Times of Malta reported last Friday that there are proposals for three hotels and a beach club on the stretch of coast between Xgħajra and Marsascala. The proposals will be discussed by the Consultative Council for the South on Thursday. That’s because they are not about building on ODZ land at all. They’re about developing the south, you see.

The logic seems to be that the south desperately needs to catch up with the north, in this case on the number of hotels, beach clubs and such. Funny, because the last time I checked it turned out I was living on an island about a tenth the size of a Sicilian province.

To even imagine that this mustard seed of a country requires some kind of sustained politics of direction is pathetic to say the least.

True, there are some meaningful and deep-rooted bearings. Take Valletta, which is normally taken to be a neutral middle ground. The city is hemmed in by Marsamxett in the north and the Grand Harbour in the south.

The first is nowadays all about leisure and fancy high-rise and sightlines that lead past Sliema in the direction of some of the choicest real estate and tourist playgrounds in the country. The second brings to mind the old power station, the docks, and sightlines that lead past the working-class towns of the Cottonera towards Marsaxlokk.

To put it differently, whichever of the two directions one looks from Valletta, one sees a skyline of cranes. Only it’s tower construction cranes to the north, dockyard cranes to the south.

It would be foolish not to concede that history has left the south and north with different legacies. But I don’t think this is in any way a problem that needs to be addressed. Rather, it’s simply called ‘place’. Even the smallest villages contain some sense of difference and hierarchy.

In any case, I have no problem with docks or working-class towns. I should know, I live in one. Nor do I fret at the shortage of beach clubs in my neck of the woods. I normally just place my towel on some flat rocks, in the traditional fashion.

The south needs hotels like the north needs a dockyard or a power station. I have nothing in principle against hotels in the south, or dockyards in the north for that matter. I think Mintoff toyed with the idea of such a place in Mistra at one point.

It’s just that I don’t see the need for some sort of balancing act. Not least since it would lead to proposals for a small freeport in Gozo, for example, or a Consultative Council for the West. That’s the funny side. The serious bit is that I’ve a gut feeling that the north-south divide is being used as a ruse to sneak in more construction madness.

Let me be a bit more specific. There are a couple of people on the Consultative Council for the South who are well-meaning and who I’m sure would rather have less clutter and concrete, whatever form it might take.

Then there’s Sandro Chetcuti of the amusingly-named Malta Developers Association. As reported, Chetcuti is backing this proposed scheme. Why should we be surprised?

Having pretty much run out of ideas in the north, Chetcuti’s ilk are now salivating at the prospect of carving up what’s left of the south coast. They’ve an ace up their sleeve and it’s called the Consultative Council for the South. It helps their cause that the Council is headed by Silvio Parnis – not the sharpest knife in the drawer, shall we say.

Chetcuti was on the radio a few weeks ago telling us how cuddly and docile his members were. He said they had served the nation well and responded to its every need for new development. It’s the kind of language that sells, because ‘development’ is one of those words that has become associated with the destiny of nations. Whatever else a nation gets up to, it must develop at all times.

I’ve a gut feeling that the north-south divide is being used as a ruse to sneak in more construction madness

Having rather skilfully grafted itself onto this stock, the MDA are now at it again. Only this time it isn’t just development they’re after, it’s the development of the south. To call a beach club a beach club is one thing, to call it a tourist development in the south quite another.

That gets you two things. First, a public reception that’s all about partisan politics and the south. (‘You did nothing for the south’; ‘The south needs jobs’; and so on.) Very convenient as a distraction from the main point, which is the building of a beach club on a pristine stretch of ODZ land.

It also gets you a part-gullible, part-scheming Consultative Council for the South, which seems only too happy to commission reports on a bunch of new hotels. After all, isn’t it the council’s job to develop the south?

It gets madder. The briefing paper for the proposed development was drawn up by none other than the Privatisation Unit, a government body that was originally set up in 2000.

Its website says that it has a mandate to ‘facilitate the privatisation of public enterprises in a correct and efficient manner’. It doesn’t say anything about handing over public land to private interests.

Because that’s what this is, a land grab. It happened with Portomaso and Smart City. White Rocks looks set to follow. And now this.

What really gets me is the ease with which people like the MDA manage to get us talking about everything except the main point. Sod the south, this is about a state that’s chronically incapable of safeguarding the ecological and cultural value of public land for its citizens.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

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