In Economic Security, Just as in Soccer, Patient Collaboration Trumps Individual Passion

What is it like to stare at the night sky against your will? It's a question I'd never thought I would be asking myself when the unplanned power cut hit my side of Malta in the late afternoon. Based on past experiences, Maltese power outages can definitely last a few hours, but with the hard work of the folks at the national utility, Enemalta, the situation does get resolved soon enough. But as the sun went down and the streets remained pitch dark, the 44-degree heatwave started taking its toll on the century-old stone box that is simply not designed to dissipate heat quickly.

Hence, I ended up on the roof balcony, a piece of cloth spread in between the deck chairs, the laundry hangers, and the condenser of the nonfunctioning air-conditioning unit, hoping that the warm breeze from the Saharan desert would dry off sticky sweat and fend off the hordes of mosquitoes. With the last bit of the smartphone battery, I check social media, smirking at the deluge of comments from fellow Malta residents claiming to have endured upwards of 30 hours in the dark, their phone calls to Enemalta going unanswered. At least mine was still short enough that I hadn't needed to empty the contents of the fridge.

But as I woke up at 6am, body in pain against the hard stone floor, itchy from a few too many mosquito bites, and still without power, I began to understand the ever-growing deluge of online vitriol, not as rants of the few unfortunate, but a systematic organizational failure. Many, surely with a bit too much time and frustration sitting in the dark, looked up the history of power cuts on the islands, digging up claims Enemalta made back in 2023 to comprehensively upgrade the entire power distribution network in the aftermath of island-wide cuts. Plenty of streets were dug up to replace "overheated" underground cables.

And for what, the posters asked. Enemalta knows the numbers: the population and tourist numbers continue to surge, along with business and hotel developments that push electricity usage to ever higher peaks. With the forecasts in mind, they could have invested ahead, creating redundancies and extra capacities to keep the system going in case some gave out during excess demand and heat. But now people are left with dismay as they admire the surely band-aid solutions that the exhausted Enemalta staff come up with in patching up cables and substations overnight. 

Ironically, the situation reminds me of the World Cup Final that many Maltese soccer fans missed because they were plunged into a power cut in the middle of the match. The match was notable for the one-sidedness, as Spain methodically kept possession of the ball and denied Argentina even a chance to organize any meaningful counterattack. The Argentines' passion flailed in the face of the Spaniards' technical organization; a gigantic spike in the form of Messi was rendered ineffective against teamwork. In a less dramatic repeat of Germany's 7-1 defeat of Brazil years ago, technique wins over passion.

That competence for collective organization is also missing in the Maltest heat. It is easy to be passionate about growth. Who does not like more visitors, more business, and more money? But in chasing those topline figures, the bottomline organizational support becomes overlooked. When infrastructural bottlenecks become almost institutional, no longer a matter of bad luck but how society operates, then passion becomes meaningless and even counterproductive, as the joys of growth become a fault that the majority blames a tiny sliver of elite beneficiaries.

Those who complain about the inadequacy of Malta's infrastructure in handling more people are absolutely right. But pointing fingers at the head of Enemalta, a certain politician, or some tourist businesses overusing electricity misses the bigger picture. Just like how the individual genius of Messi is not enough to save Argentina from Spanish teamwork at clutch time, no individual, no matter how powerful, can magically conjure up solutions that redirect Malta's trajectory and rid it of energy insecurity overnight.

The answer, like the Spanish team, is collaboration, with each member willing to pass the ball to patiently achieve each goal, rather than steaming ahead in front of others in the hope of personal glory. For Malta, that could mean talking to its European partners to secure more energy and technology to improve generation and transmission. Normalizing solar power generation across a very sunny climate with the help of private-sector investors. And even getting the tourist businesses to do their part in not just consuming but producing energy.