1. Sovereignty

As a former colony, we know that our democracy is bound intimately with our sovereignty. Malta is the smallest state in the European Union and one of the smallest states in the world.

The “bigs” within the EU are increasing their pressure to weaken the influence of the “smalls” by promoting qualified majority voting to abolish unanimity voting and reducing our say on key issues. Fifteen countries of today’s EU are small and medium sized. We must make sure that any rule changes do not make us lose our sovereignty completely to become colonies in a hegemonic EU of the “bigs”.

No doubt, as small countries we will be lectured to be good Europeans and sacrifice our “narrow” national interests. To make the EU a major geopolitical player with strategic autonomy, would France be ready to be more European than French and transfer its seat on the UN Security Council to the EU and put its nuclear capability under the control of the EU?

2. Immigration and democracy

We have irreversible demographic decline in the European Union. Labour shortages – six million at the moment – and skill mismatches are jeopardizing our prosperity, job creation and sustainable public and social services. In the “no migration” scenario, the Europe of 27 would lose 60 million workers over the next 30 years, 33 million of whom would be between the ages of 20 and 45, which is the most productive and creative period of life. Its population would only increase beyond the age of 65, where it would increase by 37 million.

Yet we persist in treating irregular migration as a security issue only and not in the wider context of addressing our labour shortages.

As inevitably and irreversibly we become more multicultural, we show no willingness to reach a higher level of nation-building and identity and embrace the spirit of multi-national states. Can a monocultural narrow nation-state express the diversity fairly and contain the tension and division of a multicultural society and remain democratic?

We cannot welcome people from other countries while not taking care of our own people. If inequality continues to rise, and the provision of physical infrastructure and public services like schools and hospitals do not catch up with population growth through migration, national narratives become “native versus foreigner” and all talk about building an inclusive democratic societies will come to nothing.

3. Plutocracy and exclusion

63 years ago President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell speech, warned: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Since then that “unwarranted influence” has grown much stronger, financing political parties, candidates, think tanks and the media. The US Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling removed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.

Business lobbies throughout the West have acquired a lot of influence by financing our election campaigns turning democracies into different shades of plutocracies. In small countries unelected powerful personal networks are stronger than public institutions.

Addressing the first Summit for Democracy US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said: “If we want free institutions to thrive the world over, then first, we must model what they look like at home.” This was certainly a breath of fresh air instead of the usual self-righteousness when countries like Malta are lectured by the USA on corruption, democracy and good governance.

The USA uses institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as leverage to coerce other countries into following its diktats. All sorts of economic sanctions are used as a continuation of war by other means. No wonder that the Global Majority in the world wants to build a multipolar global order that works for them and away from the hegemony of the West.

We kill democracy when we defend corrupt politicians out of loyalty to our party. We undermine democracy when we have electoral processes that protect the vested interests of the powerful instead of making them as representative, accountable and inclusive as possible.

Our short-term mindset, obsessed with opinion polls and the electoral cycle weakens democracy. A series of short terms do not amount to the long term. Existential challenges require strategic foresight and long term policies beyond electoral cycles to address them.

Democratic countries of the West give democracy a bad name when they denounce genocide and violation of human rights only where it suits their geopolitical interests and when they are not committed by their allies. Censoring journalists, academics and activists when they challenge the official narrative as is happening now in several countries that are classified as democratic also undermines democracy.

In the name of spreading democracy, major democratic countries of the West have also committed terrible crimes like invasions, regime change and coups d’etat overthrowing democratically elected governments, leading to well-founded accusations of hypocrisy and double standards. They lose more credibility when they split the world in two: democracies vs autocracies, good vs evil as if they have the monopoly on all that is good and democratic.

4. Democracy must mean free and fed

Human rights are indivisible: social, economic and political. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we commit ourselves to create a world where we can all live free “from fear and want”.

Different countries weaponize their own definition of human rights, excluding those aspects which are lacking in their societies.

Lifting people out of poverty is a huge step forward in terms of human rights. But it is not enough to be fed and unfree as much it is not enough to be free and unfed … to live a decent life in dignity, people must be both fed and free. We still live in a world where the richest 19% own 76% of the world’s wealth and the poorest 50% just 2% of the world’s wealth.

5. The leadership we need

We need leaders committed to inclusive politics to heal polarised societies, capable of mobilising the best talent, experience and know-how to address the complex challenges of the world in the 21st century.

Democracy needs an ecosystem to survive and thrive: checks and balances, a fair justice system, effective and equitable law enforcement, a media system that holds the powerful to account and an active civil society voters are ready to turn away from political cronyism .

We stumble forward. Finding our way is neither automatic nor guaranteed. More than lecturing the rest of the world on democracy, we need to put our house in order.

6. United enemies

We live in very dangerous times. Democracy can only survive if the present conflicts and wars are not allowed to totally spiral out of control. In the West diplomacy has been totally degraded and simply by talking to your enemy – let alone putting yourself in his shoes -you are accused of betrayal. Thomas Schutte calls his sculptures ‘United enemies’. He puts together two pairs of men, who hate each other and want to get rid of each other but cannot as they are bound to one another with the same rope.

They have to find ways of living together, even against their will. Whether we like it or not, all people and states on this tiny dot of a planet, are bound together with one rope.

Yet we are still not ready to admit that like Schutte’s ‘United Enemies’ we are bound to each other. However much we want to kill each other we have to find ways of living together if we are to save humanity on our planet.

Do you agree with any of his points?