Back in the 1970s, when visitors travelled to Gozo for a day or a weekend, Gozitans would sprinkle nails in the main streets and cars would get three or four punctures in a day. It kept their tyre repair boys busy but eventually kept visitors away and they killed their own tourism.

Few would confirm this today but I was one such victim. They kicked off the Maltese because they stated that the Maltese visited their island, brought sandwiches, timpana and soft drinks with them and left all the rubbish and empty bottles behind them when they returned home.

Today, they are crying without jobs.

I would forgive the Gozo boys for my three punctures but their problems today are of a different kind. In a TV programme, aired from Gozo, many moons ago, Gozitan speakers clearly showed that they do not want to be like an Ibiza or a Santorini type island.

In my opinion, the Gozitan problems all sprout from the fact that they are just six kilometres away from Malta and they all want to be a carbon copy of Malta and the Maltese. Had God located Gozo 800 kilometres away, the Gozitans would have never known what exists in Malta and they would not be in this position.

They would have their own council of administration and they would organise their lives to fit their particular situations and the geographical position they would be in.

Yes, they should be like an Ibiza or a Santorini, away from the mainland.

In Santorini, industry was scrapped and today’s industries are just a handful of small wineries and a farmer’s coop to handle fresh vegetables. Nothing else exists. There are no financial services or gaming industries and nothing that looks like Bulebel, the Marsa industrial estate or Xewkija. On the other hand, all buildings are white with blue, so paint is the biggest import.

If they work hard there will probably be more millionaires in Gozo than in Malta

The population of Santorini is about 12,000 for 365 days, with another 20,000 visiting workers during the three summer months. The size of Santorini is 76 square kilometres, very similar to Gozo’s 67 square kilometres.

There are only 10 hotels in Gozo but there are 65 in the capital of Santorini and another 100 hotels elsewhere, besides all the villas and other premises to rent.

Hotels in Gozo are open 365 days a year whereas in Santorini they open between May and the end of September. In January, God help you if you want to find a single hotel open. However, Santorini has an airport where about 40 airliners land each day in summer, coming from Athens, London, Stockholm, Moscow, Munich, Zurich, Dublin etc.

Gozo has none of that; the Gozitans cry out for tourists crossing over from Malta or day visitors. The Gozitans do not need to have an airline, like Malta. The helicopter pad and control tower can be expanded and have something a little better than a World War II airstrip used for Spitfires, something similar to the airport in Santorini.

Foreign airlines would be able to land, like birds in season, and I am sure the Gozitans would know what to do next.

Both islands have underwater diving facilities, though Gozo probably excels.

Visitors go to Santorini either to get married or to see the famous volcano. They climb up the volcano fast, get their feet burnt and then cry and scream all the way down. There is a clinic at the bottom where they bandage their feet and some fly home in bandages or even on stretchers. Yes, burnt feet and bandages are part of Santorini’s tourism.

It is claimed that Gozo is mainly popular among those aged over 60, whereas Santorini’s visitors are rarely older than 30. Most book a hotel room, get drunk each day and some are thrown out onto sandy beaches to sleep. Yes, that is also profitable tourism. It’s like our drunk-driving youngsters who crash and die at 4am over the weekend. These are also Malta’s tourists.

Santorini cities are like Pacevilles. At the end of the day, like it or hate it, 2.5-3 million spend 10 days a year in Santorini. Sorry, I have no Gozo figures and I am sorry saying all this.

Santorini has few tarmac roads. Many are white roads and they damage your car. So most cars are like a 20-year-old Maruti. Those who lived all their lives in London or New York consider them rather strange but they seem to like the bumps, clatter and gongs.

In contrast, some of the roads in Malta and Gozo are as good as airport runways. Had it not been for poles on the sides, small planes could even land on them without needing airports.

Curiously enough, there are more Santorini millionaires than in most of the other 2,000 Greek Islands, so burning feet and getting drunk or sleeping on the sand works well in terms of profits.

The Santorini people have moulded their life their own way. They have invested in what works well and is profitable for themselves. As a result, the whole of Greece envy them. Has anyone seen Santorinians throwing Molotov cocktails in Athens? No, because they are all rich today.

Experts say that the Santorini tourism magic all started after 1982, when MGM produced the film Summer Lovers. It’s about three beautiful young tourists in their early 30s who have a three-way affair in one of the cliff houses there. The film attracted a generation of young people to Santorini. In this case, they were all searching for the house that Darryl Hannah and her co-stars made love in during the summer of 1981.

No one in Gozo should cry for not having a University, no Mater Dei Hospital, no yacht marina, no airport and no Valletta waterfront. The Gozitans have no Castille and Presidential Palace either and they should never expect any.

They must make a list of the goodies they have and throw away the baddies. They all need a complete reversal of their perception of ever being like the Maltese. God made them Gozitans. If they work hard there will probably be more millionaires in Gozo than in Malta.

Gozo Channel ships serve Gozo wonderfully; they can add more ships whenever they like. The problems faced by Gozo will never be solved by a tunnel or bridge. That could just be a bigger bonus for the day return timpana-type guys.

A tunnel, or anything similar, will take decades to finish and will cost millions of euros. If the Gozitans do not want to pay for it, why should the Maltese do so?

In an earthquake-prone zone like the central Mediterranean, a few tubes under the sea do not seem to be a good idea these days.

The Maltese cannot keep the Santa Venera tunnels from leaking, imagine having two six-mile-long tubes to Għajnsielem. A disaster in a tunnel under the sea can kill 1,000 people in five seconds.

Gozitans must be free from any Maltese bureaucracy, build their own future for their own island, like having an airport with airliners flying in directly from European cities and maybe targeting those under 30, like the Santorinians did, even if only for the summer time.

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