An interesting, if totally unsurprising, revelation last week was that Malta lies at the bottom of the heap in as far as culture and the arts are concerned. This Eurostat report was published last December and targets people aged from 16 to 29. This is a critical age bracket and, should something drastic not be done to remedy the situation, I shudder to think how dismally low our culture will sink in future. With the EU hollering at the Minister of Finance to curb Malta's expenditure in health and education there is not much chance of money being thrown at the problem in time-honoured fashion, however, this situation must be addressed, and now!
In as far as education is concerned I was one of the people who had welcomed the introduction of Systems of Knowledge all those years ago. This has proven to be a double edged sword for it is only students with a natural thirst for knowledge who understand and appreciate the broadening of their horizons at such a late age. Those students whose entire education package has either been crammed or force-fed by over-competitive parents to excel at examination results would logically shrug off a subject like Systems of Knowledge like an unwanted carapace.
Those students who have never opened a book in their life other than those on their syllabus will baulk at the very idea of having to unravel the sophistries of Herman Hesse's Siddhartha or wade through the mythological imagery of Virgil's Aeneid: books that were both an integral part of Systems up to a couple of years ago.
It is obvious that the present system does not have the desired results. I firmly believe that some form of Systems of Knowledge must be introduced at a very early age; preferably five not 15, just like music is, and I can bet my bottom dollar that the results will show within a decade, which is why every day lost is a tragedy. Above all, it is evident that the present system does not encourage individual thought processes before the age of 15, by which the classroom inhibitions are there to stay.
The most important aspect of Systems is that it should be pleasurable. All forms of learning should be pleasurable, however, Culture with a capital C is only fully appreciated when the intellectual delight derived from it is equal and more to its usefulness.
Many of those who commented in last week's article expressed a deep-seated frustration about what is going on in the arts and culture scene that, in my opinion, was born of ignorance and indifference. It was as if they were trying to shift the blame on someone else other than themselves. You see, culture and the arts must perforce be self-taught to be effective. Systems of Knowledge is there for the express purpose of exciting one's natural curiosity about man's achievements.
Where have we come from? What are we doing? Where are we going? These are questions that must be constantly in our mind when informing ourselves about what is going on in the world of culture, which should not, and I repeat not, be a world reserved exclusively for the cognoscenti and culture vultures but a world that is open to all. Arts and culture must cease to be presented as a caprice, something extra and over and above the normal educational requirements. Art and culture is an integral part of our daily lives.
When we live in a country like ours - a tiny island marooned in the middle of the Mediterranean - the drawbacks are obvious, however, considering this, our achievements and capabilities are formidable. To think that a nation with population equivalent of a largish town in Europe has a cultural life as variegated as ours is mind-boggling.
We were lucky that for 300 years we had the crème de la crème of Europe in our midst that left us a tremendously rich legacy that has laid down an indelible cultural language that is still alive and kicking today. That more people do not subscribe to it is a choice they have made themselves and, therefore, blaming the authorities for not providing this or that or the other and moaning about the fur coat brigade taking culture over is merely a lame excuse to cover their own indifference, which is why these misconceptions should be eradicated at an early age.
They say you can take a horse to water but cannot make it drink and this could not be more appropriate than in this particular situation. Unless we ensure that our young people become receptive to the rhythms of Beethoven, the brushstrokes of Velasquez, the soliloquies of Shakespeare, the cadences of Dante and the intrigues of Balzac, at the very least, it will be impossible for them to appreciate the contemporary.
Art and culture is a progression that harks back to the caves of Lascaux and is still in a state of constant renewal. Therefore, the music of John Adams, the paintings of Fernando Botero, the plays of Arthur Miller, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, the novels of Amin Maalouf, will remain forever a shut and bolted book to those who have no interest in how or why these geniuses who created and still create such wonderful works in our own lifetimes came to be.
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