Let’s rise together – because the time is now

**Let’s rise together – because the time is now**
*How a simple phrase is becoming Malta’s post-pandemic rallying cry*

Valletta’s Republic Street at 7 a.m. used to echo only with the clack of heels on limestone and the distant hum of the first Gozo fast-ferry. This morning it pulsed with a different soundtrack: the chatter of volunteers unloading crates of vegetables, the hiss of espresso machines being fired up by café owners who vowed “today we open early for the cleaners,” and the spontaneous applause that broke out when 83-year-old Ġanni from Sliema shuffled forward to donate three trays of ħobż biż-żejt to a queue of construction workers. Someone had scrawled “Rise Together – Il-Ħin Hu Issa” on a torn cardboard box. By 8 a.m. the slogan was all over TikTok, tagged to a drone shot of the Grand Harbour glinting like polished brass.

The phrase is not a government campaign. It started in a Birkirkara youth centre two weeks ago after a heated debate on whether Malta’s recovery was leaving behind renters, artists and single parents. Naomi Cassar, 24, a part-time gamer and full-time carer for her nanna, blurted it out: “We keep waiting for someone else to fix this. Let’s rise together – because the time is now.” The centre fell silent, then erupted. Someone screen-grabbed the moment, slapped it over a photo of the Maltese cross lit by fireworks, and the rest is algorithmic history.

Within days the hashtag #RiseTogetherMalta was outperforming Eurovision memes. Pastizzi stalls offered “pay-it-forward” trays; Gozitan farmers posted videos of neighbours picking tomatoes for food-bank soup; band clubs turned rehearsal halls into co-working spaces for GCSE students who still don’t have Wi-Fi at home. Even the usually polarised Facebook village groups declared a ceasefire. “I disagreed with you on the DB project, but I’ll still share your crowdfunding for dialysis transport,” wrote one Mellieħa resident. The comment collected 430 hearts.

Cultural historians are not surprised. Anthropologist Dr. Josanne Cassar (no relation to Naomi) points to the island’s long memory of collective lift-ups: the wartime Victory Kitchens, the 1950s “Imzielet” mutual-aid networks when women pooled eggs and gossip in equal measure, and the 1983 shipyard strikes that saw families share one rabbit between ten plates. “Maltese resilience has always been hyper-local,” she explains. “The difference now is the speed of the narrative. A cardboard box becomes a national metaphor before the paint dries.”

Yet the movement is already testing its next leap: from kindness to policy. On Tuesday, Parliamentary Secretary Rebecca Buttigieg accepted an invitation to a rooftop meeting in Gżira, where tenants facing 40% rent hikes sat opposite landlords who themselves are crushed by post-COVID loan interest. No cameras, no press – just the skyline they share. They emerged with a three-page “Rise Together Pact” that will be presented to Cabinet: a temporary moratorium on no-fault evictions, a pilot scheme converting empty tourist apartments into 3-year social housing, and a “community dividend” that channels 5% of every luxury-development permit into a fund for open-space theatres and mental-health drop-ins.

Critics call it utopian. But on Thursday the first €8,000 arrived in the fund – donated by a St Julian’s crypto start-up whose CEO admitted he “just wanted to see if we could move faster than a Planning Authority notice.”

Back in Valletta, the cardboard box has been laminated and hung inside the Jesuit church, where parish priest Fr. Jimmy Galea is turning the crypt into a night shelter for migrants who finish their shift cleaning the nearby offices at 2 a.m. “We used to pray for courage,” he laughs. “Now we stack beds and trust the hashtag will show up with sheets.”

Whether the momentum survives the summer lull and the inevitable political hijacks remains to be seen. Yet walking through Strait Street at dusk, past the newly opened wine bar donating 10% to domestic-violence shelters and the retired English teacher offering free storytelling to kids while parents queue for groceries, one thing is clear: the limestone is listening. And when Malta’s limestone listens, stories turn into structure.

So the invitation stands, scribbled on walls from Marsaxlokk to Mellieħa: Let’s rise together – because the time is now. The clock tower opposite the Grandmaster’s Palace still chimes every 15 minutes, but the rhythm feels different. It no longer marks the passage of time; it urges movement. And for once, the island is stepping in sync.