Overboard
Can’t believe it! Well nobody seems to realise what we are hearing in the
media. People being thrown out of boats. People being asked to pay
$1000 for their final trip! People being washed up our shores. It doesn’t
seem to come as a surprise anymore that people roll into our shoreline
void of life - on the same beaches we play music, eat and celebrate life.
Our economical minded mentality and our sternness to calculate all in
pounds, shillings and pence (as the saying goes), has as the President of
Malta, said some days back, placed our value-base in quandary. And I
ask: Is this the cultural transmission of values that we have inherited from
our predecessors?
We need leaders in this country who are passionate, able to dream, who
interpret culture not as a baggage made up of calculators and financial
systems but of a society that is based on welfare and humanitarian values.
We’re becoming immune, it seems to me, to the value-mess we are
encapsulated in. Most of us are confused. It is no longer easy to define
what is good and bad, what is acceptable or not, what is ours by right or
by virtue. It’s becoming OK for people to be hurt, to have to drift away at
sea at 2 degrees and what’s the most worrying is that we are learning to
disregard.
Let’s reflect. What is our position on the following? The right to speak, the
right to have a voice, the right to be different (and be proud), the right to
be loved and to have opportunities to love. These values are basic,
crucial and fundamental in our social texture. Let’s not go into
complicated treaties and social facts. Let’s ask a vital question, what is it
that makes us happy? (Do we have that sentiment anymore, or is it a
struggle to feel happy now a days – no time for that either!!?)
We necessitate an economy not based exclusively on bursaries, balance
sheets and outcomes, but a community founded on amity, smiles and
contentment. Citizens, we have a right to be content! No career on its
own, no savings plan and insurance assurances can make our life
happier. Happiness needs to be struggled for.
The people washed up our shores, those thrown overboard, were in
search not of riches or paradise but of a decent life. Decent as in
courteous, in having the liberty to think, to savour a beer on a
promenade, to go to work, to have family – and to cuddle up in bed
every evening dreaming ourselves into the next day. This Society we are
inheriting is a Society enthralled with fears and insecurities that are the
result of an upbringing compressed with fears, individualism and
competitiveness. Now we want to ingrain a heritable composure that is
loaded with a struggle for happiness, a sense of liking for self and others,
an enjoyment for debates rather than just analysing conclusions and
product upshot. Today’s Society is based on past decisions; tomorrow’s
Society is based on today’s resolutions. What are we injecting in these
children and young people? Maybe, evil, tragedy, and value of life that is
depreciating to nil? A life counts, each life needs to tally. That young
Chinese man and girl washed up our shores is a sign of the times that
needs to be read. In the decomposed face of those youngsters I find a
new eagerness to live. That lifeless heart speaks words larger than poetry.
It is a requisite to have a Society based on interpreting the function and
role that everyone of us has in society, a Society based on the values of
interdependency, autonomy and mutual validity. We call for a Society
based on comfort but not at the cost of placating what we believe in.
Who knows, maybe we need to learn to have fun and amusement? I
suggest;
1. we kick off once again our believe in the notion of community;
2. the confiscation of a competitive culture (that is starting from our
schools);
3. removing invisibility of the minorities in our society.
4. re-emphasising the value of values;
5. improving the way politicians and other leaders behave in Society;
6. building a culture of dialogue and self-reflection;
What he learns there is what his culture’s ethos
and his private sensibility (or, anyway, certain
aspects of them) look alike when spelled
externally in a collective text; that the two are
near enough alike to be articulated in the
symbolics of a single such text; and the
disquieting part that the text in which this
revelation is accomplished consists of a chicken
hacking another to mindless bits (Geertz 1973, p.
6).
Dr. Andrew Azzopardi is a social worker and teacher by profession. He is qualified in
inclusive education and disability politics, lectures at the University of Malta and has
presented research papers in numerous conferences and symposia.
Private Information:
Address:
28, ‘Cheval’, Flat 2, Gorg Borg Street, B’Kara – BKR 14
Telephone:
79266344