Editorial

The setting up of the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and of Heritage Malta is meant to tell our people that this country truly means business regarding the conservation and the management of Malta's cultural heritage.

Confidence was dealt a cruel blow when Mnajdra was so barbarously vandalised last year. As a result, all sorts of people, ranging from pupils in secondary schools to elderly people who have not visited any one of our world-famous archaeological sites for decades, realised that we cannot allow evil men and the elements to destroy or damage these splendid monuments any more.

At the same time, educationists and the increasing number of heritage lovers grew even more determined that the management of our cultural heritage had to become more professional. Shackled by civil service regulations and hampered by the niggardly sums doled out to the museums department by a close-fisted Treasury, our museums and monuments tended to be unattractive from an educational point of view, and presented inconveniences to the native and foreign visitor.

The museums department will shortly cease to exist. Until its successor, Heritage Malta, completes and begins to carry out its strategic plan for the setting up of the new structure that will eventually manage the museums and a broad band of our cultural heritage, the department will continue to exist in a rapidly depleted form as its staff are transferred either to Heritage Malta or to the equally new Superintendence of Cultural Heritage whose task will be to act as a conserver and general watchdog of this heritage.

The new superintendent is the last director of the museums department, a professional museologist, but the chairman of Heritage Malta is a businessman fairly new to the field of heritage management, a manager who, with his team, will aim at administering a somewhat unwieldy structure as effectively as possible.

Basically, Heritage Malta has to see that the huge task of seeing that our heritage is managed and presented in the most handsome and illuminating fashion is rendered much easier with the aid of partners from the private sector.

Such partnerships will be nothing new. Din l-Art Helwa, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna and Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti have already undertaken to manage for the nation important monuments, but in some cases they have been meeting considerable financial problems. It will be Heritage Malta's great object to persuade private bodies and individuals that investing money in Malta's heritage is not just prestigious but also economically sensible.

Marketing will be one of Heritage Malta's main functions. Vigorous and imaginative marketing can do much to bring to Malta the high-quality cultural tourist the MTA has in mind. Coupled with first-rate presentation such as we already have at the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, good marketing can make our museums and sites immensely better sources of revenue.

Heritage Malta will also have to greatly improve at our sites the security that has been pierced again and again in recent times. Here, as well as in making the sites superior educational and information tools, it will have to work very closely with the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage. Its aim should be to make visiting sites and museums a pleasure for the Maltese pupil as well as for the foreign visitor.