The ‘idiots’

“Every ten years or so, some idiot brings up the idea of capping Comino tourists,” according to Michael Zammit Tabona, the former non-resident ambassador to Finland forced to resign after comparing Angela Merkel to Hitler.

Never one to mince words, the entrepreneur whose various business interests (from medical marijuana to fast ferries to tourist boats to hotels and restaurants) invariably receive administrative boosts called the capping idea downright stupid.

Idiots. Apparently, there are quite a few around. I have already referred to Prime Minister Robert Abela’s “balance” reply regarding Comino. The official answer is that a balance must be found between business interests and environmental protection.

The “balance principle” has resurfaced regarding the Valletta nighttime rules debacle. Minister Clayton Bartolo too mentioned the need to achieve a balance between business interests and resident needs.

Underlying this principle is the presumption that business interests are fundamental necessities. We are fed the myth that business interests are always necessary and helpful for the country. Who tells us this? The businessmen and the government that is in cahoots with the businessmen. You either understand that, or you are an idiot.

We idiots are stupid enough to understand that the “balance principle” is only helpful to bleed our nation of its natural resources. We are resigned to the fact that the socio-economic model for the nation is one of growth, growth, growth that requires sacrificing the last natural resources for the greater benefit of the few.

It is this model that condemns us to a downwards spiral of exploitation. Hidden in our constitution is the networked businessman’s right to milk the country dry – there could be no more apt analogy to the killing of the goose that laid the golden egg. That is why idiots who dare aspire to control this greedy exploitation have already lost the game.

A recent survey showed that Malta ranked very low in a list of countries where ex-pats would want to live.  Meanwhile, the Maltese passport remains strong, ranked as the 8th most valuable passport in the world. Do you see it? Nobody wants to live there, but they’d gladly take the passport to move on elsewhere where the quality of life is much, much better.

Yet, Zammit Tabona will out the idiots. He cannot see the irony when he says that “no one should be restricted from visiting this gem (Comino).” Even as the gem slowly loses its polish and shine, Zammit Tabona still claims the right to unleash the hordes of tourists daily. Only an idiot would disagree.

Of course, he would not bark so loudly had he not the certainty of the backing of those who came up with the “balance principle”. After all, this is the same entrepreneur who employed the disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat as a consultant for his Fortina Investments soon after he had stepped down from the job at Castille.

All remuneration for professional work, of course. Yet a contract coming so close to a decision by Muscat’s administration to waive a government restriction on the use of the Fortina Hotel site was always going to raise eyebrows.

The disgraced former prime minister was again in the news this week as he gloated following the EU deal with Azerbaijan. Quoting no less an eminence than Joe Debono Grech, Muscat pointedly asked whether any eyebrows would be raised now that even the EU had been forced to deal with Aliyev for its energy needs.

We must all be idiots who accept to compare the EU-Azerbaijan deal to that concocted by Konrad Mizzi and the 2019 Person of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption.

Muscat would have us believe that the modality of the deals is the same. He would have us forget the many question marks on dubious transactions linked to the Malta-Azerbaijan deal. The 17 Black cash trail links the government of Azerbaijan to Yorgen Fenech, arrested as a suspect in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The Malta-Azerbaijan deal is not just tainted with corruption. It is tainted with blood. And Muscat is trying hard to whitewash it by comparing it to a deal struck in a moment of crisis.

Both Zammit Tabona and his disgraced consultant have a twisted concept of idiots. They may be kings in the power game behind the “balance principle”, but they cannot be allowed to treat the rest of us as idiots.

Either that or the tourists on those Captain Morgan boats will not be the only ones being taken for a ride.