Silenzio

The view from the Franciscans' garden in Floriana is breathtaking. It had never been my lot to visit their little heaven before. It also came as a complete surprise at the end of a mass marking World Environment Day which I attended on invitation of the Church Environment Commission. The bishop of Gozo celebrated mass and gave a longish sermon.

I was treading a fine line I have set myself. As the leader of a political party which makes a clear distinction between religion and politics, attending masses and religious celebrations on formal invitation because of my post is always tricky. I am also a private person entitled to the wrestle with or to the surrender to God and to walk away from it if I choose. Generally speaking I avoid the religious bit simply to be there as a politician. Somehow it is much easier with faiths which are not my own. I have been to mosques, synagogues and Hindu temples, Bahai faith meetings and Buddhist events, where being a visitor is much easier. The terms of my presence are clear. In fact the hospitality offered to a stranger always creates a strong positive feeling, a definite warmth. There I represent politics, green politics and the respect it shows to all faiths and to philosophies of no faith.

As a catholic in a catholic religious celebration, the overlap with politics is uncomfortable. I do not want to be swept along, taken for granted to be one of the community or even under pressure to be seen to be so or risk coming under suspicion of being an apostate to the dominant faith. The fact that I am catholic is a complete accident as far as politics is concerned. I have no wish to secure votes on the basis of religious allegiance. I find the thought of it repulsive. Still, I feel the pull of those who are disgusted by the exploitation of religion for political purposes and of those who demand an obscene mingling of religion and politics. I know that almost nobody will understand what I am doing there: doing my job as a politician and acknowledging the immense social, cultural, political and now environmental potential of the Catholic Church in Malta.

Then again, this was special event. There have been few developments in recent years as positive and encouraging as the setting up of the Church Commission on the Environment. It is competent, prudent, precise and also courageous, above all it is authoritative. There can be no question of its enormous potential to create awareness of the environmental challenges we face to an extent we could not begin to hope for if it did not exist. The presence of the Bishop of Gozo rather than of the Archbishop is also very positive. So far the Gozo diocese does not have a Church Environment Commission of its own while Gozo faces an onslaught on the environment like never before. There is hope that the bishop of Gozo will avail himself of the services of the Maltese Commission and extend its positive influence to events in Gozo.

I definitely wanted to be there if my presence would be seen to be an encouragement to the ongoing process. It turned out that I was the only politician present and I enjoyed the experience all the more. Not least the surprise vista over the harbour with its twinkling lights. I will certainly accept the monks' invitation to return, to visit them privately, to learn more of Francis, their saint who called the sun his sister and the moon his brother, of his challenge to the nascent modern world eight centuries ago and of its relevance gaining strength with every passing day. Perhaps they will let me meditate in their garden, reached through the door marked Silenzio.

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Fighting Extiction

P is a boat builder. For some people it could be a job, for him it is a passion. He is driven by an ambition to restore traditional Maltese boats and to build some of the crafts which are no longer around. He is a precious piece of a puzzle I have been dying to solve.

Traditional Maltese boats are on the way to extinction. How many new ones have been built in recent years? Will fishermen replace the ones they still use or will they opt for craft less unique but cheaper or more cost-efficient? I have gone from interest to concern and then to near panic as I have been asked to champion the interests of groups of fishermen over the years.

In St Julian's the fishermen of this once traditional fishing village have come under pressure from the tourism industry. First their boathouses were taken over and transformed into restaurants then the quays became promenades and spaces for outdoor restaurants. They have become guests in their own house restricted in the times they can bring a boat ashore for maintenance or repair, hassled for leaving tackle on the quay.

It is the same everywhere from Marsaskala to Mgarr. Fishermen are poorly organised and rarely unable to withstand the combined force of restaurateurs, the local council and the police. ironically their boats are icons par excellence of everything Maltese. Enter a souvenir shop and count how many separate items showing a Luzzu or a Dghajsa you can pick out in five minutes' browsing. It is hard to believe that anything so iconic is so heavily persecuted. the latest has been the takeover of the PO Customs Shed in Pieta with no alternative offered to boat owners.

The reasoning is that other businesses make more money. Nobody stops to consider that together the fishermen and boatman keep alive a feature which is absolutely essential for the "real" businessmen to make money.

The boats may be dead already although they last for long ages individually. When people like P give up or fail to pass on the skills they safeguard, the boats will be dead even if several examples remain. Every one that is left to rot on a quay is more than just one less if no new ones can be built.

For these boats to survive an economic justification must sustain them. What is the number of new constructions per year needed to keep the craft of boat building alive? Is there a demand for such a number? If not how can demand be increased and sustained in a permanent manner? can the MTA, local councils, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and all other responsible get together and form a binding policy to sustain the traditional boats? They need more than rhetoric. if the republic of Malta claimed a right to royalties for the use of any picture containing a traditional boat even if it meant collecting a fraction of one cent per postcard, significant funds could be found. If sponsors could be found to build a large Speronara, the link between Malta and the outside world for many centuries, it could be Malta's roving ambassador in the Mediterranean. Perhaps we can persuade one of our more affluent citizens to commission the construction of one of them for use as his yacht. Perhaps others can be persuaded to use a fregatina as a tender. How about a race between traditional crafts rigged with sails? Would they not make a fine start event to the Middlesea Race and other major nautical events?

My jigsaw puzzle is still far from taking shape but meeting P has been a special boost. Now how to link him with the friends I made in Cyprus who built a classic warship, with other groups seeking to safeguard their own nautical traditions around the Mediterranean and beyond, with the Cottonera waterfront project and with the Grand Harbour regeneration idea? Do the people very slowly rebuilding a Gozo ferry in Mgarr want to play a part? How can I find the time to get this thing together? Who can help?

Having a dream is great. It is even better when you find that it is shared. Who else has a passion for sailing, for sailing history, for our traditional boats?

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Fado

Yesterday I enjoyed one of my privileges as Green Party leader attending on invitation the performance by Fado Singer Cristina Branca at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta. It was a magical evening of traditional Portuguese music courtesy of the Portuguese Embassy. Cristina’s passion for her craft is evident and it was not only her skill, her talent and the music that attracted the massive applause every time. She seemed to be responding to the place and the people. Had such music been heard in Pinto’s theatre? Was this an echo from a forgotten past? Did some in this audience have ancestors who were similarly enthralled centuries before? Listening carefully one can make out some words in Portuguese if Italian and French are familiar. But not a lot more. I must have missed much and yet it seemed so familiar, like the sound of a language one knows well following the cadences one hears every day. Perhaps this was part of the magic of Fado in Malta taking back its audience to a distant past which is still alive in us, a facet of our character we share with other Mediterraneans. Between the songs Cristina spoke of destiny, that she felt like it had been her destiny to perform in Malta. She spoke of the mysticism of Fado. For those who had ears it was more than that: the easy assumption of ownership of a music which should be unfamiliar, it tells of origins distant in time and which none of us may ever fully explore. Here were the voices, the hearts and minds of peoples from every shore of the Mediterranean coming together to produce something at once beautiful and awesome, clearly antique and so very much alive.