Scheduling the Tower of Babel!

In a recent contribution to The Times (June 20), Austin Sammut describes an interesting anecdote whereby a mouse appeared on the parquet floor while he was dining in an Amsterdam restaurant. Dr Sammut reported the matter to the restaurant staff. They were aware of the mice but were unable to get rid of them. Dr Sammut tentatively asks: What would happen if we had mice in a Maltese restaurant?

I humbly venture to speculate and to respond to this intriguing question.

In the first instance, someone writes to a newspaper, to complain and protest. The letter is followed by a second and a third. All express their utter disgust and shock about the matter. The letters are peppered with words and phrases such as "shame", "incompetence", "only in Malta", "you need not be an expert to know..." and so on and so forth.

More and more letters are sent in and the "controversy" grows. Writers of letters to the editor use all sorts of superlatives to drive the point home. The reasoning is that the more apt in exploiting the subtleties of the English language, the more likely will readers believe the story. From the length of newspaper columns written on the subject, one would be forgiven for thinking that this has become a matter of national importance.

Mepa, for reasons which are not totally clear, gets apportioned some of the blame. This is inevitable given that criticising Mepa is the pastime of all budding letter and opinion writers.

One writer describes in some sordid detail what he would do to any mouse which would fall under his clutches. An animal rights activist takes offence to this and writes to the editor to express his disgust. This sparks off another debate at a tangent to the first with accusations flying thick and fast across the newspaper columns.

In the meantime, the "controversy" of the mouse in the restaurant goes on and on. Increasingly, letters to the editor are more miserly on substance and more replete with offence and abuse. Even the titles get more outrageous; "Shame, shame, shame!", "National disgrace".

One writer joins the fray simply to vent off his anger over some mishap in his personal life. Maybe he has not been getting much of it lately. Another writer seems to have nothing better to do. He scours the newspapers to find some "interesting" topic to write about as he sits comfortably with a lap top by the poolside.

These writers are most learned and seem to know everything about anything. Needless to say, they learnt it all from letters written to the newspaper by other learned writers.

So says one of our learned writers. "Even if the mouse might not be called Michael, it does confirm that this is a Mickey Mouse country after all." Overseas (colloquially better known as "barra minn Malta") everything is better. He then goes on to express dismay at being Maltese.

A close-up photo of the mouse, proudly nibbling a Maltese gbejna (cheeselet), is featured in the Only-in-Malta website. It is almost as if everything we do in Malta is wrong and everything others do overseas is good.

The story is not over yet. In an effort to have the mice in the restaurant protected, one writer argues that the building should be scheduled. He sends in a photo of some cute looking mouse and assigns to it some peculiar name. He insists that the habitat of this rare species should be protected.

Several gullible readers believe the story. How can it possibly be false? It appeared in print, in The Times no less! More letters appear to support the call for scheduling, making the story all the more credible.

Worse than that, journalists do not bother to check the story and consider it as fact. If Super 1 can get any political mileage, it will be featured as a news item.

And the calls for scheduling go on and on.

One writer had the temerity to argue that the restaurant building does not merit scheduling after all. Inevitably this sparks off a series of letters in protest. How dare this good-for-nothing imbecile disagree?! How dare he question the wisdom that has come out of so many letters?

If you think that all this absurdity is unreal, think again. Absurdities manifest themselves in different ways and to varying degrees in the various "controversies" featured in the letters pages. There are many valid and fair contributions in letters to the editor but there are just as many which seek only to distort the truth.

For example, a whole hullabaloo was kicked up over a house in Ghar il-Lenbi. The house had no architectural feature to speak of. Yet, on the basis of some obscure old map, one objector claimed that the house is baroque or "the oldest house in Sliema" or whatever. Expert advice against this interpretation was trivialised and ridiculed, in spite of the extent of knowledge and expertise of the architect giving the advice. A claim based on nothing but thin air become the truth for many. Transforming a claim and an opinion into the truth is a disservice to readers and to the public.

By the way, what would happen if we had mice in a Maltese restaurant? My guess is that it would be closed down within days. At least on the issue of mice in restaurants, we are better off than the Dutch!