Our heritage matters

I want to start by defining what I mean by education in the context of our cultural heritage and who our target audience is. I should then like to go on to say what we can, and should, be doing about it.

The standard definition of education is the imparting and acquiring of knowledge through teaching and learning. It is the knowledge - and, hopefully, wisdom, awareness and understanding - gained through being educated. It is also the process by which, through increased knowledge, one learns to love one's cultural heritage. This is not just a process of book-learning and passing exams.

In Malta we have many people today - perhaps the majority - who have passed their secondary education exams, been through university and got their degrees. But are they roundly educated? Are they educated about their cultural heritage in the sense of knowing and loving Malta's cultural heritage?

I know people who have had little formal schooling and, yet, who love, respect and know about their cultural heritage. These people are, to my mind, truly educated.

When we examine the fate of our heritage and our ability to do something positive about it, I conclude that the prerequisite to a change of direction in this important field is the exercise of political will - the basic political backbone and determination to make improvements to the state of our cultural heritage.

But hard on the heels of political will must surely come education. Upon the education of the people of the country the fate of Malta's cultural heritage depends. But who should this education target? Our education must start with our political leaders - the ruling elite and opinion-formers in society. With a few notable exceptions, they have been derelict in their duty towards our cultural heritage.

They pay only lip-service to it. How else can one explain the state of the capital city to which many of them travel daily and where they work? How can one explain the state on the doorstep of their own legislature of the centuries old St George's Square, in Valletta? How also can one explain the state of Fort St Elmo, not 400 metres from where they attend parliament?

Are these educated people in the sense in which I have defined it? Are hunters and trappers who litter our prehistoric sites with their hides to practise their so-called sport educated?

How can we reconcile some of Mepa's decisions with a love of cultural heritage when almost daily we get instances of planning permits being granted which lead directly to the destruction of Malta's traditional vernacular architecture and the rape of our historic village cores? Or who grant planning permission for the building of a villa on the Victoria Lines? Yet, people in Mepa have diplomas and degrees and would claim to be educated.

There is in Malta both a ruling elite who are culturally ignorant and indifferent and a sizeable cultural under-class - those who have had little formal education, products of a generation brought up in an era in Malta's history of disruption, near lawlessness and nihilism, and holding absolutely no respect or love for Malta's heritage.

We are of the same genetic stock as this cultural under-class and, indeed, of our culturally indifferent ruling elite. The distinguishing feature between us is our knowledge of our cultural heritage which has been transmuted into a love and appreciation of our heritage. What can we do to change things?

I offer five practical steps for consideration.

First, the government must embark on a sustained, focused and concerted public education campaign. Major policy changes of public attitudes happen only slowly. Flash-in-the-pan campaigns are not effective. The message must be regular and sustained over months and years if it is to succeed. We have seen how it can be done with the European Union information unit to tell Malta about the EU.

A similar information structure - embedded within the Ministry of the Arts and Culture - is needed to get the message across that our heritage matters. Government resources must be harnessed to a sustained campaign in our schools and through the press and the media, especially through television and the radio, to reach all sections of society. We need to reach out to the readers of the Maltese language newspapers and the mass viewers of PBS, Super 1 and Net.

Secondly, schools and the government agencies in the heritage field have an increasingly important role to play in education. Starting with the schools, it is extremely heartening to know that the new national minimum curriculum includes the regular study of Maltese history and culture as part of a "cultural enrichment" inclusion in all children's studies. But this is a fairly recent innovation and will take many years - perhaps a generation - before we see its true effects.

Teachers themselves - from a different generation - must also be taught about our heritage and history before they can imbue the children in their care with the love and knowledge needed. Their job is not simply to cover the new curriculum but also to enthuse their children with a love of their history.

As to the government agencies in the heritage field, the operational agency, Heritage Malta, is well led and bubbling with ideas. However, they lack adequate resources and we would all dearly love to see a greater share of the national financial cake being redirected towards them.

But there seems to me absolutely no reason why, within existing manpower resources, Heritage Malta should not create a small "Heritage Presentation Team" whose purpose would be to visit schools and the local communities, to spread the word about the richness of our cultural heritage and the need to preserve it.

There is no reason why the Superintendent and the Malta Restoration Centre should not embark on similar programmes of education and heritage awareness. No reason either why - given the government's investment in e-business and technology - new ways of linking culture and learning to e-commerce should not be undertaken within existing resources.

The Church too has a vital contribution to make. Appreciation of our cultural heritage is as much a spiritual as well as a physical matter. The Church should use its powerful voice and influence to ensure that their flock respects its cultural heritage. To teach their flock that to undermine it is to sin against the values of decency and civic responsibility which it holds dear.

Thirdly, we must acknowledge that the application of the rule of law and its enforcement can play a major part in education. Those who do not respect our cultural heritage, those who abuse it and transgress the law, must be brought up sharply against the full force of the law. It reflects the hard way of learning. But if, as a result, a lesson about the importance of safeguarding and respecting our cultural heritage is learnt, then so be it.

Education and enforcement go together. Mepa and the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage have a crucial part to play. We want to see them flex their muscles much more aggressively than they do at present. The application of the rule of law in these areas will send a sobering message about our determination to safeguard our cultural heritage.

Fourthly, non-governmental organisations in the cultural heritage field can continue to contribute within their very limited resources to the heritage education field as they have done so effectively in the last two or three years. This is not so much to seek credit for Din l-Art Helwa or Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, but to illustrate what NGOs can do in the education field with very limited resources and using only volunteers. NGOs continue to punch well above their weight. Schools and government heritage agencies can surely do the same.

Fifth and last, I strongly believe that to lobby is to inform and to educate. Non-governmental organisations, individuals, the agency, the Superintendent, the Malta Restoration Centre and the Committee of Guarantee, opinion formers of all kinds, shapes and sizes have a vital educational, lobbying role to play.

Just over 50 years ago somebody said that "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe". While we are not facing imminent catastrophe in our cultural heritage, let us not delude ourselves that it is all as it should be. To that extent it is a race between education and catastrophe. We must ensure that education wins the race.

This is an extract of a talk Mr Scicluna gave at the National Forum on Cultural Heritage. Mr Scicluna is executive president, Din l-Art Helwa.