Until not very long ago, Żejtun was known for its cowboys. Tony Camilleri immortalised their reputation in the song Tal-Laqam. Most cowboys, he sang, hail from there.
Former prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami could tell a tale or two about that. He tried to go there in 1986 to hold a mass meeting. He had to wear a bulletproof vest and, in the end, never got near the place. The cowboys went out to meet him at Tal-Barrani Road and, like St Paul who had come before him, told him in no uncertain terms he was not welcome. They can be quite trigger-happy down there.
As prime minister, Fenech Adami thought he’d have better luck. He went to Żejtun to be a witness at a wedding and ended up getting shot at, again. That must have been one wedding to remember.
The Żejtun cowboys have mellowed down since then. A quarter century of successive electoral defeats for Labour has taught them that their gung-ho habits were costing their beloved party votes. Żejtun’s a lovely town to live in, these days. Pity that the cowboy culture was contagious and has spread to the north of the island, the very north.
We can’t say we didn’t see this coming. Enemalta, or whatever it’s metamorphosed in since a capitalist Chinese communist company took a big bite off it, is to replace the electricity meters of owners of illegal boathouses in Armier (they’re summer houses actually) with smart meters.
Labour’s got a thing with smart meters and thieves. When hundreds were caught out tampering with their smart meters, Labour opted to reach backroom deals with the thieves, saving them the trouble of doing jail time while pocketing some electoral IOUs in return.
This time it is providing thieves of public land in Armier with smart meters, which, in Labour speak, means that the summer houses are there to stay. Sources have told this newspaper that of about 800 summer houses, only about 25 per cent had an electricity meter. The rest either connect to a neighbour’s supply or illegally siphon off the government’s supply in the area. The same goes for water.
A true Dodge City. We should turn Armier into a tourist attraction like the original Dodge City is in Kansas. Except that whereas the cowboys in Kansas (and Żejtun) have been domesticated, Armier is still lawless to this day.
In June, Planning Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon said there were talks going on with the summer house owners but wouldn’t say much else. Some progress has certainly been made in those talks but Labour still won’t tell us; it’s another backroom deal. Again, in Labour speak, it means buying votes from thieves by using smart meters.
The spokesman for Enemalta said the State energy company was taking steps to stop the 75 per cent of summer houses without electricity meters from stealing electricity. That is odd, because replacing the existing meters of paying summer house owners doesn’t stop the theft. Calling the police in would but Labour would never allow that. They were in talks with the summer house owners before the election. Summer houses representative Tarcisio Barbara has said the talks with Labour continued “right up to the very last days”. That’s around when the Malta Tagħna Lkoll slogan was really catching on.
When the Nationalists were still in their heydays and in government, in 1992, they twice tried to remove those illegal buildings. At their first attempt, in June, they managed to demolish one building. The stout resistance by the owners there had forced the army and the police to retreat.
In December of that year there was another attempt. Special Assignment Group police arrived with Enemalta employees and found the road leading to Dodge City blocked by cars and protesters. Fenech Adami had found very much the same when he tried that mass meeting in Żejtun.
A group of unarmed policemen moved in to open the way. One enthusiastic protester jumped on top of his car and was pulled down. Another protester appeared intent on driving towards the police but the SAG officers heaved the car off the ground from the back and forced him out.
This is the alpha and omega of all of Labour’s domestic policy – appeasement in return for votes
The situation calmed down, the road was opened and the electricity supply from two substations was cut off. The police withdrew and, then soon afterwards, someone broke into the substations and reconnected the supply. It has remained switched on ever since.
Cutting the supply of water and electricity to Armier and other lawless towns like that in St Thomas Bay, once Żejtun territory, is the key to solving the problem of our Wild West townships. But Enemalta is a strange animal. Under the previous Nationalist administration, it had applied for a substation at Armier. The application was turned down by the planning authority because it could not see any justification for such a structure “outside the development zone”.
Now we have Labour and, among its many proposals to reform our planning system, there is that of enabling anyone who’s built illegally outside the development zone to regularise his position, effectively opening the whole country to development. Now Falzon is responsible for planning and he’s in talks with the illegal summer house owners. The best is yet to come.
There was some very naïve optimism last year following a court ruling on the legal title of caravans in Little Armier. In that court case, 12 caravan owners contested an eviction order by the Commissioner of Land and lost.
NGOs called on the government to move in and wipe that scar off Little Armier but the government did nothing. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said it was premature to comment and, meanwhile, the caravan owners appealed. How convenient.
Former judge Lino Farrugia Sacco too was given ample time to appeal as Labour stalled a motion for his impeachment. Meanwhile, he has retired.
There is no way that this populist government is going to solve the illegal township problem other than by regularising the position of people who are illegally occupying public land. Those shantytown occupants will get their reward and so will Labour come the next election.
This is the alpha and omega of all of Labour’s domestic policy – appeasement in return for votes. This is not a government but an institutionalised ransacking of the country to please different interest groups, frustrated by successive Nationalist governments which, for their many faults, had tried to introduce some decency and order into this country. The Nationalists have paid a terrible price. Now it is the turn of our country to pay for this amoral administration.
The main road leading to Armier is perfectly tarmacked, most probably through EU funds. On both left and right, you can just make out in between the trees the many hunters’ hides. As the summer houses empty for the winter, those hides will gradually get populated by another breed of cowboys, in yet another appeasing move by Labour: autumn trapping.
There’s no way that hunting will ever be stopped because the referendum is doomed to fail. The government is presently consulting the public on a decision it has already taken to postpone local elections until after the next election.
The game is obvious. A stand-alone referendum on hunting in spring will never pass because 50 per cent of eligible voters need to turn up to make the referendum valid. Hunters and their families will boycott the referendum. The quota will not be reached and postponing local elections for at least a year will make sure that happens. Hunters, like summer house owners, will be grateful come the next election.
The Prime Minister claims it is election fatigue that led to his decision to postpone local elections. He wants his populist roller coaster ride of a government to go on undisturbed for four more years, knowing his backroom deals at l-Aħrax in Mellieħa will pay off in the end.
But law-abiding citizens, who don’t shoot birds, don’t occupy public land and don’t steal electricity aren’t suffering from election fatigue. They suffer from an election dearth.
I would savour the opportunity to vote against Labour, to express a repulsion that is growing wider as the price of Labour’s populism and vote-buying tactics becomes more and more evident.
In the immortal words of the iconic Hollywood gunslinger and cop, Clint Eastwood: go ahead Mr Prime Minister, call an election, of any sort – make my day.