Alabiebna culture and my Budget day

I write as I chose to listen to Brikkuni’s wonderful Kuntrabanda (2008) rather than to the litany of budget analysis programmes. They sing about Gadazz Giljan, “l-ambaxxatur Malti tar-Relax” (the Maltese ambassador of relax) and how nonchalance contributes to national cool.

But why is this me ne fregismo perceived to be a funny trait of Maltese manliness? Watch the film Maltageddon that provides ample evidence of this. Its producers describe it as a comedy of “a group of laymen from the island of Malta... entrusted to save the planet” but who are severely challenged because “teamwork and intelligence are not present”.

I often wonder what boosted the popularity of the website onlyinmalta.com, that exhibits a picture gallery of “the strange, the unusual, and the truly wonderful idiosyncrasy of the Maltese”. These remarkable eccentricities were also catalogued and displayed for the world to see by ‘Proud to be Maltese’ on YouTube. There we can find ample evidence of peculiarities, while Scream Daisy’s great song Room 7 asserts: “Everything stays the same, no matter what you say... no matter what you do, the only thing we can do is sing along”.

Stormy Budget

Some of us experienced a sleepless night on budget day and it was not in anticipation to Tonio Fenech’s speech. An overnight storm dumped 87.3mm of rain over the Maltese islands. My roof leaked and I had to run around with buckets to catch the water. But how much rainwater did we manage to save at a national level?

Hydrologist Marco Cremona, whom I admire for his outspokenness on our water scarcity problem, wrote elsewhere: “87.3mm of rain on the Maltese islands’ surface area of 316 square kilometres equates to the skies dumping 27.6 million cubic metres of water in a few hours, more than the total amount of water produced by the Water Services Corporation (Reverse Osmosis and groundwater combined) in a year!

My guess is that less than 10% of this water was collected in cisterns that may be found in private dwellings. Roadside reservoirs and dams did not collect a significant amount of this water because 1) in the main part, they have been abandoned over the years and 2) those that actually work were already full with the water collected from previous rain events in September and October.”

This, together with the scenes of coffins floating down a street-river is indeed further evidence to the tragicomic alabiebna culture!

In the budget speech we now heard that the government has allocated funds for the continuation of the improvement of the rainwater storage facilities to decrease the impact on the water-table. We need credible experts like Marco Cremona to keeping watching out and to keep informing public opinion whether this promise holds water.

Weathering fuel prices

The budget speech included ample greenwashing. A rise of 3 cents per litre in the excise duty on fuels was presented to us as a carrot to encourage the use of an improved bus service. But most of us felt this statement was as tragicomic as some of the clips on onlyinmalta.com.

At the end of last week an elderly couple took a bus to visit a relative at Mater Dei. On their way back home in the evening, their bus struggled against the currents of the flooded Msida streets and the driver proceeded on his way to Mellieha in that heavy rain without working wipers. “We were almost certain we were soon going to return to Mater Dei in an ambulance!” recounted the woman. I am sure such bus-stories will trigger reminiscences of similar experiences of our frustrating by ‘idiosyncratic’ transport system.

Before further taxes and tariffs and more “car-free days” government must acknowledge that people will not give up their private car unless they have the possibility to remain mobile.

Most of us do not want to be professionally impaired or socially isolated. We do not give up the car not because we are lazy, wish to remain sedentary or are ignorant about its environmental and health impact. Most of us simply cannot keep step with our normal everyday life unless we depend on private mobility. It is not surprising that many tend to turn to public transport as a last resort.

The 3 cent per litre hike in the excise duty will now merely nibble further into our disposable income

Unhealthy quirkiness

Up to now I have only talked about storms, rain and flash-floods when we are happily inhabiting the island of sand, sea and sand. This Saturday was indeed a glorious day, which enticed us to put on our walking shoes. The area that is now the Majjistral Nature and History Park has always been one of my favourite walking spots. The beauty of the cliffs and clay slopes are extremely impressive even if our peace was interrupted by the continuous downpour of shotguns in the vicinity.

At one point the walk became surreal. People who walked the area could hear the sound of hundreds of birds singing but the birds were nowhere to be seen. It felt like a visit to a natural history museum where you can learn and amuse yourself listening to recordings of rainforest birds that you cannot see because they are not there. Imagine the bemused faces of tourists who walked Il-Majjistral Park as soon as they realised that the singing was being emitted from speakers planted by hunters as bait for migratory birds. A couple of hunters were lying low in the trees in what is Malta’s “First National Nature Park”. The trouble with Malta is that after years making efforts to pass legislations, too many people are alabiebhom and so enforcement efforts are insufficient.

Now this alabiebismu is transposed at a national level on very serious health matters. Last week the opposition spokesman for the Environment Leo Brincat revealed in Parliament that government is being evasive on the issue of hazardous waste disposal as it admitted “the Prime Minister is still working on a plan.” He asserted that a hazardous waste disposal facility has still not been set up even though former Minister Francis Zammit Dimech had promised such a facility to be set up at Maghtab by 2004. Most of us want to scream: What are we waiting for?

In the budget speech the Minister referred to investment in the Cancer Center at Mater Dei Hospital. This is welcome news indeed as Malta does need better cancer treatment facilities but our health needs better prevention policies that are linked to our environmental policy. Dragging one’s feet on hazardous waste does not inspire confidence that our communities are not being exposed to risk.