Petty party politics

Poor Eddie Aquilina. I seem, once more, to have got up his nose with something I wrote (his letter of November 25, Agendas: Hidden Or Otherwise). The problem is that he persists, through a number of selective quotations from my articles, in seeing any identification of shortcomings in this government as either being negative about Malta or somehow indicative of support for the opposition. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Objective, impartial and apolitical assessments have no place in his view of the national scene, which is unable to distinguish between the national interest and party political interest.

My article in Vigilo, the house magazine of Din l-Art Helwa (costs only Lm1; copies still available from 133, Melita Street, Valletta for those who have not read it) exposes once again the unforgivable and unwarranted act of institutionalised vandalism carried out by Parliament when it voted to extend the development zones in Malta - a country which, by the government's own admission, already has sufficient vacant land within existing development boundaries to more than meet our needs for the next 15 years or so.

Those of us who, yes, love Malta and care passionately about safeguarding its natural landscape and rich cultural heritage will not refrain from criticising blatant shortcomings in our governance - by whichever party - whenever these occur.

Mr Aquilina seems to think that either he personally, or the party he supports, has a monopoly on love of country. He should perhaps consider the effect on the handsome coffee-table picture books which he publishes if the Malta they represent were to be further uglified and eroded by the building development juggernaut which my articles were so strongly criticising. He has only to see Judge Giovanni Bonello's pictures of Malta of only about 50 years ago, in his book Nostalgias, to understand how redundant his own books will seem soon if construction development continues at the present rate.

This and poor governance are what my Vigilo article highlight in uncompromising terms. The article inevitably focuses on the part played by the Minister for the Environment, George Pullicino, who is directly accountable for what happened. I sincerely hope that his constituents - the people of Sliema, St Julians, Swieqi and elsewhere - will remember this when they come to cast their votes at the next general election. Even if they are minded to vote Blue, I hope they will consider that there are more deserving members of that party to whom they can give their vote. On his record at environment - and on this issue alone - he is not worthy of their support.

Poor Mr Aquilina, whose last letter about me was based on a claim that he had gone to the same school as myself, seems incapable of viewing matters outside the prism of personal, petty party politics. A pity, since it all goes to show that, regardless of which school a person goes to, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.