Yesterday morning's rally by the environmentalist NGOs has been accused of having a somewhat too ample brief. In fairness, however, there seems to be at least one common thread. That's to push for tighter regulation on development and better enforcement of the existing rules. So far so good.
The NGOs also seem to be rooting for broader public consultation and an approach to decision-making that is more bottom-up than top-down. At this point the rally may well run out of logic. The reason is that I'm not sure 'the public' (whoever that is) wants more regulation and enforcement. In fact, it may well want less.
It's also too easy to blame the destruction of our landscapes on a few greedy 'speculators' and 'developers' who ride roughshod over the public interest. Truth is that speculating and developing (and currying political favour in order to be able to do so) are something of a national hobby and by no means limited to a handful of land-grabbers.
The NGOs, then, face an uphill struggle which is not really about 'the public vs the developers'. It's actually more along the lines of 'the public vs itself'. Which can be tricky.
Not everyone who cares about landscapes was in Valletta. Some opted instead to spend the afternoon sitting in a rather grand room in an Mdina palazzo. They will be more than happy to part with their money in exchange for some or other object they don't really need but would like to have anyway. That's what putting in winning bids at auction is all about.
The lots at this particular auction are many and varied, but one genre will likely trump all others in terms of sheer bidding madness. It always does. I refer to Maltese landscapes, for which people will pay eye-watering sums of money. We seem to have a tremendous appetite for pretty Maltese landscapes, preferably from the past. Surely, if we're so attached to our landscape that we're ready to pay through the nose for images of it, aren't we rather nicely primed to better protect and save it?
Not necessarily. Paradoxically enough, the lead as to why this isn't the case is provided by the Giannis themselves. Nineteenth-century landscapes are bought to be put in houses, preferably displayed in some particularly beloved corner. And yet, even as the household dotes and heaps love on the faux landscape on its walls, it tends to snub the real one outside them.
The typical Maltese home is a refutation of its surroundings, both natural and man-made ones. Our terraced houses, for example,
seldom attempt to achieve the continuity and repetition of form that makes Georgian and Victorian terraces so unique. Rather, each façade tries to be as individual as possible and exists in perpetual competition with its neighbours. In this sense a Maltese terraced house is a contradiction in terms - it lacks a terrace and is really just a house with others on both sides.
With respect to the 'natural' (unbuilt) landscape, Maltese towns and villages tend to huddle together against the surrounding fields, where there are any left. There's little if any idea of continuity between the two types. To go back to the auction, it's a delicious irony that so much money will be spent on landscapes, in Mdina of all places. For Mdina itself gives the impression that it is fortified against the landscape. Seen from a distance the town seems to detach itself like it wants to have nothing to do.
Gardens are another clue. English gardening, which at one point developed an arsenal of devices to trick the eye into looking towards the fields beyond and incorporating them, is unknown here. Our gardens are very much based on the hortus conclusus ('walled garden') model which creates secret and introvert spaces.
This applies even to the grandest of houses. The garden of Villa d'Aurel in Gudja is vast by any standards but it's still a walled space that gives the cold shoulder to the parched countryside that surrounds it. The garden wall is the ultimate negation of the landscape.
I'm not saying there's anything specifically Maltese about this. In the 1970s, for example, a number of wealthy Arabs pumped oil money into country houses around London. Only, when times got tighter, they sold off parts of their estates for development. For the English, a country house minus its estate was blasphemy. For these particular Arabs, however, it was the house that mattered - the estate was just some extra land thrown in with the deal. Ditto the now-departed citrus groves of Lija, Balzan, and Żejtun.
This detachment business is only part of the story. Historically, for most Maltese, landscapes did in fact have tremendous value. Not as aesthetic spaces to be taken in and enjoyed, but as essentially hostile ones to be dominated and exploited.
Dun Karm is hardly my favourite poet, but there is at least one work by him that is a true masterpiece of form and content. Wied Qirda talks of a country girl who, at the end of a hard day's work in the fields, walks to the comfort of her home - leaving the countryside to its terrible memories. The one thing that links the girl to the countryside is work. The fields are her sustenance, and that's their use value.
Trouble is, that use value has changed remarkably in recent decades. At the risk of exaggerating, I'd say the countryside has lost the plot. Which is why huge chunks of it have been sold to hunters, for example. Or to developers. The girl from Dun Karm's sonnet has no use for the land. She no longer works there. If consulted, she'd probably go for selling it to the highest bidder.
What of our auction goers? They'll probably spend, spend, spend. Maltese landscapes are decorative, have high nostalgic value, and tend to retain their worth. But they're just vignettes really, like so many postcards that sell a manicured and uprooted image.
The real thing is a different story.
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