Even if early elections are called before what I’m writing here gets published, the recent speculation about an early election will have been an empty, indeed nonsensical exercise. It got run mostly by the so-called independent media. One understands of course that daily journalism faces the imperative of every day finding stories to tell. If such journalism is going to be serious, it needs to present true not fictitious imagined stories. Now, there do come times when life proceeds with a regular, monotonous flow during which nothing “new” happens.
During such periods, stories get concocted about what could happen tomorrow if today… Still nothing happens tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but the story as published, would not have invented anything. Yet the speculation as published arouses people’s curiosity and maintains their interest. Even if nothing of what is published actually happens, such stories cannot be labelled as inventions. They’re stories about what should have happened and has not… up to now!
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NATURAL GREENERY
A call which was recently made appealing for our “natural” flora in fields and open spaces to be allowed to grow and not get removed and “cleaned”, was spot on. Beyond the fact that such cleaning amounts to the destruction of the habitats where thrive bees and other insects that stimulate the processes of nature, so-called wild flowers and plants possess their own beauty. It keeps alive and vibrant what’s left of our countryside.
Take poppies – though some people will claim that they are not an indigenous Maltese flower. But many of us who are quite advanced in years, well remember the fields crowded with poppies in April. Today one can hardly find any such areas, or the fields covered with deep yellow, beautiful flowers even if wild – I never learnt what they’re called and now it’s too late.
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POST ORBAN
Orban’s problem was that he stayed too long in power. A substantial number of his ideas to safeguard the interests of the Hungarian people were inherently correct. As the years passed though, his ideas became hidebound and were not updated to reflect the changing circumstances; this could have been done without making them lose their essential relevance. But during a long stay in power – with the friendships and social alliances that accumulate – renewal is stymied, positions get entrenched and in the urge not to lose power, the ability is lost to bring people together. Instead, power serves to create division among people and make them turn away from former ideals, which in any case, would have been allowed to drift away.
Abuses of power and corruption become important engines in public affairs, at times even more influential than the government and the ruling party which would have allowed them to flourish. It’s not surprising that Orban’s successor seems to have close to the same perspectives as the early Orban. He seems to have turned against the Orban of today because the latter failed to renew and safeguard the political values that both believed in.
