It’s a tale as old as time: two people looking at exactly the same dress and one seeing their Cinderella moment and the other thinking that the only time they would wear the item is to their own funeral (and only because someone else put it on their back). In the past, good taste like good manners, was something that one was expected to cultivate. Everyone knew what it meant to have it and everyone who didn’t, wanted it. Oh how the tables have turned!
If you’re one to whom aesthetics matter, living in contemporary Malta is becoming harder and harder. Blocks of soulless concrete boxes spring eternal overnight, beautiful squares which once had their own individual identities are starting to be cleared away one by one and systematically anonymised and what little green space we had is being choked with layers and layers of cement. Press meeting after press meeting is held, people on both sides of the house complain and wait with bated breath for the justifications that we as a nation love so much and then finally, the unfathomable happens and the public is given one shining reason for all the destruction to chew on: “progress”. The mind boggles.
If you’re one to whom aesthetics matter, living in contemporary Malta is becoming harder
The first reaction is disbelief; you almost can’t believe that anyone on earth could see the ugly flats being built with no rhyme or reason as beautiful or progressive. Anger ensues because you love your country and you don’t want to see it spoiled further and then you have a conversation with someone who is not part of your usual echo chamber and you realise that they are looking at the same thing which is giving you so much grief and seeing nothing short of a beacon of hope. After that, all bets are off. How can you reason with someone whose eyes are telling him something completely different from yours?
It’s a hopeless situation we find ourselves in and one that isn’t going to change in a hurry. With more and more people positing their opinion as fact and believing that they have a right to share it just because it’s theirs, we find ourselves in the kind of desperate situation that allows presidents like Donald Trump to happen, with the added bonus of people digging their heels in even further because they believe that you are demeaning them by simply presenting the objective truth. Maybe next time you cross the channel to go to Gozo or book those tickets to visit an unspoilt Greek island, you could ask yourself why it is that you don’t love your country enough not to be willing to sell it for thirty pieces of silver.