There has been a lot of debate, articles, letters, blogs and online comments, so it is difficult to say anything that might bear any semblance of originality. Artists have commented and have basically been derided and swept away with the brush of hard-hitting and often cruel cynicism. That is fine. It is part of the process.

When all is said and done, however, it will always be the courage of ideas that will be remembered and studied. The cynics will slowly fade into oblivion. The artist creates. The cynic, the buffoon, the commentator, well, they comment, and all they have to look forward to is tomorrow's cause celebre to poke fun at, always in search of that witty phrase that causes a laugh, a twitter, a chuckle. Yes, that's what they are. Chuckle makers.

I am Maltese. I do not need to prove it. I have inherited all that my forefathers have done, undone, created, built, destroyed, hoped for, feared, believed in and through it all I am proud that my country of origin gave me the chances and grit that have propelled me through life. I can only comment on things I know of, which is theatre and film. I accept that. I am incompetent at practically everything else, including designing buildings. But, and there is always that but, I have a mind and I will not be force-fed... anything! When still in Malta I worked tirelessly in the theatre, under the shadow of Ebeyer, Marshall, Farrugia, Azzopardi, Falkland and many others. Today the theatre is alive and strong, supported by a new generation of artistes, all of them victim of that bug, the need to express, inform, warn, educate through the common experience of a theatrical production.

The Maltese indigenous theatre unfortunately suffers an ignoble apathy and the audience is instead relegated to wonderful works by foreign masters. Unfortunately, this does not help much with our angst, our need to find ourselves through an expression that talks directly to our needs, our sense of being Maltese, our fiercely passionate existence. The first step to correct this is to have a national theatre with all the modern amenities that could give vent to our expression in a modern world. And this brings me to the Piano project. Needless to say, I am one of those who oppose it. Why?

Because it is passionless, and if you take passion out of an artist, what is left for him to draw on? Mr Piano's design is deprived of our expression. We the people relied on him to lead us towards it. We depended on the architect to bring originality, flair, imagination to the theatre project inspired by our aspirations, dreams, history, character, nationhood, and alas this is not to be. When one etches out party politics, which is the bane of Malta and the Maltese, and face what is to be built on the ROH site, we are left with an exhausting sense of utter frustration.

Looking at the plans and models, and comparing it to what it was, what it could have been, it feels more like a powerful slap in the face, than a unifying symbol of our commonality.

And you know what? This is not Mr Piano's fault, nor the PM's. Ultimately, it is our fault for we as a nation are held back by the curse of political partisanship. Much of the hallabaloo in the press regarding this subject was more the result of political posturing than a common sense outcry founded on a national sense of being. Therefore we deserve to have a shell for our theatre. It mirrors our souls, our apparent hollow intellect which opts to let party lines dictate our feelings, our preferences, rather than let our national identity inspire us to demand what we collectively as one nation, declare we want and expect. Yes that indeed, alas, is an impossible dream.

I stand corrected. Mr Piano has indeed seen our soul and understood it to the hilt. He's giving us a hollow shell to represent it. We deserve everything we're about to get.