Shunning our history

I think it is about time we accept the bitter fact that we are not a nation which cares very much about preserving important landmarks from our past. Every time we tear down buildings or change names of historic streets, we are shunning our history.

This occurred to me recently during a conversation with some friends about the ‘old’ names of streets in Valletta. Being of a certain age, many agreed that they still referred to the principal street as Strada Reale rather than Republic Street. And raise your hand if you still say Putirjal instead of Bieb il-Belt or Valletta Gate?

As we reminisced, it occurred to us that so much of our history is being forgotten because various colonial rulers followed by local politicians have come into power almost with the express purpose of leaving their stamp by seeing what place names they can change. It as if they want to obliterate the past and pretend it never existed. What compels them to this might be explained away simply by calling it an ego trip, but it also betrays a fundamental inability to acknowledge and embrace what has come before and build on it. Old houses, old buildings, old landmarks have a certain character and apart from the nostalgia factor and the importance of heritage, these places simply breathe history. So why do we persist in tampering with them?

I understand when a structure or building has become structurally dangerous but why can’t we at least keep the facades of historic homes and renovate them from the inside? There is a market here which the construction industry seems unwilling to tap (obviously because it is easier to simply tear everything down and erect bland, block-like structures instead, which have absolutely no soul). It would make a refreshing change to hear of a developer who has respect for the past and who will announce that the next new development will preserve the old and incorporate it (tastefully) with the new. Some boutique hotels in Valletta are managing to do this and some beautifully renovated old townhouses in village cores have also been given this treatment (mostly by foreign owners). And isn’t this just typical? It has to be those who settle here from another country who appreciate our history and the uniqueness of certain houses, and who would never dream of tearing them down to build yet another block of God-awful, charmless flats. 

There is such a callousness in the way these houses are being torn down, such a complete disregard of the stories they hold, the families which were raised there. With one swing of a wrecking ball on a crane, poof! They are gone forever.

During the conversation mentioned above, talk then turned to the old Valletta market and how, despite plans to conserve it and regenerate it in time for V18, it will be difficult for it to be returned to its former popularity especially as people’s shopping habits have changed.

Yet the stories of the old market made us all sentimental as we recalled how no trip to the capital used to be complete without stocking up on the fresh food items from the stalls. So while it is true that “you cannot go back’, there is a certain comfort in knowing that perhaps one landmark is hopefully on its way to being given the dignity it deserves, rather than just being doomed to being torn down and thrown away on the scrapheap of history.

Shunning our history also comes in the form of our inability to objectively and accurately document our recent political past. We can just about hold it together to discuss the 60s, but the closer we verge towards the 70s and the Mintoff years, the more people lose their heads.

Why cannot we just say yes, these things happened, for this reason and within this context, stating the facts shorn of hyperbole and yet not mincing our words? I can understand the difficulties of course: for this generation, 40 years ago might as well be 100 years ago, but for people who lived it, the events are still too raw. Yet it still baffles me how we have not yet reached a point where the events which have been chronicled by objective historians can be discussed on talk shows without people having meltdowns.

Acknowledging and paying tribute to our history, warts and all, is the only way that we can ever become mature enough to truly make informed choices. Anything less than that means we are destined to just have a fake, pretend history, all shiny and new, but without any soul or character much like the thousands of empty, apartments in shell form which we see everywhere.