Having read the article (February 17) about conflict in Malta’s cultural field, I am sadly reminded of the statement, often attributed to Hermann Goering, but in fact made by the Expressionist dramatist and committed Nazi Hanns Johst: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.”

It would be more than unfortunate, if in this case life were to imitate or come close to imitating art. Let us rather hope that nothing more happens than that a few heads are, in the figurative sense, banged together and that the beautiful city of Valletta with its already vibrant cultural life has the brilliant year it deserves as European Capital of Culture.