How green was my valley

I have lost count of the many times I’ve heard people who have just come back from a trip abroad, waxing lyrical about the endless acres of greenery, the immaculately kept public parks, the protected nature reserves and the clean streets lined with shady trees. Inevitably, they conclude with a wistful sigh, “why can’t we have such beautiful places in Malta where we can enjoy walking, cycling, running or simply having a picnic in the fresh air and natural green surroundings?”

Well, here’s a little secret. You cannot have wide open spaces accessible to the public and still build indiscriminately every time you spot an empty piece of land.

The paradox between what people admire in other countries and their gung-ho attitude when it comes to turning unspoiled areas into construction sites is very baffling. Right now, I’m finding it very difficult to hold a conversation with those who are reading from the Muscat Handbook on ‘What to Say to Those who are Against Zonqor’ without blowing my top.

I’m afraid I found it very difficult to control my impatience on FB with those who persist in repeating verbatim what the Great Leader said in his speech yesterday.

If I ever needed people to prove my point about how they cannot take criticism of their beloved party, I sure got it.

It’s like trying to walk through quicksand, as you feel pulled down by the sheer weight of the mindless parroting while they fired off their carefully primed questions:

1. What is your suggestion for an alternative site?

2. Where were you when the recycling plant, Smart City, the Delimara power station were built in the south?

3. Why is the south only good for recycling our waste, but not good enough for a university?

4. Why are you against investment and the creation of more jobs?

5. What about San Anton and San Andrea schools which were built in green areas, or were those OK because they were for snooty rich Maltese people who look down on people of the south?

6. Do you realise that the area earmarked for the university is actually one big dumping site?

7. And finally, I bet you don’t even know where Zonqor is (said with a sneer).

You know, I kind of grudgingly have to hand it to the Prime Minister, because he sure knows what buttons to push among his loyal supporters in order to galvanize support. He ticked all the right boxes: the endless PN/PL squabbles about who screwed up the environment the most, social class resentment, prejudice and the chips on the shoulder which are still alive and kicking among so many who go around with this pre-conceived notion that people who care about the environment and who are against this development are speaking purely out of spite because they don’t want ‘the south’ to improve.

When you try to explain that investment in the south can still happen by using unused buildings, they don’t want to listen. Joseph said the project will be good for the south, and his word is the Bible (apparently).

When they speak of the development in Sliema and other areas as an example of ‘investment”, comparing it to how their part of the island has been neglected, the irony completely escapes them. No one really wants to live in chaotic, crane-infested, constantly jammed with traffic Sliema any more, which is why so many people who are originally from there have uprooted and gone to live on the outskirts of old villages where there is still some kind of countryside left.

Successive governments have done a grand job of spoiling and obliterating the charm of this town by allowing the old houses to be torn down and replaced by lacklustre apartments. In other countries all these townhouses would have been preserved and protected by the state and their property value would be considerable by now, precisely because of their age and uniqueness.

But in front of the god we call money, we have lost all our sense of history, and if it were not for the few people (many of them foreigners) who are lovingly restoring old homes to their former glory, even what are known as houses of character in the village core would meet the same fate.

The above questions which I saw splattered all over Facebook as a kind of “comeback” by those who support whatever Muscat says, completely miss the whole point. There has been enough devastation carried out all over the island as it is, but maybe there are still some of us who have not given up and caved in. This is not some malicious, holy crusade against the Labour government because “we don’t want to see it carry out its projects”. That kind of accusation is so far off the mark, it does not even merit an answer.

But maybe, just maybe, those of us who are speaking out cannot just sit back and let even more building take place on untouched land – not when the island is full of half-built, derelict and broken down buildings which are taking up valuable space. Use what is already there, tear it down and re-build or renovate it, and you would be providing jobs as well as respecting the environment.

On the other hand, if you are happy for Malta to look like one big construction site forever, good luck to you. I hope you enjoy staring at the concrete. I guess you can always hop on a plane if you ever want to remember what greenery looks like.