Sunday, 1st February 2009
A LIFE AUTONOMOUS
The St John’s extension saga has now taken on a life all of its own, independent of the merits or demerits of the project itself. What started out as an argument, ill- or well-conceived as it may have been, on whether a national monument (or should that be A National Monument?) should have works done and, if yes, where and how, has turned into a political casus belli of quite insane proportions.
Or has it? Frankly, the earnest desires of the Lil’Elves and portions of the media notwithstanding, I think not.
Let’s take a step back and examine this little contretemps, shall we? It started out with the environmentalists, led by the redoubtable Astrid Vella, threatening to tie themselves to the front of bull-dozers and generally kick up a heck of a storm if the project went ahead, to which the entirely reasonable response was “wait and see what the impact assessments come up with before getting all Joan of Arc”.
Aforementioned reasonable response, espoused by yours truly amongst others, met with a veritable barrage of “shut up and mind your own agendas”, to which were added comments about how technical assessments were only as disinterested as the people who did them and what were these people interested in, anyway?
As always when hobby-horses are saddled up and battle-standards raised, it becomes impossible for the riders and standard-bearers to back down. No matter that nothing had been written in stone up to that point, and no matter that the Foundation that takes care of St John’s was doing its level best to explain what was being proposed (note the word: “proposed”) in the minds of many, the project was going to involve replacing the façade with an aluminium balcony (gold coloured, of course) and Xmas Fathers were going to be hung from every available cornice, gargoyle and water-spout.
The interior of the church was going to be sandblasted down to bare stone and the flooring torn up, the former to be decked with flock wallpaper and the latter to be covered with linoleum depicting scenes from Disney.
Clearly, this wasn’t going to be the case, but from the reaction from all concerned, you’d have thought that Caqnu was being asked to raise a fifty-five storey block of flats, with a three-lane dual-carriageway being driven through City Gate (eat your heart out, Piano) and with the Royal Opera House ruins being turned into a Texaco Station.
So, what started out as an environmental protest, itself a perfectly reasonable way of emphasising that nothing should be done to mess the place up, countered by a “wait-and-see” attitude, degenerated into quite a name-calling exercise with almost Starship Enterprise speed.
Anyone in favour of the project – or even in favour of waiting to see what the project was really going to entail – was turned into an environmental gangster interested only in filthy lucre, bent on pushing forward his own agenda for all kinds of nefarious reasons.
It is in the nature of things – particularly in countries like ours where the political agenda is driven by considerations found in the Little Valley of the Po (which idea will the crowd shout loudest for?) – that when a shiny little bandwagon like this trundles along, certain political types will sit up and take notice and hop aboard with the alacrity of a five-year old shown a shiny toy, especially if it has bells on.
So it came to pass that the Labour Party thought it would be a good wheeze to table a motion in the House, oblivious of the stark fact that there are plenty of other crises with which to occupy their, and our, attention.
In a way, it’s nice that the Onorevlijiet are so fired up by environmental considerations that they will ignore the fact that the world is coming apart at the seams and concentrate their attentions on an issue that is one that is far better handled by its proposers (a body charged with giving due care and attention to St John’s) and by its opposers, working in a dynamic within the proper forum, the well-loved and universally respected MEPA.
But is it really such a good thing that the House is to debate this?
What is the use of having an appointed Board to run the Foundation, what is the use of having environmental lobby groups, what is the use of having planning and assessment structures, if Parliament is going to use its own time to debate the whole thing?
Megaphone debating techniques, such as are routinely employed in the House, with people shouting from one side of the aisle to the other, are not designed for the proper ventilation of technical issues – in Parliament, no-one sits back to watch the flowers grow, a side is taken and hang persuasion.
Because it is such a unusual question to come up before the House (what is the Government supposed to do if the motion is carried? Enact legislation directing the Foundation to withdraw its proposal or something?) we’ve also had the somewhat unusual (for Malta) phenomenon of Government MPs expressing themselves as not being quite four-square behind the Government on this.
Well, let’s be precise: it’s not a Government proposal, so they’re perfectly entitled not to be four-square behind it.
The Lil’Elves, on the other hand, coming from an environment where everything was a Government proposal (mainly because when Mintoff and KMB were in charge, everything was centrally dictated) seem to have got themselves into a tizzy about how the Government is hanging by a thread on its one-seat majority.
What a load of whistling in the dark.
Even if the motion is carried, which will have to mean that a) not all Government MPs vote against it and b) all the Opposition MPs remember to turn up, it’s not, by any stretch of the imagination (not even the Lil’Elves’) a confidence vote, so it will have no effect whatsoever on the viability of the Government.
So there you have it: a storm has blown up and it will blow itself out. Some folk will feel all warm inside, having shown independence of thought and shown that they have oats and will feel them, others will feel all warm inside, having cozied up to people who are not naturally their allies and yet others will wonder what all the fuss was about.
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Comments
Same here.
Whatever you say,Joe!
Further discussion with you is a waste of time for me.
Charles, there you go again. You go on a tangent to craftily avoid answering my comments regarding the original subject!
Now that it is quite clear that you will not admit that my comments to Mr. Rossignaud had nothing to do with supporting or not the St. John project, I shall comment on the rest of your last posting.
Having friends and people in high places with the PN is neither here nor there. I have LP supporters who I regard as family, by necessity or by choice - more or less like your situation. However, with those LP supporters, friends or family, I never try to influence their beliefs although we do have a few lively debates sometimes, but they always revolve around the ill- conceived or ill-timed Labour policies of today and even more, of the past.
As to the part of you being a pragmatic person who may even think of voting NP, you have a little more convincing to do before I swallow this one.
But then many prominent people changed their minds on their death bed but, unable to change course in time, only saw the light on the other side
You are wasting your time and if you read my comments one more time you will notice that I wrote neither for nor against the St. John's project. What I commented on was the mention of the project "bringing with it hundreds of filthy, belching, trucks into the very heart of Valletta".
In fact, I continued thus: "If you are against the project for other reasons, that's fine but this logistical excuse does not hold much water".
Now, what's that having to do which administration is in place and your other comments?
You don't have to remind us that you are not an NP supporter and I can guarantee you that nobody will be knocking on your door trying to 'convert' you or make note that coming future elections you will not be voting NP.
@ Edgar Rossignaud
You are wasting your time. Had it been a different administration some people would be using the very valid arguments that you are using now.
It is a known fact that I am not a PN supporter and for that reason only I am keeping a distance from this campaign as my input might be used by some people to derail good citizens from the real issue.
I applaud those prominent personalities who inspite of their high profile in public life stood up to get counted.
Sadly we only seem to unite after or in anticipation of a national tragedy. Fortunately this time we are united to avoid the tragedy.
Keep up the good work Edgar and keep the petition going.
@ Joe Martinelli
‘Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar’ and a number of patriotic citizens are to publish an Open Letter to the Prime Minister, requesting a reconsideration of important decisions in the regeneration of Valletta, to relocate Parliament to the Opera House site, and the St. John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation’s plans to excavate an underground museum in St. John’s Square and cover over its graveyard.
All the PL and a sizeable number of PN MPs, prominent personalities who are known for their allegiance to the PN,the king pin of the PN strategy group, the church, the vast majority of the Maltese and Gannina tal grocer are united against these project and the objection is not about dust and traffic chaos .
‘Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar’, a non political organization, are asking us, the people, to sign an open letter to the PM to consider the appeal by the vast majority of the Maltese living in Malta and abroad. If you go to www.faa.org.mt you will get an idea of who is supporting this campaign.
My comment was that the mess can be controlled (maybe like never before) and that Merchants' Street between St. John and South Streets is closed to traffic except for trucks and PEDESTRIANS. Local contractors have to work miracles if more than thirty trucks a day come and go, which, in an eight hour day amounts to no more than one truck traveling along that route every eight minutes (in any direction), if my calculation is right. And, that would be a record - just imagine that a truck has to arrive on site, be loaded and covered and set to go every sixteen minutes! I think I know local contractors very well. What, no coffee breaks?
If you are against the project for other reasons, that's fine but this logistical excuse does not hold much water.
I do not consider such frequency to be too disruptive nor inconvenient to pedestrians and shopkeepers.
While it is good to have an own opinion about any issue, the remark that the project will , "bring with it hundreds of filthy, belching, trucks into the very heart of Valletta, and, (even assuming the trucks are properly covered), this in itself will bring havoc and disruption..." is a bit exaggerated. Not to the number of trucks, that is a given, but the belching and the filth can easily be controlled. Secondly traffic arrangements can be made, for example, so that Merchants Street between St. John and South Street could be accessed by trucks and pedestrians only. There is hardly any gain without a bit of pain. Many old cities around the world, some time or another experience what is called 'urban regeneration' when heavy construction becomes a necessity.
@ Muscat Peter
The Foundation is the body responsible for the day to day running and maintenance of the Cathedral. Heaven forbid the government is directly involved because either maintenance comes too late or never. Their plans have been made public and questions answered for the umpteenth time but some seem to be entrenched in the idea that an EIA is insufficient or rigged!
Thus I see no logic or common sense in ABC’s building of this article. On the other hand ABC didn’t stop in using this ‘saga’ to turn his guns, as always, towards his arch enemies and at same time minimizing the Administration’s responsibilities.
Finally I do agree with ABC that there are much major problems to be dealt with then St. John’s saga, which is being used to divert the public’s attention by the present Administration.