There is a general distrust in the air: an environment has been created where no one appears to trust another. The atmosphere is stifling and there is an overall depressive mood. Is this reality, an exaggeration, or just a concoction of feelings that is seen completely different in a more positive mood?

This is not meant to be some philosophical or analytical article. It is what most people who appear to care that diffuse this feeling. Our society in my country does not trust the Malta Curia or the leaders of the Catholic Church or those who have any influential position in the Catholic Church. How ridiculous, for instance, for the Archbishop, my good friend Joseph Merieca, not to feel free to be able to state how he intends to spend his summer holidays: is he so powerless as to having to rely on his PRO to communicate to the press as to how he intends to spend the summer holidays? Have we reached such a silly stage that simply because a human being occupies the post of Archbishop in a particular Church which has a public relation officer on its payroll not to be able to decide for himself as to what to write or what to communicate, but must channel it through the official communication source of the Malta Curia, namely its PRO. How utterly ridiculous: how can you trust such an institution when its leaders are not capable of being able to participate in a free discussion without any reference to text or to formality, but just for once be themselves!

Worse still is the plight of our major Political Parties: the leading Officials of our major Political Parties and the Media which these Parties owe, thanks to the money they usurped from the imbecile faithful, these cannot speak as they want to because their imbued sense of constant lying has made them prisoners of their own systems to the extent that no-one actually believes what they say or have to sift it and review it with a pinch of salt or attempt to read between the lines: thus when it comes to our two major Political Parities distrust is a key factor in the majority of people who follow silently but intelligently what goes on in my Country.

This social disease of distrust has become a hallmark of the society we live in: everyone appears to lie, lying has become habitual in my Country, we thrive on lies and we even actually believe lies even when we are fully aware that they are lies, nay ‘false’ lies as the King of Siam would say!

It is not healthy for a civilized, democratic and pluralistic society to live within these parameters of distrust in the air: it will stifle us and suck the much needed oxygen for freedom of expression, for freedom to be felt that it is part and parcel of our living environment. We cannot survive even the privacy of our homes, even our social and public lives, even public discussions on the Media (when we are allowed this pleasure, naturally) when we do not feel free to say what we like, albeit in a responsible manner, but still pretend to say what we like and feel we ought to say!

Fear is in the air because those who have arrogated powers to themselves or usurped powers because of the ignorance of those around them, such as some of those who represent us in Brussels whom I term silent fools of my Country who suck the very blood of my People, what a pity that our Media is so corrupt not to have the mechanism for all this to come forth and be openly discussed on our various Media sources.

Distrust in the Air is felt by the ordinary People of my Land and you can see the uneasiness in the face of many People when cornered by some tricky arguments as to what is going on in the Country: they are afraid because they strongly believe, and indeed they are correct, that there is someone, somewhere, ready to spy on them and like a parasite thrive on gossip that it may reach interested ears so that one’s gain becomes another person’s damnation!

What a pity that even on our esteemed Judges and Magistrates the wall of silence has been imposed, and these are not free unless duly authorised and given permission to participate in healthy public debates on relevant social issues. How can we improve the culture of the masses when those who are meant to improve this culture are themselves prisoners of the fear in my Country, because of this distrust in the air?

Let us those of us who, though disagreeing with one-another on a number of issues, believe firmly that it is time to stop this cultural rot, rebel against the distrust in the air that we have among us. Let us inject life of freedom in our society because unless we do so, we are going to rot and find ourselves immersed and buried in the corruption that prevails in our air!