As I have now found myself with more time on my hands, given that PBS has decided to axe Madwarna, the programme I used to write and present, I decided to take a break from painting and go on You Tube to watch the Cinderella operas by Rossini (Cenerentola) and by our own Isouard (Cendrillon).
The name Cinderella or Cenerentola stem from the kitchen of soot and cinders, where the beautiful young maiden was confined. The tale set me thinking. Because like Cinderella, our unique language, which is the epitome of our culture, was for long years confined to the kitchen – and it still is.
Witness the behaviour of those who proclaim “Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox” (Malta first and foremost). It pains me to hear the pseudo-philantropic wife of our pseudo-socialist Prime Minister addressing the media publicly, and her lovely twins privately, in bad English. I suppose it is for no other reason than the desire to occupy a certain social status.
I realise my complaint might seem out of place in a newspaper that’s a relic of our colonial past. But the truth is that certain ‘colonial’ relics should be more than encouraged to thrive, because they add something to the colourful diversity of our great heritage.
Like Cinderella’s sisters, the two main political parties have misused our culture and heritage to serve their own purposes
In the fable of Cindy and her sisters, I am reminded of that 8,000-year-old heritage and the two main political parties, the Red and the Blue.
Like Cinderella’s sisters, they have misused our culture and heritage – the best members of our small family – to serve their own purposes and make themselves look good, while in reality relegating it to a less than secondary role, especially when it comes to education.
In their conceited and self-centered way, they have always wanted the Maltese to believe that our history only started with their arrival on the political scene, some 100-odd years ago, and what happend before was only a prelude to their grand entrance as self-proclaimed saviours of the nation.
I would say that our own ugly sisters, just like in Rossini’s version, took after their nasty father – in our case the Roman Catholic Church and her indisputable dogmas – who squandered Cinderella’s inheritance for his own benefit.
For centuries the Church kept the people of these islands in complete ignorance, ingraining in their minds absolute, unquestioning obedience – a lesson that our two ugly siblings have learnt very well, ever since they ousted their father from his tyrannical throne.
This was the inheritance that our father, or better still, our Holy Mother, handed down to the spiteful sisters.
In the opera, it was only when the open-minded prince, guided by his philosophical tutor, uncovered their nasty plot that the sisters repented.
In Malta, the sovereign prince should be none other than the people, and their tutor reason and openmindedness.
These are two rare attributes that lead to critical thought. More than any other quality, our educational system is duty bound but unfailingly fails to instil the power of critical thought in our budding citizens. We still find ourselves, after 50 years of independence, rooted in the grammar school system mentality of the British Empire, geared to produce non-thinking, obedient soldiers, in our case students, condemned to fail their exams if they question their tutors or deviate from the ‘right’ answer. This, unfortunately, goes all they way up to university level.
Is it a surprise that there is so much polarisation in our country? What else can we expect from a rigid and narrow-minded educational system that prepares its students only to get a job and make money, and encourages our young minds to consider art and culture as a waste of time?
Is it a wonder that we are becoming so soulless and insensitive? The antipatriotic trend that has taken hold here is to look at our country as a commodity through which to generate money at any cost, or as real estate to be sold off for profit.
This trend was not born with this government and the greedy triumvirate that has perverted the Socialist Labour Party and is now gobbling up the whole island, as it still recovers from the dark years of the terrible 1980s. It is, rather, the natural result of years of self-interest among those who, instead of serving the country, used it to feed their own greed and gluttony for power, while rendering the people stupid with their never-ending, childish bickering.
It is time for the prince – the people – to come of age, acknowledge his lineage and inheritance and become sovereign again. What we need right now is a ‘revolution of the mind’.
Like all other revolutions, it will not be easy to stage, but all great things require effort to accomplish. The difference from so many other upheavels is that this one, just as in Rossini’s Cenerentola, could have a happy ending: in giving up on their pettiness, the two ugly sisters may find they are not so ugly after all, and can be pardoned and embraced.
It pains me to hear the pseudo-philantropic wife of our pseudo-socialist Prime Minister addressing the media publicly, and her lovely twins privately, in bad English
Some may argue that bastions have been restored and palaces returned to their former glory.
Well, perhaps one of the sisters is not as nasty as the other, which for its own vicious reasons has deprived a wide range of televiewers of Madwarna, a programme whose only purpose was to bring history and culture to the masses and promote critical and creative thinking. However, when we finally did put our own house in order, it was not out of a love of heritage but primarily to attract tourists and make money.
While this may not be such a bad idea, this attitude could be a threat to our identity at a time when so many foreigners, often keen defenders of their own native cultures, are coming to live and work in Malta.
Malta needs these people, even if only to refresh our shrinking gene pool. But we must be aware that if we keep pushing our cultural Cinderella into the basement, we risk ending up being viewed as second class citizens in our own country. Because if the two ugly sisters keep sucking up to the rich prince or shiekh, they may find he might not be as wise and benvolent as the one in the popular fable.