Malta’s Resilience: Unseen Strength or Hidden Weakness?

Picture this: The bustling streets of Valletta, Malta’s capital, on a typical summer evening. The sun dips below the Grandmaster’s Palace, casting a warm glow over the Baroque architecture. Locals and tourists alike meander through the city, gelato in hand, seemingly unruffled by the heat. This is Malta’s comfort zone, where life is lived at a leisurely pace, and challenges are often met with a shrug and a “ma’ l-ħajja” – ‘what will be, will be’. But is this laid-back attitude a sign of resilience, or a sign of complacency?

Comfort and Greed: Malta’s Double-Edged Sword

Malta’s comfort is undeniable. It’s a small island nation with a big heart, where everyone knows everyone, and community spirit runs deep. But there’s a flip side to this coin. Malta’s comfort has also bred a certain level of greed. In a country where the cost of living is relatively low, and the economy is booming, it’s easy to become complacent. We’ve seen it in our housing market, where property prices have skyrocketed, pricing out many locals. We’ve seen it in our politics, where corruption scandals have rocked the establishment. We’ve seen it in our environment, where development has often trumped conservation.

This isn’t to say that Malta is unique in this regard. Greed and complacency are global issues. But as a small island nation, Malta’s resources are finite. And so, the question remains: how can we turn this comfort and greed into resilience?

Resilience: Malta’s Blind Spot

Resilience is defined as the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change. It’s a word that’s often thrown around in the context of natural disasters or economic crises. But what about everyday resilience? The kind that allows us to bounce back from the small setbacks that life throws at us? The kind that allows us to adapt and innovate in the face of change?

Malta has shown glimpses of this kind of resilience. Remember the 2017 storms that battered the island? Malta came together, helping each other clear debris and repair damage. Remember the COVID-19 pandemic? Malta acted quickly, implementing strict lockdown measures that helped flatten the curve. But these are exceptions, not the rule. In our day-to-day lives, we often struggle to find that same resilience.

Take, for example, our traffic congestion. Malta’s roads are notorious for their traffic jams, yet year after year, we find ourselves stuck in the same gridlock. We complain, we honk, we curse, but we rarely find a way to adapt or innovate. We’re stuck in our comfort zone, unable to see the change that’s needed.

Finding Our Resilience: A Call to Action

So, how do we find our resilience? How do we turn our comfort and greed into a strength, rather than a weakness? It starts with acknowledging that change is necessary. It starts with looking beyond our immediate comfort and considering the long-term impact of our actions. It starts with taking responsibility, both as individuals and as a community.

It’s not an easy task. It requires us to step out of our comfort zones, to challenge the status quo, and to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable. But it’s not impossible. We’ve seen it before, in the way we’ve come together in times of crisis. We’ve seen it in the way we’ve embraced new technologies and adapted to new ways of working during the pandemic. We’ve seen it in the way we’ve protested against corruption and demanded change.

So, let’s not wait for the next crisis to test our resilience. Let’s start now, in our daily lives, in our communities, in our politics. Let’s find our resilience, not because we have to, but because we want to. Because Malta deserves a future that’s not just comfortable, but also resilient.

As the late Maltese poet Dun Karm once wrote, “Il-bniedem ma jkunx jkunx” – “The future will not be given to us”. It’s up to us to shape it, to make it resilient, to make it our own.