Here I sit a day before the big event. The event that fully symbolises us: the trashy, idiotic Eurovision Song Festival.
This festival is so dumb that our singer’s destiny depends on various factors which are absolutely unconnected to talent. I do not possess a crystal ball. And I have no clue what position our representative has achieved in the final.
But this is irrelevant.
What is truly relevant is that crystal ball or not I can make a prediction which I know will be spot on, and, if the stakes were high enough, I would be hailed as a modern-day Nostradamus.
Whatever Destiny’s placing, my prediction is that the airwaves, social media and even our politicians will never tire of discussing the festival.
Yes, just like me writing this and you reading it now on a hopefully balmy May Sunday.
My prediction goes beyond who wins what or who says what. My prediction is that we will all join in discussing the inconsequential. While the big picture, the sad picture of what is happening to the country, is marginalised, swept under the carpet, hardly mentioned.
These last few weeks have seen horrendous stories bursting out over this island.
There has been a minister mentioned in a bank heist, another minister (of education, no less) embroiled in so many present and past shady dealings that it would take a whole week to list them all, a former junior minister who is still an MP who is also involved in a series of horrors. Added to all this is the fact that over – way over – a quarter of a billion Euro deal has still not been investigated let alone led to any resignations. A judge has tipped off one of the previously mentioned ministers that he was about to be questioned by the police.
These are but a few of what we hear about on a daily basis in Malta. In the place where all is fine.
While all this and more goes on hardly anyone says anything. But, in the name of reality and all that’s good for the land, Destiny and the Eurovision have us writing, reading and discussing our destiny in the voting as if our future depended on it.
And my horribly blurred crystal ball can still foresee that nothing will change. Our destiny is sad and will get sadder.
While Rome burnt, the emperor, it is said, played on his fiddle. While Malta is riven by stuff that should send us all into confusion and desperation, we sing the praises of a singer or discuss her clothes in shock and horror. Or of her amazing victory.
I hope Destiny did win the competition. This would fit in nicely with the decadence of Imperial Rome, where panem and circenses was all the populace needed to keep them happy and united.