If the walls retract, why not the roof? (2)

We have reached a very perilous impasse. The intelligentsia of this country is being described as arrogant by government apologists. This smacks of totalitarianism.

Both the Fascists and the Communists were dead set against any form of intellectual self expression. One toed the party line or else. During World War II, German, Italian and, till the 1970s, Spanish intellectuals were incarcerated in concentration camps, while, still more recently, the ex-USSR sent them to freeze to death in Siberian gulags.

When governments refuse to tolerate any sort of criticism and discourage people from using their heads other than to be politically manipulated every five years, then boy oh boy do we have one hell of a problem on our hands. Our educational system is actually designed to discourage thought which is probably why Edward de Bono has never been fully accepted locally, proving that no man is a prophet in his own country.

What will the PN government do to us 128 who dared call a spade a spade? Send us to Filfla to live like stylites? The 128 is the tip of the iceberg.

The Prime Minister now tells us that Renzo Piano's plan for a roofless theatre will go ahead. He informs us that the government is going to rely on Mr Piano's advice on the matter and hence ignore the advice of the rank and file of the intelligentsia who at the end of the day will be the users of this travesty. He chooses to ignore the 80 plus per cent who voted against a roofless theatre in The Times poll. He is riding roughshod over the sentiments of the people who actually care about culture and what our capital will look like in future. Above all, he remains deaf to the practical advice based on experience, logic and fact and is now shoving the onus on Mr Piano in a total abrogation of responsibility.

This City gate project is merely replacing one PN abomination with another. How unlucky can a country possibly be?

I just cannot understand it.