is a former senior civil servant, and served as resident ambassador for Malta in Cairo, Madrid and Warsaw.

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