That Malta is a veritable open-air museum is an acknowledged reality. The earlier inhabitants and many occupying forces have left the island an invaluable inheritance of architectural and cultural wealth. Time, nature, two world wars and years of speculation and development have destroyed precious art and architecture.
However – thanks to administrative decisions, NGO and individual efforts – Malta remains one of the world’s densest concentrations of monuments, museums and landmarks, from the world’s oldest freestanding structures in the world to Renzo Piano’s studied entrance to the capital.
Whether such wealth is acknowledged and appreciated is another story altogether. Thankfully, recent studies and statistics show that such appreciation is on the increase.
According to official data listed in Heritage Malta’s 2016 annual report, admissions to the national agency’s museums and sites reached an all-time high last year, with almost 1.3 million visitors, an increase of 100,000 over the previous year.
The more popular sites were Ġgantija Temples, with 183,000 visits, Ħaġar Qim, which attracted more than 143,000 visitors, the Palace State Rooms, logging 119,084 visits in 10 months, and Fort St Angelo, which was visited by 15,000 people in just two months. Visitors included tourists, locals and almost 50,000 schoolchildren. In the last case, a lot of credit goes to educators and parents.
Cultural participation is also on the rise. The findings of a new cultural participation survey published by Arts Council Malta, Valletta 2018 and the NSO, show that 91 per cent of people attended some form of cultural event last year. Participation took various forms, ranging from cinema to visits to sites and museums and attendance to live theatre or music performance.
Despite the encouraging statistics, an appreciation of Malta’s cultural, archaeological and architectural wealth is still tepid. Moreover, such wealth takes a backseat whenever it is pitted against economic activity, especially the kind that generates quick revenue. This was seen in two recent episodes reported by this newspaper.
In the first, the Times of Malta reported that Gozo’s last surviving Roman catacombs in Għar Għerduf were under threat after a permit was granted for a two-storey house, within the protected heritage area in front of the catacombs. Thankfully, the Planning Authority revoked the permission last week, after it emerged that the classification of the site was wrongly stated during the processing of the application.
In the second episode, the Planning Authority granted a developer permission to demolish one of Marsascala’s oldest edifices and, instead, build a restaurant and overlying single residence. All members of the Marsascala local council have rightly agreed to file an appeal against the decision.
Yet, these are just two cases.
The drive towards a greater appreciation of Malta’s culture and heritage should not be carried out on a case-by-case basis. It ought be a holistic approach, driven by nostalgia, in the direction of the future.
It is only thus that we can encourage a collective pride in what we have and such pride would, in turn, be a safeguard for our wealth.