Editorial
Seizing the moment
There is something quite wonderful about the blogging phenomenon. It has allowed people from all walks of life to interact instantaneously; to put forward comments, points of view, and to engage in animated debate or argument.
It has made the so-called ordinary citizen more important because his views have an outlet at any time of day. And it is no flash in the pan or fad. It is here to stay. People, politicians in particular, will ignore it at their peril.
But it has its downsides. Because bloggers are not face to face with their opponents and because they are not restrained by an editor's red pen or by the ethos and standards of a medium such as this one, they tend to be more forthright, more reckless, more insulting.
They also have a tendency to comment authoritatively on everything under the sun, even if the back of a postage stamp would actually provide more than ample space for the sum total of their knowledge on a given subject. The unfortunate result is that if someone has managed to down a glass of claret, he's a wine expert; if he's gone to school, an expert on education; and if he's managed to do both then he knows more about running the country than the Prime Minister.
Enter Renzo Piano, the architect commissioned by the real Prime Minister of this country to come up with plans to take what is either an ugly or neglected entrance to the wonderful city that is Valletta and turn it into something magnificent. And if the plans he presented yesterday materialise, that is precisely what he will do.
We should be overjoyed that Mr Piano was asked - and accepted - to take on this project. We should be overjoyed that the inappropriately named Freedom Square - which today is nothing more than an oil-stained tarmac eyesore - will be filled with an imaginative building that houses the place where our legislative heart beats and that the ruins of the once-wonderful opera house will be restored and given life for the first time since a war-time bomb cruelly took it away.
But some people are not. The more genuine objectors would have preferred the opera house to be transformed into a roofed national theatre. In the ideal world that would have been both physically and financially possible. Mr Piano, in whose judgment we must trust, has decided it is not. By all means let's have the national theatre debate. Just not here and not now. Because Valletta needs this transformation; and because we finally have a government that is willing and able to put its money where its mouth is.
The less sincere of the objectors, and the more ignorant ones, think they can come up with something better than one of the world's best creative architects. Or they will simply oppose anything because it gives them an opportunity to fill the comment sections of websites and newspapers. They have to be ignored, for if they are not there is a grave danger Malta will never move forward.
If object we must, then it must be to protest against the fact that Mr Piano's brief is to leave untouched the unsightly arcade and flats that will still protrude like a boil once his work is complete. That is what the bloggers should be talking about.
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Anthony Mgri
Jun 29th 2009, 18:36
Once achieved the entrance to Valletta must be kept neat and tidy and not see posters stretching from one fortification to the other. Keep the entrance free of hanging material.and posters. This is writing about the future that is years from now or could happen sooner than later. Why not construct another street like Girolamo Cassar street on the side of the Phoenicia and part of Hastings garden. It will form together with Girolamo Cassar street a two pronged entrance to Valletta that will facilitate traffic circulation and keep the new Piano entrance for pedestrians only day and night. Traffic in front of Castille will be reduced, and following the Piano "hiatus" traffic will find it more convenient to enter and get out of Valletta..
Anthony Magri
Jun 28th 2009, 21:19
To-day's editorial mixes politics with architecture. Why does the editor state that the name Freedom square means nothing. Why does he want living in flats to be demolished.
The space occupied by the Progress printing press could very well be built as flats and people living in those flats he referred to transferred there. Valletta has no place for modern large noisy machinery Another suitable space could be found to build a modern printing press that will serve its purpose.
But why the Times took exception to both the name of Freedom and those flats. Simple because both are reminiscent of the Malta Labour Party achievments and as such are a blasphemy.. Simple but one has to think about it just as Pascal and the single wheelbarrow
Referring to people who seem to be expert in everything, most probably Mister Editor was referring to himself as being one of them
J Busuttil
Jun 28th 2009, 19:48
I agree with you that what "the people" must also write up is about the building on the left side of Valletta entrance.
Henry S Pace
Jun 28th 2009, 15:21
A City built 450 years ago ' A City built by Gentlemen for Gentlemen' deserves much better than the Piano designs.
Randolph Peresso
Jun 28th 2009, 15:02
I am full-square with the Editor.
john fenech
Jun 28th 2009, 14:41
While Mr Piano’s project to the Capital’s entrance gives the atmosphere of open space to the fortified city in detracts from the ambience of the original entrance. But will the plans rejuvenate Valletta or will it be just another add on, albeit with much more class then past efforts? Will this project add to the City artistic and historical importance?
Without a shadow of a doubt the City main entrance and surround must be renovated, presently it is a blasphemy to the heritage history of our city! Therefore the question is does modern and antique blend artistically within the immediate environs of the city? Will Mr. Piano genius be the revival gift that our City so richly deserves?
These are the questions that have to be resolve by the minders of our heritage together with Mr. Piano.
PS. Blogging is the activity of updating a web log, while the owner of the blog is the blogger.On line comment is the virtual opinion of the contributor to the content of the online journal. It is up to the editorial staff to balance the substance of the comments to its online the online journal.
Jean Azzopardi
Jun 28th 2009, 14:28
Well said, Jacques.
Grixti, Bezzina, etc are bloggers.
People commenting on the articles, like us are commenters. That should clear up all the confusion.
Tony Caruana
Jun 28th 2009, 14:14
Why is that journalists think that only their opinion is Correct ?
Jason Spiteri
Jun 28th 2009, 14:04
Sir, your editorial today betrays more about your view of people's role in a democracy than it does about the people you call 'bloggers'. It may have escaped your nitce, but "a tendency to comment authoritatively on everything under the sun" is not the exclusive domain of bloggers, but of polticians too - who need and often do hold no other qualification than having been chosen by those whom you deem unworthy of commenting on Mr.Piano's ideas. You say a lot of them "knows(s) more about running the country than the Prime Minister" - as though to be Prime Minister one needs a special qualification in anything. No sir - just as those 'ignorant' objectors and bloggers can choose a postman, clerk, streetsweep or salesman as their PM, (or a social worker as his right-hand man) so they can and should voice their opinions on any matter public, no matter how wrong they are or what the 'experts' think. A freedom-promoting newspaper such as yours should rejoice in this cacophony of freedom, and not denigrate it.
T Cassar
Jun 28th 2009, 13:54
The world's best creative architects are proposing a narrow gap in the wall instead of the gate, a narrower gap to access a lift to a garden, an overscale lego parliament building attractive only from the air and an impractical open air theatre that will hardly be used for what it is meant to be and using a material - steel hardly used in Malta or synonymous with our culture.
Jacques René Zammit
Jun 28th 2009, 12:20
I am convinced that the Editor did not have in mind any of the following: Alfred Grixti, Alison Bezzina, Andrew Borg Cardona, Desmond Zammit Marmara, Fr Joe Borg, Ira Losco or Tanja Cilia? Neither was he thinking of the few established bloggers on the island.
Rather, we can safely presume that (once again) The Times is contributing to the general confusion in Malta that exists with regards to the terminology of blogging. Referring to the persons who avail themselves of the "Comment" section as "bloggers" is tantamount to referring to someone who wrote a letter to the Times as a "journalist", "editor" or "publisher".
Take "Joe Vella" who left the first comment under this post. He's not a "blogger" but a reader of an online newspaper opting to comment on what he read. The Times may not have hooked on to the concept of bloggers as yet and might think that I am engaging in an exercise of excess pedantry but seeing as how the subject matter of the editorial was about the quality of the discussion then surely we would do ourselves a favour if we start off by getting our facts about its parameters right.
Joe Vella
Jun 28th 2009, 11:06
Well said Mr. Editor.
Let the messengers of Gloom and Doom, Moan as much as they want. A long time have passed since the debate started on this issue. Prime Minister run with this project and make it a reality.