This article has been coming for a long time but after the Manoel Island fiasco, I think I’ve finally found the right words to write.
A few short weeks ago, a foreign friend of mine who has been living in Malta for five years began passionately talking about a petition that she had signed. She tagged many of the people on her Facebook profile, spoke about possible actions that could be taken, even had a couple of meetups with other people to decide what could be done. She was so full of enthusiasm and hope that I almost felt ashamed that I was unable to feel the same way she did.
Eventually picking up on my non-committal reception, she plainly asked me: “Don’t you care about what happens to Manoel Island?” My answer broke my own heart. The truth is that it’s not that I don’t care; nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is I care too much, something which has not served me well living in a country where it would seem many things which shouldn’t go do and common sense has all but been thrown out the window and trampled on by passing horses. The truth is also that I’m intensely tired.
Common sense has all but been thrown out the window and trampled on by passing horses
I’m tired of signing petitions to save beautiful, heritage-rich buildings; I’m tired of ranting on Facebook to my wonderful echo chamber of friends; I’m tired of seeing my country being torn apart by packs of hungry developers who never seem satiated and always hanker for yet another pound of concrete. But most of all, I’m tired of being ignored.
On Thursday, with a quasi-unanimous vote of 10 to one, Manoel Island was sentenced to a slow and painful death. It will be engulfed in concrete, its very soul trapped and 6,000-plus signatures couldn’t save it. It’s beyond despicable and I am beyond done with this charade of democracy that we have always poorly worn.
As rape after rape of our land takes place, I find myself oddly desensitised, yet the anger remains. I can no longer show enthusiasm for activism because it achieves absolutely nothing and makes me feel even worse for putting in the effort. But on Thursday, as I choked on the dust which now envelops half the island and looked out to a skyline dotted with cranes, I completely lost it.
How can it be that 6,000 voices count for nothing? How can these 10 people look their children in the eyes knowing they have put yet another nail in the coffin of our country? How are there people who are still calling this progress?
We don’t need more flats when over 40,000 housing units, the majority of which are in good condition or requiring minimal repairs, remain empty. We don’t need more second-rate shops displaying their overpriced tat and we certainly don’t need another casino. What we do need is to develop a conscience and a moral compass. Oh look, there’s something money can’t buy after all.