Ferragosto or Santa Marija, as it is known in our parts, is the top summer holiday. The heat feels like it is at its hottest and the feeling of living in the most densely populated islands on earth is exacerbated by the manifestations of mass movement that are the villeggjatura and festi. There has not been much of a political armistice this year, at least not as much as usual, and this has thankfully meant that the momentum gathered towards the beginning of summer by various civil society actions did not peter out with the onset of the hot damning sun.
Space seems to be a common denominator that underlies the main occurrences on the island. It began with trees. The trees were condemned to be removed because the autocentric society that we live in needed more space in which to put our traffic jams. Once the alarm was raised over the latest action of intransigence, then it would be little time before the spaces on our facebook walls would be taken over by example after example of other barbarian assaults on the scant flora that our nation can still boast of. A sense of awareness had been created and the anger was finally harnessed.
Pioneer activists wanted the online indignation to be transferred away from the ether to the physical spaces and the momentum is being continued with a date for the 7thSeptember when the angered will meet again to fill spaces with their bodies.
Space is what our few beaches have as an important commodity. The news that the government of the expanding middle class (Invictus) has negotiated the return of 10% of certain bays to the people was announced as though this was some kind of triumph for the and by the people. That the remaining 90% should also be the people’s space and is part of the foreshore that should not be subject to commerce seems to have been ignored.
An angry businessman in another part of the island was called pastaz by a Minister’s portaborsefor the simple fact that he had complained of the invasion of an idyllic space by part of the ever-growing army of campervans in Malta. That’s something I never quite understood – campervans in Malta? Why? In any case the chances of the powers that be accepting the fact that the abuse of public spaces to feed the supposed middle-classification of the islands is a no-no are close to zilch.
Old, traditional public places are in danger of being morphed by the government’s frenzied approach to development. Rows of houses in Rabat under threat by the unplanning authority that together with the motor vehicle authority (read transport malta) has declared war on the Maltese landscape. Their invasion of space is beyond the barbaric. The determination to succeed is strengthened by the far from meritocratic filling of spaces by the Invictus elected. No stone will be left unturned. Every day brings a new item of news announcing the perversion of Maltese space for the satisfaction of the middle-class laureates.
Access to property is tougher and tougher – making that personal space all the harder to come by. Meanwhile the annual exodus to the ‘sister island’ will surely mean more complaints of lack of space, lack of place, lack of air. The air they breathe incidentally is ever so unhealthy much to the chagrin of the asthmatic community – never enough space in the lungs to take in the much-needed oxygen.
The open seas around the island are also full of ‘invaders’ of another kind. Bodies upon bodies will be bartered by governments and NGOs for the sake of understanding which space they are entitled to scrape a living upon.
At PN HQ they have already started planning ahead about which space to fill for the traditional Independence Day celebrations. The Fososmight seem dauntingly like too large an expanse for the second largest party in Malta so they will try to make do with the space in front of the HQ in Pieta’. Much space for irony there.
No irony was lost when newly anointed Minister for Pinkwashing paraded a made-up Malta-LGBTQ flag with the rainbow colours replacing the Red part of the Maltese flag. Yet another exercise of facile endearment risked turning sour as the nationalists (not the PN ones) felt angered and offended by what they considered to be a desecration of a national symbol.
Old men and ministerial lackeys also seem to be offended on a daily basis by the continuing manifestation of solidarity with the cause of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The calls for justice are manifested in a small space opposite the law courts and they are also removed on a daily basis by those who cannot seem to be able to survive the fact of being reminded daily that justice has not been served.
There’s a general feeling of suffocation. It’s claustrophobic. Something has got to give. Watch this space.
