I have been, from the very outset, against the construction of the tunnel that would take more people, more cars and more coaches to Gozo. It is not a popular opinion, especially with Gozitans who have been clamouring for better connections between the islands for donkey’s years, but the threat that it would impose on the Gozitan lifestyle and tranquillity of the place cannot be ignored.
Of course the political parties are for it since they know that the vast majority of Gozitans want the tunnel that, in a way happily, seems to have taken the place of the oft-mentioned bridge (since way back in the 60s) that would not only threaten to destroy Gozo but also the northern parts of Malta and Comino with it. The better of two evils. You would think the young in Gozo would have inhibitions over the tunnel, but no, even the Gozitan Youth Council has expressed its satisfaction with the progress achieved so far, thanks of course to the well-established dynamism that Minister Ian Borg gives to all infrastructural projects. But for them to talk about the tunnel stopping “the actual brain drain of young Gozitans in search of work” on what we consider as the mainland, sounds archaic in this day and age of global employment.
The tunnel would, however, kill the joy of the ferry crossing to the sister island and viewing the natural environment, that which remains, along the Gozo channel which we know in Maltese as il-Fliegu. This may sound as stupid sentimentality from some people’s perspective, but who would use the ferry if the tunnel makes it so easy?
It is an ironic situation. Because of its incredible work rate and steadfast respect to its electoral programme, the Labour government has gone on with the multi-million project. We all have had friends insisting the project was only pie in the sky, but they certainly reckoned badly in the case of the Joseph Muscat administration. Since 2013, keeping electoral promises has rightly become de rigueur; hence the Gozo tunnel project which it is mandated to implement as it has already shown by the carrying out of seismic and geological studies as well as indicating the first official glimpses of where it would start and where it would end.
Writing in an obscure little publication way back in the early 90s, I once provoked the ire of friends and foes alike when I headlined my piece “Gozo going to the dogs”. It has since survived by the skin of its teeth.
I do not want to see Gozo turned into another Buġibba. That is the danger of the tunnel. Maybe not in my lifetime, but it would be inevitable. The easier it is made for people to visit Gozo, the bigger the demand for places where to entertain them, park their cars, host them and to create better infrastructure for them. The cynics will counter this with comments about progress, modernisation and easy access – all of them, I would say, is camouflage paint for the gradual disappearance of the Gozo we love.
My mum, who sadly never travelled abroad in her long life, used to consider going to Gozo a visit to another country, and like her, thousands of her pre-war generation. That little stretch of water and the dissimilarity of Gozitan life helped in the illusion. It is that niche which makes Gozo what it is for us Maltese and the tourist. Once that niche crumbles, there is every chance that there would be no marked difference between going to Buġibba, Birżebbuġa, Sliema and Gozo.
While going against the grain as I am doing, one hopes that the tunnel would be restricted to cars carrying Gozitan registration numbers, for the rest to take a tube to and from the sister island. That way, the number of cars on the streets in Gozo will not swell uncontrollably. Passengers would, hopefully, just find electric cars waiting for them at the Gozitan end to take them to their destinations.
My ex-PBS colleague and social commentator, Carmen Sammut, wrote on social media recently that the tunnel would only make sense if it connected parts of Malta and Gozo end-to-end by means of an underground transport system, hence avoiding the use of personal cars. Glad to publicly share my qualms with someone, thank goodness.
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Who did not see it coming?
No one really was shocked or surprised by the fact that in 92 per cent Catholic Malta only 38 per cent actually bothers going to church anymore. I think we all, practitioners and lapsers, saw it coming. The Church-run census was the inevitable rubber stamp to a long-acknowledged reality that had been emerging over the decades.
Now it is blame game time. It is easy to cite the loss of old values, the furious pace of 21st century life, generational shifts, and materialistic traits. They have all contributed to the decline, but perhaps the more telling feature of this new diagnosis is the lack of preparedness on the part of the local Church, for too long lost in its own politically mired state. For far too long and too often in recent history, bishops and respected members of the Clergy who bravely sought to meet the winds of change with a positive attitude were either unscrupulously shown the backdoor or pushed into isolation.
Instead, the Maltese Church has continued to persist in its pandering to conservatism at a time when the Vatican itself is pulling up its socks, recognising past mistakes and, thanks especially to the current Pope, taking steps towards reality rather than pure myth. While Pope Francis took to Twitter in an extreme display of honest dialogue, for example, here in Malta not only do we have an archbishop re-tweeting below-the-belt political quips, but we have also witnessed the extreme politicisation of the church radio station.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, is an apt Biblical piece of wisdom.
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Creepy sense of vendetta
It really irks me this creepy sense of vendetta that has nonagenarians being rushed to court in wheelchairs to be accused of Nazi atrocities. It does not mean I do not appreciate the Jewish nation’s need for retribution, but even this emotional rush to justice has to have a proper sense of proportion almost 80 years on.
A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard has just been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder. He was 19 at the time. Last month, another nonagenarian, known as the “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz”, died at the age of 96 shortly before he was due to begin a four-year prison sentence that, possibly, would have taken him to his 100th birthday. Creepier still.
Justice certainly needs to be done, but couldn’t the negative impulse of vendetta be restrained enough to indict them in absentia, leaving them straddled to their wheelchairs while they daily ponder, if still in their senses, their horrific deeds?