Occasionally, very occasionally, I consciously do a bad thing. I’m sure I do lots of bad things without thinking. I’m human. But to actually do something sacrilegious in full consciousness, wide awake, knowing that I’m defacing someone else’s property, that’s a rarity. But it happens. The last time it happened was on a flight to Malta from Munich. I was leafing through the in-flight magazine – which, admittedly, is one of the better ones I’ve seen. And I came across a piece on a project with a working title Walking in Circles. Billed as ‘an artistic and literary project supported by the Arts Council Malta’, it’s an ‘illustrated poetic journey’ that started in 2017 and will be launched in book form in November 2018. I’ve combed the Arts Council’s website and can’t find any more details, so I hope this wasn’t just a flash in a pan. That said, if it was, I’m glad I happened across it when I did.

It seems that it will deal with the concept of Malta moving ‘from an emigrating nation to an immigrant hostess’. When I tore out the pages (I know, I know, how bad of me!) I missed one. I could have taken the whole magazine; it would have been easier. But that would have been just one more thing to carry. And I didn’t want it all, just a piece of it. A little like eating a muffin top and leaving the rest. Am I just one step away from tearing a page out of a book? But enough of my mental angst.

What caught my eye was a poem by Giulia Privitelli with an accompanying illustration by  Steven Bonello

Who on earth am I
or what I’ve done
that love I should deserve?
Is it a right that I could claim
or simply given and I’ve no say?
Like the moment of every birth
suddenly, a life’s just there.
So what would that make me
should I withhold
this ‘right’ to many, twice as many?
A thief perhaps
of riches I’ve already got.

But what is this need to show the other
that within is what really matters
the core, the soul, that captivating pulse
pulsing far beyond the limits of our sight
or the reasoning of our mind?
Isn’t this what I’d rather trust?
Feel here, my aching heart,
it pulls and pushes as my guide
and repeats what we’ve been told
through ancient wisdom, centuries old:
‘To love is to know,
forget your fear, don’t shift the blame,
you are blessed and without shame,
you are loved, and called by name.’

But tradition that resists all change
is a harmful poison, a barren land
and like stagnant water pushed down my throat
it burns with the taste of bitter and cold
and my faith is shaken, it trembles
and shivers in its hold.

I was reminded of this recently when I watched a video of János Lázár (the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff) set against the backdrop of a neighbourhood in Vienna, Austria. As migrants from all sorts of countries go about their business in the background, Lázár warns Hungarians that this, too, could happen in Budapest, if the opposition parties get their way and let the migrants in: spiralling crime, dirty streets, and good Christian locals being forced to leave their neighbourhoods in the face of the deluge of foreign migrants seeking refuge from abroad. The piece caught the attention of global media. The video was posted on Facebook, who took it down soon after saying it contravened user policy. But then, it had a think and put it back up because it was newsworthy. mmmmm…..

As the election day in Hungary approaches, I wonder which will prevail: fear or love.