Double Dutch

Charles Flores writes about a Double Dutch connection with Malta. Ruut Veenhoven's research states that Malta is the world leader in happiness while the more conventional Jeremy Boissevain has published extensively on Maltese social characteristics:

..There is a Double Dutch connection with Malta. According to Professor Ruut Veenhoven from Rotterdam’s Erasmus University, Malta is the sole leader in the world happiness stakes...There are people who insist that happiness is the result of being too busy to be miserable, which may be very true of the Maltese people’s present mental state, were the findings of the good professor to be taken any seriously. After all, there are only thousands of Maltese who busily cannot find a job and those who find them, often have to accept the insecurity of part-time status..

In one of the reactions to the grand announcement of our happiness-chart-topping feat, which I read in a popular blog on the Internet, one Mosta psychotherapist attributed it all to “the factor of religion”, adding that “Malta is 97 per cent Catholic and part of our religion says you have to be happy with what you have. So don’t go running after impossible dreams.”

Now that’s a hysterically happy assessment, no doubt. If the Maltese are really this happy with their lot at this moment in time, then their many saints must have had something to do with it. Another studious Dutchman, Prof. Jeremy Boissevain, has long been an avid observer of the social character of the Maltese and his many published works persist as a source of utter wonder for most Maltese mentors. His book “Friends of Friends” (Blackwell), in particular, shows how we have, over the centuries, been happily dividing our village and town societies over saints and sinners...

David of Lanzarote says bloggers are pre-empting discussions at a national level..