It used to be a NET preserve, but NET has relinquished it. ONE used to dabble around it, maybe some Sundays in a summer, but this summer only ONE has been giving the stay-at-home population of Malta a wall-to-wall coverage of some of the festas in the summer calendar.
It must cost them a packet to do so, considering the cameras, operators, continuity and interviewers. Maybe that’s why NET stopped doing it.
Nevertheless, this is a valuable service that ONE is offering as there is nothing as Maltese as our festas. Mixing religion and tradition, the day’s viewing shows the rich way we Maltese have decorated our churches and later the irrepressible way we take to the streets in the boisterous marċ ta’ filgħodu. In the lazy afternoons, various interviews show the wide scope of voluntary organisations in the locality and last of all, viewers are shown the procession winding its way around the streets, as well as the accompanying fireworks that light up the summer night sky.
Maybe many do not ‘do’ festas. Many escape to the beaches, go abroad and try their best to forget there is such a thing as a festa. Many complain at the petards, the noise, the beery band marches, the sheer ħamallaġni of the people who come to the fore. Many even complain because the people setting up festa decorations do tend to block streets while they are at it. Many complain when traffic is diverted or blocked or slowed down.
But down at grassroots level, the population of Malta loves festas, prepares for them, and yearns for them in the long dreary winter evenings. Showing what some villages do interests people who live in another town, to say nothing of those who are too sick to go out and take part in the fun, and people who live abroad and who now can see the celebrations in real time over internet feeds.
Maybe by speaking so early in the season, we may be proved wrong by future events. Hopefully not, so far everything has been swimmingly peaceful and without any of the usual summer problems – no conflicts at festa time, no firework accidents, nothing of what has repeatedly got the festas in a bad light.
It would seem that the divorce referendum conflict is in the past now, that the Church has learnt her lesson, and that people have flocked back to the Church and to its external manifestations.
As we said last week, a sort of equilibrium has been established. Things could have gone otherwise and today we could have been ruing the victory of the ‘No’ side, while people with marital problems would be in despair seeing there was no hope for them. Many people would have had huge grudges against the victorious Church and maybe we would have been seeing by now an exodus of young Maltese seeking less confrontational shores. This has not happened, and thank heavens for that.
Apart from that, it surely is a praiseworthy effort to highlight and promote all that is good in the Maltese tradition, all that makes us Maltese. Our festas, like our churches, are deeply baroque, embedded in the 17th century modes of belief and life.
Our festas are based on colour, noise, exuberance, theatrics, creating a stage out of every piazza, and on church parvis’, with actors wearing other-time costumes, with participating actors wearing Knights’ wigs, or priests’ clothes. Members of confraternities are loaned (actually hired) from one parish to another, with coloured light bulbs illuminating the streets, pavaljuni creating an illusion of something very different from the normal perspectives, with churches lit up at night very differently from how they look during the day – all this, and much more besides, is Malta.
This is a tourist offer that is not highlighted enough, apart from the sun and sea, from the archaeological heritage, and the other reasons to get people here. Siena gets them by the tens of thousands for its palio, and Venice for its Carnival. If we do it right, (and if we stop some fools ruining it) our festas could be a wonderful, homely, introduction to the Maltese psyche. We are not asking people to love us, but undoubtedly after immersing themselves in our festas they will love us a bit more.