I use route buses frequently. Buses are very often overcrowded, with people packed tighter than sardines. As passengers, we have to literally (as gross as it is) breathe each others’ breath while the bus moves in inches in gridlock traffic.
I wish I am exaggerating but, unfortunately, I’m not.
This, obviously, is the symptom of the wider problem that needs no introduction or defining: overpopulation.
Every year, as a youth, I am seeing my country regress more. Every year, the problem only gets worse. Citizens justifiably complain constantly about the matter but concrete action is not taken. The government seems very unbothered with the situation.
It truly hurts when you see the government’s projections: 14,000 more people a year (according to the prime minister), reaching a population of 800,000 by 2040 (according to the finance minister).
The priority seems to be the economy and solely the economy. That is not to say the economy is not important, quite the contrary, it is very important. But it is not everything.
I hate to say it but, at this rate, and considering the lack of serious action, the country will become unlivable in the future for anyone wanting even a basic quality of life.
How much more do the people have to complain for concrete action to take place? Why is the government so unbothered by our reality?
With urban hell on the horizon, how do you expect us, the youth, to not emigrate? I personally wish to have a realistic option to stay in Malta but if the country keeps heading in this direction I may not have an option.
Apart from that, the strain on mental health is real.
There’s a constant feeling of “suffocation”. The hospital is bursting at the seams, the roads are super jammed, the electricity grid isn’t keeping up, the sewage system has not kept up in many cases, the buses are super overcrowded… the list can go on.
It is paradoxical, to say the least, to talk about the importance of mental health while ignoring this problem.
As a country, we are facing the boiling frog metaphor situation.
The metaphor says that if a frog is put into boiling water, it will try to jump out but if a frog is put in tepid water and its temperature is gradually increased, the frog will not notice the small, constant change in temperature and not panic to exit the pot.
If, hypothetically, 10 years ago we woke up to today’s reality, we would probably have sounded the alarm very loudly. But, since the situation is worsening day by day, we are perhaps not reacting with the same urgency.
And, like the frog, we may not notice the small, everyday regression.
Malta is reaching a breaking point. The clock is ticking. The water is boiling.
We need change, now. The country can’t take it anymore.
If serious change, driven by strong political will, is not coming, then we may slowly be, metaphorically, “boiled to death”.
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