When it is no longer fashionable to be modern

Forget the tattooed youth with the beer bottle strapped to the pretty girl, both waving their hands frantically at the village festa and blaspheming without let or hindrance.

Erase the image of the man with the small cage tucked under his armpit and the restless goldfinch (gardell) in it, and with a toothpick jutting out of the corner of his lips, his paunch as round as a beach ball bursting out of his coffee stained vest.

For a moment, disregard the annoying cacophony of the fireworks. Please just look the other way when you are faced with dirt and garbage on the beach and in the countryside.

You would have by now probably heard that we live in a modern state. 

The towering Fort Cambridge and Tigne point, a tribute to our great architectural stupidity, attest to this. As do the apartments that tear into our valleys.

That, we have heard over and over again, is important to ensure that our country appears to be cosmopolitan, or perhaps to justify our quest to turn this country into an unpleasant place.

Modernity, of course, means plenty of things, from luxury cars to fast boats and fat bank accounts. Yet we all know that the roads and the seas around us are far from being splendidly modern. 

We want to be modern in practically everything. The other day, there was a big discussion in the newsroom on the use of the words transvestite and transgender, storekeeper and storeman, black and coloured. 

I felt so modern.

Superficial is more like it.

Yes, and modernity also means that we have to have political appointees on some 65K or 75K, apart from perks, but keep the rest of the staff on salaries which work at a fourth of that.

Modernity also does away with how good you really are, but, more importantly, equates with how loud you can get when you want something.

The new ‘modernity’ buzz word also translates into the situation that if you are in business then everyone and everything else is irrelevant and what you wish for and want is somehow possible even though it goes against every rule and ethic that you can think of.

This newness also means that we live in ultra modern homes with the most amazing luxuries, with lawns and pools. It is how it should be. For those who can afford it.

And of course the freshness in our new way of living means that our local restaurants offer a service with hardly any Maltese-speaking waiters, who are probably underpaid, and very important London prices, even though we have Maltese salaries.

We are a modern State, to the extent that we have health clinics and specialists who privately offer all the medical advice and treatment for a horrendous fee.  That makes you wonder what is happening that is wrong at Mater Dei. 

And just in case you are wondering, these medical specialists have the added benefit of having no VAT audit trail for their extreme pricing and tariffs. Like lawyers they need not worry about the VAT thing.

This is an innovative country – if you want a kidney machine you get someone to cycle abroad or run up Kilimanjaro to raise the money for it. And if you need special and costly chemotherapy sessions you knock on the door of the overstretched Community Chest Fund.

The welfare system, by the way, is now a dirty word for idiots such as Ed Miliband and Francois Hollande.

Just in case you are worried over the dearth of Oxford- or Lafayette-like malls, please sit back and come to terms with the array of shops and outlets that offer you the widest choice of brands, at slightly more expensive prices and, more importantly, a service with hardly any smile. 

Needless to say, the high pricing is because of the high rents and not the greediness of the owner.

Modernism does not stop here. It continues with the way we get things done in this country. If you know someone, it really helps, it really helps to the extent that the imaginary fast track immediately kicks in. If you do not know anyone you are of course f***** big time. To the extent that you become a second-class citizen, a pariah to society.

When we finally hit the night and the scorching sun has at last sunk in the distance, there is a world that no one would have guessed existed. It makes you feel so modern.

Gentleman clubs of course are plentiful and of rather fine quality, access to cocaine and other drugs easy if not slightly ‘too available’, and, guess what, in some outlets you can even pay with your credit card, the variety of alcohol is limitless and the alcohol so abundant. You need not worry about breathalyser tests, the police have better things to do, such as, for example, working out the great security arrangements for Kate Middleton! Or preparing for the great arrival of the Commonwealth posse of dictators.

The cherry on the cake is of course the silent and deadly sexual revolution.  In my days we would talk of the Swedish sex revolution, but nothing beats the freshness in Malta, today. It is, if you do not mind, a respectable form of Sodom & Gomorrah. Nothing wrong with that, it is after all, part of the drive to modernise this great country. 

All talk of values has long been made redundant, by the very same people who opened up to consumerism for the sake of the open market. Such things, it appears, are unstoppable.

But, and a big BUT, the best proof of having a modern country is the cancerous expansion into this ugly and despicable countryside of ours. The stampede to build more and more and the stupendous extension of roads funded of course by the European Union.

Why should we have green belts and wide, open spaces – nothing beats mountains of concrete.

This is a contemporary and up and coming nation, where sending children to state schools is only for those who either cannot make ends meet, have ideological issues or hate private schools.

The modern society is exemplified by our new set of values, which we can now freely call traditions. The tradition to suck up to the lobbies that kindly contribute to make this country what it is, a nation in its own right.

Those lobbies, needless to say, no longer include the Church, that lobby ceased to function after it was foisted with an Archbishop who is too meek to even appear in public and speak his mind.

The real lobbies are those who have the most powerful weapons of all, and those of course turn out to be money and votes.

Money – that thing that people not only are addicted to, but willing to sell their soul for. And please, don’t you dare think that Lou Bondi is all alone in this! He is as human as all of us and we should be appreciative of the fact that at least he is not ashamed to be a hypocrite.

All politicians will tell you that business people are right when they say that everyone has a price. I guess there is more to that story.

The business lobby, which includes contractors, investors, hoteliers and importers and one or two Café Premier owners, continues to operate in an environment where the ruthless world of networking, lobbying and kickbacks dominate the decision-making process. Please, I am in no way suggesting that the Café Premier owners offered a kick back. For heaven’s sake, no. I am sure our intrepid police under the former disgraced Commissioner of Police, Peter Paul Zammit, would have discovered this.

The other lobbies could be rather insignificant were the system not so dependent on votes.

They include the unions, the associations, the football clubs, the hunters and trappers of course, the fireworks enthusiasts and manufacturers, and the professionals: the doctors, the architects and the lawyers…

All this, my friend, is modern Malta and Gozo of course.  It is the dream of my life to continue living in this great country. And the only way to accept all this is to ensure that I discard my knowledge, obliterate my intellect, and destroy my emotions.

Allow myself to smile when I sit in the square at Tigne Point and say to myself, “Oh what a wonderful view, how much nicer than standing at Mtaħleb with its natural terraces of green acres.” Yes, grinning when I read a news story of how well our business is growing and how good they all are in evading tax and shout out in Maltese: “Jagħmlu sew… mela le, nagħti lil gvern.”