Public safety and fireworks

On September 6, I was confined to bed with an array of medicines at hand. Unfortunately for me, an oppressive southerly breeze made matters worse. A sizeable pontoon, presumably intended to occupy roughly a middle anchorage in the middle of St Julians bay, stood parallel to Tower Road, Sliema but that Sunday studiously nearer to this shoreline than crossing the middle axis of the bay.

The pontoon served its definite purpose of a launching pad for fireworks accompanying the parish feast at Balluta, dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel; that of Spinola, St Julian the Hospitaller; and, on Sunday, September 6, the Sliema parish dedicated to St Gregory the Great.

Objectively and fairly, the petards let off for the Balluta and Spinola feasts were limited in number and more or less subdued in explosive noise, even if I would definitely opt to eliminate them outright on account of considerations of public safety. The Spinola and Balluta inlets offer now, with their surrounding high-rise buildings, a particular kind of semi-enclosed small spaces amplifying the reverberating claps of deafening petard explosions.

Come the St Gregory the Great feast one could discern and sense that a higher level of explosive content was present in the petards. On September 6, at 7.20 p.m., a shattering explosion occurred on the pontoon. Mentally, I likened it to the time when gelignite was rumoured to spice the bomba petard. Its sound reverberated strongly and menacingly against the high-rise buildings surrounding Spinola inlet. Rose-coloured wafts of smoke drifted in a south-east direction over the sea towards the Hilton area. True, a particular accident provoked the conflagration that evening and a sigh of relief rises to mark that no life was lost that day.

The fact that there was no loss of life doesn't mean that all is well. During a shower of petards about four years ago, a glass pane became suddenly dislodged from the frame of a wooden balcony and fell four storeys. It brushed against a man holding a child on his arm.

It was akin to a guillotine breaking loose and unheedingly obeying the law of gravity. Again, the fact that this particular mishap was not reported to the police doesn't mean that all is well. An abundance of glass panes overshadow Tower Road, Balluta and Spinola.

The Valletta conurbation more than ever before presents an intensely built-up area with comparatively high-rise buildings on the increase. It is more than a matter of deafening noise disturbing public safety on grounds of "tradition" as if to replicate the gunshots accorded to visiting dignitaries from atop the saluting battery at Upper Barrakka, Valletta.

Instead of petards, the musketterija (musketry) type of noise-producing fireworks would suffice by way of feu de joie, provided all is carried out according to properly drawn up regulations to respect public safety.

The petards can at times prove to be of undefined mixtures, yet effective as rackety noise and blast-producing concoctions. It is common knowledge that there is a supportive lobby for this "tradition".

Thank heavens the coast road from Spinola to Gżira no longer witnesses on the morrow of a summer feast day strings of motor vehicles, from private cars to buses and even trucks, with people of all ages, men and women, banging on the sides, with some addressing all and sundry at the top of their voices: Did you happen to hear something? ... Meaning thereby whether the petard bangs of their particular feast day were loud enough!

Parish priests become enmeshed in a set of Scylla and Charybdis circumstances. There are parishioners who consider fireworks spiced with petards as the standard essence of the "traditional" mark of a feast day. While others question and criticise unreservedly this objectionable appreciation of what constitutes the real essence of "tradition" in the context of the parish feast day.

The Catholic Church has squarely shouldered responsibilities in this matter. Guidelines have been drawn up; appropriate advice governing the content of petards and the letting off of fireworks have been published; plus disallowing external manifestations during feast days whenever this uncommon decision was called for.

When the Church is pinpointed as if she governs all by herself in fault finding what happens in feast days, critics fail to appreciate that responsible autonomous government resides with the political party in power. The crux of the whole question lies in seeking an effective remedy by the sensible route when Church and state purposely meet to consider all relevant matters.

If the law book pages have yellowed with the passage of time, it stands to reason to reconsider and appropriately update the law.

When did the government last consider pointedly and comprehensively all pertinent matters relevant to the manufacture and the letting off of fireworks? Is it not high time to have the Valletta conurbation together with the Sliema/St Julians areas as "prohibited areas" for all fireworks of the petards type? Is it not overdue to enact apposite legislation to inculcate a sense of co-responsibility in the manufacture of fireworks and the letting off same together with obligatory attendant insurance cover so that any person liable to suffer injury or damage can have recourse to a known suitable remedy source?

Fireworks do beautify summer night skies. They can also create concern, misery and grief if the body politic effectively adopts the stance "to-morrow, sir, to-morrow" to tackle civic problems that develop and accumulate with time.