I was born and raised in a family that supported the centre-right political party in Malta. Most, if not all. of my paternal ancestors were fervent supporters of the Nationalist Party. Same applies to my maternal ancestors. I myself was a big fan of Dr Eddie Fenech Adami for several years and I enjoyed attending political mass meetings.
When I moved to Spain in 2003, my political views started to change after my first few months living there. Financially-speaking, my situation deteriorated from bad to worse. Although I was working as an English language teacher, I was given very few lessons per week. I was hardly earning enough money to cover my monthly rent (the rent was that of € 180 for a small room in a shared apartment which lacked heating and other comforts). The apartment was located in a part of Madrid called Pan Bendito. The latter was definitely not considered by many locals as a wealthy area. Not too far from my apartment, there was a park where drug trafficking was fairly common. Money was so limited that I would order the cheapest baguette from the cafeteria that I normally visited. Whenever I would go shopping for food (usually from a Dia or Lidl outlet), I would often spend quite a long time trying to decide whether I really needed something that I wanted. For example, I would grab a bag of chocolates and then ask myself whether I could buy something that would last longer with the same amount of money. The only clothes I had were the ones that I took with me from Malta and they were not much. Unfortunately, I had no money to acquire new clothing items. When I faced my first winter in Madrid, I was feeling so cold that my Spanish roommate allowed me to borrow one of his jackets.
As I struggled to keep a roof over my head and to obtain sufficient food, many of the students that I taught occupied management positions and were clearly fairly rich. Whilst I was racking my brains to choose whether to buy one food item compared to another, most of my students would be talking about the expensive shops they visited. Exposed to such a situation, my instinctive reaction was one of resentment: was it fair for them to be living so well whereas I was struggling to make ends meet?
In 2004, the Spanish electorate was called to vote during the country's general election. Although my Spanish was still far from fluent, I could understand some of the basic things that were being said during the electoral campaign. The PSOE, Spain's centre-left party, was talking about increasing the minimum wage and about improving the plight of hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the country. The party leader, Mr Zapatero, also promised that if he was elected Prime Minister, he would withdraw Spain from the Iraq war. During that time, I was bitterly against the said conflict; I felt that the main reasons to go to war had been largely fabricated by the US government and that little good would be achieved from the participation of various countries in various battles. My beliefs were strengthened even further when I watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Although I found myself agreeing more and more with the PSOE on a number of issues, I had still not explicitly rebranded myself as a leftist. That happened when I moved to El Salvador in early 2005. I spent less than six months in the latter country, but political positions were far more polarised there and I was strongly exposed to a great deal of socialist and even communist literature. Apart from the staggering poverty which was clearly visible in El Salvador, the country had one of the world's highest daily murder rates. Indeed, during my short time there, the average rate was that of eleven murders per day!
When I returned to Malta in early June 2005, I considered myself to be a Marxist-Leninist. I even had a key-chain showing Che Guevara's face. I spent hours browsing on the Internet as I hopped from one communist website to another. When I talked to people, I did my utmost to teach them about the horrors of capitalism and to persuade them that communism was the only solution to a better future.
By the time that my Salvadoran girlfriend came to live with me later on in 2005, my financial situation had not improved much. I had found a job within one of Malta's largest insurance companies, but I was earning minimum wage. Furthermore, since my girlfriend was not from an EU country, she was unable to earn a living in Malta until such time that we got married. As time went by, my meagre salary had to cover rent, food, medicines, and many other essential items. My Mum, the only person who had bailed me out whenever I was practically penniless, was diagnosed with a terminal illness; she was in and out of hospital until she passed away in March 2006.
My financial situation eventually improved, but I still considered myself to be a communist. I still believed in a glorious future where all people would be free to engage in their preferred activities without any human exploitation. Poverty would cease to exist as every person's needs were satisfied without the need to spend any money at all.
My support for the communist cause even brought me in contact with a number of locals who had been active within the Communist Party of Malta for several years. Many of the people that I met were friendly and truly tried to mould their own lives on socialist principles. As an organisation, the party was in shambles and there was never any formal or official membership structure. There was no conceivable way that the party could aspire to make much of a difference on the Maltese political scene.
As a result of my interactions with the Communist Party of Malta activists, I also had the opportunity to meet a number of DPRK citizens who were working in the local construction industry. I also met some who were working in a Korean restaurant in Bugibba. A handful of DPRK citizens were also working inside a Korean fusion restaurant in Gzira.
Apart from meeting several individuals from the DPRK in Malta, I was also invited to attend the 100th birthday celebrations of Kim Il Sung in the DPRK itself. This happened in 2012. I travelled to and from Pyongyang via China.
During my time in the DPRK, I was treated very well. There was always a great deal of good food to eat and the hotel room was large as well as comfortable. I could write a whole article concerning the days I spent in the DPRK, but that would go beyond the scope of this blog post. It is, however, possible to state that it is true that I could not leave the hotel on my own. It is also true that the foreigners who attended these celebrations were exposed to whatever the authorities wanted us to see.
Over time, my interactions with the Communist Party of Malta activists decreased. I found some of their attitudes to be way too rigid. Furthermore, there was such a shocking degree of disorganisation that no real projects could be carried out successfully. I also found it very difficult to digest certain concepts such as the dictatorship of the proletariat. The visceral hatred towards various wealthy individuals exhibited by a number of communist supporters both locally and worldwide made me uncomfortable since I did not feel capable of such destructive emotions.
In March 2013, I voted for the Labour Party. I was truly happy when the latter won a landslide victory against the Nationalist Party. Having said this, as a communist person, I always kept having several reservations about Dr Joseph Muscat's pro-business approach to politics. Indeed, I formed part of a group of 26 leftist individuals who signed a letter that was sent to Dr Muscat to express our collective disagreement concerning various issues (I wrote a separate blog post about the meeting that I then had with the Prime Minister together with some of the other signatories in December 2014).
Fast-forward to 2016. By that time, I no longer had any contact with the Communist Party of Malta activists. I came to agree with Tony Blair who once said that "There is an arrogance and self-righteousness about many of the groups on the far left which is deeply unattractive to the ordinary would be-member...There's too much mixing only with people [with] whom they agree."
My perceptions concerning life in the DPRK had also changed quite dramatically. I felt that the provision of certain essential items by the government should not be a reason to justify the terrible control that the authorities showed vis-a-vis the country's inhabitants. I found it ridiculous to note that in the 21st century, millions of citizens in the DPRK were not allowed to use the Internet and/or to communicate freely with other people around the world. I also stopped trying to fool myself that all the negative things being stated about the DPRK were merely the fruits of capitalist propaganda.
For the first time in many years, I also stopped to think about the importance of individual freedom. I realised that wherever and whenever socialist governments have ruled, there was practically always an emphasis on having a relatively strong State which limited or controlled several freedoms enjoyed by the individual citizen. As I learned more about the experience of the Soviet Union and about those countries that declared themselves socialist, I was appalled to witness the gargantuan efforts exercised by numerous States to try to force all people to behave and think in a specific way. Furthermore, it became clear to me that since one person is so different from another, even the concepts relating to the ideal socialist citizen varied from place to place. During the 20th century, several governments came to ideological blows with one another simply because they could not agree on which country adopted the "purest" version of socialism. I considered such battles to be fairly silly since a country's preferred socialist model was frequently a reflection of the leader's belief system. Once the leader had been deposed or passed away, countless changes would be introduced.
I eventually realised that when talking about capitalism, it is impossible to talk about just one model. Indeed, it is perfectly possible to discuss several capitalist models. And each one has its costs as well as benefits. Consequently, when some people recite various statements against capitalism, I am tempted to ask them: which version of capitalism are you talking about?
Capitalism - like any other economic model - is surely not perfect. One could write pages about its flaws. Having said this, capitalism allows citizens to enjoy a degree of freedom that cannot exist in a truly socialist society. In a capitalist society, the average citizen can aspire to engaging in various economic activities that would not be possible in a socialist country. Moreover, capitalist models encourage people to think freely and not to waste time trying to get everyone to behave in a rigid as well as limited way.
My material circumstances also changed from 2016 onwards. For the first time in my life, I was able to involve myself in a project that would have allowed me to earn more money. I also educated myself about investments and their potential to improve one's income.
As my material situation improved, I developed a growing resentment towards the many fixed costs imposed by the government. I strongly believed that it was unfair to be taxed here and there in respect of a person's hardly-earned income. In particular, I thought that the capital transfer duty (could be regarded as an inheritance tax) was terribly unfair. This is a tax applicable to immoveable property (such as houses) that is payable to the government by the heir/s at the time of inheriting the said property. If the person who passed way had various expensive properties, the heir/s would not only be struggling with the loss of a loved one; they would also be penalised with this tax that could go up to thousands of Euros!
At this stage, one could say: what about all those poor and vulnerable people that you once campaigned for or tried to help? Have you forgotten all about them just because you are now living a better life? I have definitely not forgotten my own battles with poverty and I have also not brushed aside the daily torments of those members of society who lack countless essential items to live comfortably. I have, however, changed my beliefs about the best way of helping such individuals. I no longer believe that a country's government should be the main entity that is responsible to provide many types of assistance to the poor or vulnerable members of society. As populations continue to grow and as the life expectancy for millions of people continues to increase, governments would need billions of pounds, dollars, or whatever currency you want to talk about to keep funding numerous social programs. For governments to be able to obtain this money, they would need to retain or add countless taxes. My question is: what is the point of helping the poor by impoverishing those that are wealthy?
Many prominent persons such as Senator Bernie Sanders in the US have argued that increasing taxation on the country's billionaires would still allow them to remain sufficiently wealthy to be able to go about their daily lives without any hardships. The points that people like Sanders fail to see are as follows: if the country's richest people are heavily taxed year after year, a day may come when they will witness a massive deterioration in their wealth since when it comes to business activities, there is no guarantee that today's billionaire will still enjoy the same wealth in the future. Furthermore, by being so wealthy, the world's billionaires create thousands of jobs. The more money one takes away from these billionaires, the less jobs will be created. And, frankly, unless a person suddenly earns enough money to start a business, jobs are the key drivers to earning a living for most people around the world.
I believe that no person should ever be homeless or go hungry. Yet, I believe that each country should have a sufficiently strong civil sector so that whenever a human being is in need, there are well-organised charities that can step in to provide all the necessary assistance. Charities usually provide most types of help for free and they do not force anyone to give them money to fund their activities. Moreover, from my experience, numerous charities tend to be more knowledgeable and dedicated to resolving various social problems than a government bureaucrat who is active for a few hours a day and whose main interest is that of earning a salary at the end of the month. A government should continue to help only until such time that one or more charities can take over once and for all.
Nowadays, I enjoy describing myself as a compassionate conservative. Politically-speaking, I like being a centrist to avoid labels. Although I have moved away from the political left, I am still a Roman Catholic Christian (this is being said since I had once described myself as a Christian Socialist). I believe that the welfare of the individual should be at the centre of any political thinking or analysis. I think that individual freedom should be championed provided that it does not cause explicit harm to others. I believe that capitalism provides more solutions to improving one's life than Marxism or Marxism-Leninism. And I definitely cannot ever see myself going back to the leftist person that I once was. As stated by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: "I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
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