Space: the final frontier

There’s been a lot of
talk about ‘space’ in Malta of late: perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing as it’s one commodity we certainly do not possess in overabundance.

But what we lack in terms of physical space, we sure make up for in the sheer significance we attach to the little we have. A quick look at recent controversies – no shortage of these, now is there? – will reveal that they have all, to a lesser or greater degree, centred around the control and use of public space.

On closer inspection, even the campaign to abolish spring hunting in next April’s referendum is beginning to resemble a territorial dispute. The No campaign now projects the issue as a liberation movement to reclaim acres of public space annexed by hunters for most of the year... including national parks such Majjistral,
and other areas that could become national parks, e.g., Delimara and L-Ahrax.

It has since been pointed out that campers, picnickers and even school educational outings have been told to stay away from certain areas (including Natura 2000 sites) during spring. Hunters meanwhile retort that without their presence in the countryside, there wouldn’t be any nature to picnic in anyway... which is kind of a strange argument, really, when you consider that nature has existed for billions of years, without any Maltese hunters there to protect it...

But no matter. On both sides, this is starting to sound like a turf war to control a limited space of earth... or as Hamlet put it, a “fight for a plot, Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause...”

Naturally, this also means that we have migrated somewhat away from the wildlife conservation argument against spring hunting. And you can see why, too. Speaking only for myself, I’ve always considered conservation principles argument enough against what is demonstrably an unsustainable practice. I never saw the need to expand the argument onto the level of land-use policy.

But that’s just me, and I’ve always had a soft spot for
birds. Others who might not actually give a flying Fork-Tailed Drongo about hunting might however feel a good deal more strongly about the idea that their own freedom of movement may have been curtailed by others... and, by extension, the freedom of their children and children’s children to enjoy the countryside, etc.

For let’s face it: which movie ending works better? The one with Mel Gibson shouting ‘Freedom’ with his dying breath as his entrails are wrenched from his abdomen? Or the one where he gasps in agony, then defiantly cries out: “Turtle Dove! Quail!”...?

Even without Braveheart to remind us, there is plenty of evidence that concern with land- use outstrips purely ecological considerations when it comes to environmental arguments. One other recent controversy concerned the illegal occupation of Armier by a boathouse community that has now been all-but sanctioned by the authorities (with formal connection to the electricity grid as a sort of ‘ritual of acceptance’).

The issue here mostly concerns political land-use as a form of social injustice. Why should some illegal dwellings be legitimised, but not others? Is it not down to the size 
of the lobby influencing political parties at election-time? Is not this the dynamic that made successive governments capitulate to both the hunters and the squatters when it came to decisions affecting the use of public space?

Already we can see how concern with the use of land entails far broader considerations: anything from wildlife protection, to questions about electoral ethics. And the way things are developing, concern with ‘space’ at this level looks set to multiply exponentially.

MEPA (that’s the environmental protection watchdog, folks) recently decided it will issue an amnesty, against payment to itself, for all sorts of other illegal development... possibly including ODZ buildings, and retroactively applicable pre- 1994. The official justification – which, as in most cases, is also true – is that an amnesty is needed to clear away a mountain of minor infringement cases that have
piled up at the authority over two decades.

But the scale of the proposed amnesty seems to extend far beyond that aim... ringing alarm bells among environmentalists who fear (understandably) that MEPA has just pressed the big red button marked ‘SELF-DESTRUCT’ on its entire environmental protection capability. By legitimising all past illegalities, MEPA would be tacitly admitting that preventing illegality is not only impossible, but also undesirable: there is more profit to be gained by both sides from turning a blind eye, than from enforcing the law.

So is this merely an issue regarding government policy on the use of public space? Or is it also a small window onto the internal workings of a well-oiled machine that has always viewed things from a uniquely monetary perspective: money from bribes, money from ‘fees’ paid for an amnesty... it’s all the same thing at the end of the day?

In brief: how much of these issues are about ‘space’, and how much about us... what we are, and how we function?

Little did I realise the significance of all this when I waded into
 the City Gate kerfuffle with a contrarious opinion in recent weeks... only to unleash a small commotion of arguments in my little corner of the Facebook universe. The feedback alone illustrated that there is clearly far more to the issue than the mere relocation of a street market... or even the aesthetic appeal of Renzo Piano’s design for the area.

There is something more visceral at work behind the scenes. It seems I accidentally stumbled through 
a side-door into the midst of the same battle that has raged at the heart of practically every single political debate this country has ever witnessed... but which has nearly always been disguised as a fight over some other, extraneous issue.

And (perhaps unsurprisingly)
 a primal, guttural instinct it has turned out to be, too. Territory: third after Survival and Procreation in the scale of irrepressible natural urges.
 The City Gate issue indicates that, in an island of limited space and a growing population, the
 need to ‘claim’ public territory 
– figuratively, in this case – is becoming more acute. And more emotive, too. Architects have shed salt tears over the desecration of their masterpieces; hawker’s wives have sobbed at public insults; people have been called names, and names have snapped back in retaliation... (in fact, if nothing else good has come from this, at least we all now know how to spell the name ‘Ordnance Street’). There has, in a word, been weeping and gnashing of teeth all round.

And all because of contrasting views of what this small area of public space actually means to different people. Because different factions want to set their own, personal and indelible stamp on the place once and for all... to put their own claim to it (represented by either a market stall, or a superior code of cultural values) beyond any doubt.

What is that, if not a progression from the same territorial disputes underpinning so many other current issues? What does it point towards, if not a conceptual view that Malta, as a real or symbolic territory, is there to be claimed
 and fought over endlessly... with any number of unrelated issues standing by in wait, to be called into action in their turn?

Happily, this same perspective also fits neatly into a pet theory I’ve been working on for some time now. We’ve all heard theories aiming to answer the question of why we are, in fact, so inveterately factional a people: be it about politics, football, religious band-club affiliation, commerce, or any other areas which involve an organised network of human beings.

The most common theory
 I’ve heard so far holds that ‘factionalism’ of this sort is an inevitable hang-over of the Colonial experience: when advancement of any kind depended on successful lobbying with a central, foreign authority... which in turn had a vested interest in ensuring that the various factions were forever at each other’s throats.

But if this were the case, one would expect it to diminish over time... instead of increasing in intensity, which is evidently the case today.

Personally, I’ve always preferred  explanations of the more... well... mythological variety. The rock
we call Malta? It was none other than the raging battleground of
the original elements, as they
first strove for dominion over the nascent Universe, many, many aeons ago. If any proof were
needed – but wait, why should it be? Most people accept far more fanciful accounts of the origins
of the universe without any proof whatsoever. Still, if it’s proof you want, Malta’s strategic location at the centre of the Middle Sea... thus placing it at the precise epicentre of the entire world, and consequently (in mythical terms, at least) at the very pulsating heart of the Universe itself... that should suffice.

And it naturally follows that any culture born from the seed of that conflagration must perforce contain a spark of all its inner strife.

That, then, is my theory... and if
 I say so myself, it is supported by
as much, if not more, evidence as belief systems shared by billions of people around the world. Besides, it can account for some of our other peculiarities, too. As we can all 
see, the aforementioned war of the elements must have concluded with an uneasy truce. No one side ever seeks total dominion anymore; but every now and again, one or two will launch a sudden, half-hearted surprise attack... you know, just to remind the other elements that their original argument had never been really settled at all.

And no, it doesn’t make any difference that they’ve all forgotten what they originally argued about. So instead of an all-out war, we now have only occasional skirmishes disrupting a tenuous, fragile peace.

As I write this, it’s ‘air’ and ‘water’ versus ‘earth’ and ‘fire’: the latter two being represented by the walls of my home, and the pilot light of the gas heater near my toes. Most of the ‘water’ is currently mass-torpedoing my window panes, and infiltrating little spy-puddles through any available crack in the stonework. As for ‘air’, he is shrieking battle-cries down the ventilation shaft (having already toppled most of the flower-pots that stood as sentries outside). Meanwhile, the gas keeping my ‘fire’ lit is about to run out.

But here on the location of that first epic battle in all pre-history, storms subside as quickly as they begin... and so, too, do all the little frenzied controversies that occasionally flare up from time to time, only to soon fizzle out and then re-emerge in another form.

You know, just to remind us all that there are still, oh, so many issues that remain unresolved...