Marisa and Benny Bondin made the news last week after they were denied compensation for the closure of their restaurantin Cospicua.
The last time I came across this usage of the common good argument I was reading a biography of Chairman Mao- Mark Anthony Falzon
The family has been without an income since the start of the Dock 1 project in 2011. Given the total lethargy of the works and despite Minister Austin Gatt’s bullish histrionics, there’s no end in sight. They’ve simply been left alone with their bank manager.
There’s a reason why I believe the Bondins’ story 100 per cent. I happen to be acquainted with one of their sons who at 20-something runs his own car body-repair place. By all experience he’s a good lad who works very hard indeed, sometimes into the early hours, and who has earned the respect of his neighbours. The story he told me matches that of The Times perfectly.
It’s also entirely true that the Bondins had spent a small fortune transforming a disused warehouse into a perfectly agreeable eatery that enjoyed views of the Maċina and Galleys Creek. It was popular too, both with locals (especially groups of women for coffee mornings and lunches and such) and people who wanted a waterfront thathadn’t quite yet been fully domesticatedby cappuccino.
The Bondins are saying they have been pushed to the edge of poverty, that they have had to sell their cars and Mrs Bondin’s jewellery. The second in particular is a fairly poignant thing to say, even at a time when selling the family gold seems to have become a central tenet of the national identity. It might cause some to raise an eyebrow.
Not me. I’m not interested in the private finances of the Bondin family. I’d be writing exactly the same thing if they were the wealthiest people south of Portomaso. The point is that they have been robbed of their investment and income and they deserve compensation for that. I’m told they’re now seeking justice in court, and I wish them luck.
Sympathy with the Bondins’ cause is not my only reason for taking up the topic. To my mind, the matter raises a number of issues that go well beyond a private claim.
The first concerns the Prime Minister’s argument against compensating the Bondins. He apparently told them, by e-mail rather than at the kitchen table, that the Dock 1 project was a “national” one and was being “carried out for the common good” (The Times, May 22). I had to splash some cold water on my face, read the fine print on the tobacco packet, and pinch myself hard.
The last time I came across this usage of the common good argument I was reading a biography of Chairman Mao. Since when does the “common good” - even if such a thing existed - make it legitimate to make off with people’s private investments and income and refuse them compensation?
There’s another thing about this common good business. Specifically in the case of the Cospicua waterfront, it is far from clear how common the good will be. The signs arehardly encouraging.
Much is made of the regeneration of the Cottonera waterfront. It would be vastly unfair to rubbish it all and say there have not been improvements. Certainly the place is much smarter and more accessible than it used to be, say, ten years ago.
Sceptics would say it’s simply another case of a working waterfront giving way to a recreational one. Whatever truth there may be in that, the point is that people seem to ratherlike it.
Still, it may be worth thinking what might have been. As it is the Vittoriosa waterfront is a fairly boring and bourgeois place where people stroll along prescribed straight lines and then perhaps stop for a coffee or a pizza. Compared to the Senglea and Kalkara waterfronts, none of which have been regenerated yet, there is little diversity of use.
I have in mind the evening tombolas, the fishing, the rowdy barbecues, the swimming, and the greasy institution known as burger biċ-chips, all of which are strictly verboten in Vittoriosa. The only exception is the Maritime Museum, a thoughtful initiative that could really have set the stage for some diversity. Unfortunately it was never followed up and we were left with more cappuccinosand capricciosa.
This is where the Bondins’ place comes in. Their regatta club restaurant was a sort of compromise, a cross between the tinkly teaspoons and the dripping chips. The chairs were good, the tables spotless and so forth, but it was never quite the tame and docile species that is taking over the regenerated waterfronts. That was precisely the attraction.
Urban regeneration is usually sold on its potential to bring gifts to locals - ‘benefits to local communities’ in current planning babble. Problem is, nine times of out ten it’s a veneer. Or worse. It has been said in the US that ‘Urban renewal means Negro removal’. (I use the N-word as in reported speech.)
How might that apply to Cottonera? The hype was that the new waterfront would bring a much-needed breath of fresh area to a ‘depressed area’, that locals would find jobs and open small businesses, and so on. Quite apart from the fact that there is nothing remotely depressing about Cospicua and Vittoriosa, the case of the Bondins does somewhat put a dent in all that.
That’s because they’re a family of Bormliżi who went to the bank, borrowed money, and poured it into a local small businessthat added much to life along the old waterfront. As the son told me this week, his father had always ‘wanted to do something in Bormla’ (‘dejjem xtaq jagħmel xiħaġa Bormla’).
One might have expected this to be lauded as a flagship example of local enterprise. Instead the Bondins were evicted (temporarily, ha), their restaurant roughed up, and their enterprise made into a loan nightmare. How’s that for ‘benefits to local communities’?
The common good is a myth. As urban geographer Doreen Massey puts it, “we know that trickle-down doesn’t work”. What’s happening in Cospicua (and soon Kalkara it seems) is not about benefits to a greater population. Boon to a greater power more like it.
mafalzon@hotmail.com