The rain did not stop the carnival this year, and crowds flocked to Valletta to enjoy the spectacle. The hot dog stand near the grand master’s statue provided the first amusing carnival diversion, and the festivities carried on throughout the week.

There is no question of this annual event losing importance. The government has said that carnival is a top priority in the cultural sector and was even considering holding three carnivals each year.

It has now announced the building of a ‘carnival village’ to make floats and costumes and to practise dances, on the site of the government garages in Marsa. It will cost €6 million and will also be used for rock music rehearsals, emerging artists and various art forms.

Besides Valletta, the carnival at Nadur in Gozo continues to grow. I had first gone to it in 1990 with a group of university students when it was a small and slightly macabre event, with people dressed in old sheets and dull colours, and using discards found in the garage as props.

Today Nadur is more organised and well lit, and attracts hordes of people. Yet back then, its streets were darker, with people clearly enjoying the feeling of transgression, licensed to step over social boundaries and publicly indulge in spontaneous and eccentric behaviour for a day which, after all, is the essence of carnival. The atmosphere was Gothic, a bit like Halloween.

People are strangely drawn to the darker side of human nature. Dark tourism is a growing trend, promoting sites of human tragedy and pain. The motivation for visiting these places is complex, perhaps to commemorate historical events or for educational reasons. Yet it is also entertainment, like watching a horror movie. Former prisons, concentration camps and scenes of war destruction can pull the crowds.

Heritage Malta had once exhibited a set of torture instruments at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa. The exhibits were appalling, and I had walked around with the sickening thought that they were obviously designed to inflict maximum pain.

Unfortunately, horror scenes are not only imaginary but real, and images of people being beheaded and burnt alive are showing up on our screens. Apart from the physical pain, the cruel filmed rituals calculated to generate fear are nauseating.

Its proposed name is the awful ‘Centre for Popular Culture’

Confronted with these terrorist displays of gruesome murder, people are commenting that scenes of horror abounded in western countries in the past.

Yes, it is a fact that Henry VIII’s daughter was known as Bloody Mary due to the large number of Protestants executed and burnt at the stake during her reign. It is also true that in Malta in 1749, dreadful scenes of torture and public execution were carried out on the slaves who plotted to assassinate Grand Master Manuel Pinto de Fonseca.

After being elected as Grand Master in 1775, Emmanuel de Rohan removed the rotting heads of Maltese rebels involved in the uprising of the priests, displayed on pikes at St James Cavalier in Valletta. In ancient Rome, prisoners were thrown to the lions at the Colosseum.

This will lead us nowhere. It is clearly mistaken to judge the past by our own beliefs and norms. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” goes the famous quote. In this sense, it is meaningless to persist in pointing out violence from scenes of history. Past horrors and misdeeds obviously do not licence any actions today.

Society evolves; it is able to learn from mistakes and to hold itself to different standards to achieve a better outcome. However, this does not only apply to extremist behaviour but to all aspects of social and political life.

This is why I am always annoyed when political parties try to justify their objectionable decisions by unearthing instances of when something similar was done in the past by their opponents.

This is a political match of ping-pong which just keeps the country stuck in a rut and prevents it from moving forward. It is also absurd, when people have purposely voted for change. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me.

It is good that carnival enthusiasts will have a dedicated space to prepare for their annual events. However, it seems bizarre that rock bands and emerging artists should be located in a carnival village.

Its proposed name is the awful ‘Centre for Popular Culture’. This implies a distinction between contemporary high and low culture, the elite and the masses, or perhaps the commercial and the non-commercial. This division has been questioned for decades, and I wonder how it will be applied here.

According to the government, the presence of rock musicians and other artists will encourage ‘cross-pollination’ and ensure that the arts world is divested of a ‘silo-mentality’. Yet separating popular from so-called high culture itself creates a kind of cultural silo.

If this new centre is intended for regular use by a variety of artists and art forms then why is it being referred to as a ‘carnival village’ in the first place, or is the art of kartapesta now supreme?

petracdingli@gmail.com

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