Damn. I must say, I enjoyed my early retirement while it lasted. For you see, not unlike a certain Romwald Lungaro Mifsud, I thought my mission was accomplished. I thought that, with Malta now safely anchored in the EU, I could finally sit back and relax, snug in the knowledge that we would never again be allowed to destroy ourselves through ignorance, or to make a complete pig’s breakfast of what little remains of our vulnerable countryside. Until, one fine morning…

* * *

Mayday, Mayday. That giant, unstoppable monster called “Greed” once again looms obese on the horizon, this time threatening to devour huge tracts of undeveloped land, to defecate abundantly all over the laws of Malta, and to take perverse pleasure in rubbing all your puny little noses in your own impotence.

Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourselves. Even as I write these grossly over-elaborate sentences, Greed is slowly but inexorably stuffing its face with all our environmental protection devices, one by one: the Draft Structure Plan (burp); the EU’s Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (fart); and, of course, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, which it will presumably wash down with a glass of vintage wine.

Oh well, so much for early retirement. Looks like it’s time to give the old superhero costume a good dusting, and fly back into action to the tune of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

* * *

First stop, Republic Street, Wednesday 19 July, which, my super-senses inform me, will be the scene of a public protest against the development boundary extensions, destined to be hammered through Parliament this week.

Looking back on it now, I must admit that things have improved enormously since the last public protest I attended, some time around 1984. For one thing, the police have gone all soft. There they were, standing neatly in a row, making sure none of the troublemakers got anywhere near Parliament (and rightly so: heaven forbid, if any of us should actually approach our own elected representatives, and tell them what we really think of the job they’re doing…) But there were no rubber bullets fired into the crowd. Nobody got beaten up. No tear gas, either. Come to think of it, there weren’t even any dogs: not a Rottweiler, not a German Shepherd, not even a measly little French Poodle.

And so, repeat after me, all you ungrateful little subjects out there: “Thank you, Almighty Lawrence, for seeing to it that the days of Lorry are well and truly over…”

* * *

Or are they? Later that evening, having flown back home and given the butler the night off, I watched the news coverage on Public Broadcasting Superheroes (PBS), and, well, what can I say? Are you guys sure you sent your cameraman to the right event?

You see, I counted somewhere between 800 and 1,000 demonstrators at the protest: a far cry from the few stragglers shown fleetingly during PBS’ 30-second “servizz”. More to the point: I seem to remember there were four speakers at the rally, namely Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar’s Astrid Vella, Lino Bugeja of the Ramblers’ Association, Alternattiva Demokratika’s Harry Vassallo, and a “friend of the earth” whose name now escapes me.

The national television station, however, ditched them all in favour of an interview with environment minister George Pullicino (you know, the guy you all voted for, and got a large truck instead), who only gave us the usual official line we’ve all heard before: that the boundaries are being extended for “social reasons”; that the so-called “rationalisation” is part of a process which began all the way back in 1992; that this is my left foot, that all environmentalists are crazy; and so on, and so forth, and so fifth.

And yet, this was supposed to be the “News”: a concept which, unless I am much mistaken, usually excludes arguments and points of view already known to all, sundry and their dog. Had PBS bothered sending a journalist to accompany said cameraman, they might conceivably have picked up a few things that were actually “new” on Wednesday 19 July. For instance, the strange case of Church-owned land in Gozo, which was sold to a partnership involving two priests, and which somehow found its way into the extended development zones.

Or how AD, in a moment of madness, actually offered free legal representation (minus costs) to all those who wish to challenge the new boundary extensions in court.

* * *

But no. For this is no ordinary news bulletin we’re talking about here. This is PBS: the national station, so recently “downsized” by investments minister Austin Gatt (Note - “Downsize, v, tr: to terrorise, bully and browbeat into submission, often by reducing the workforce in the name of cost-cutting, and threatening further redundancies unless the remaining employees’ combined offering is pleasing to the Lord, Amen.”)

As a result, today’s PBS, not unlike yesterday’s Xandir Malta, appears interested only in one thing. “WHAT THE MINISTER SAID”… regardless, of course, of whether the minister actually said anything worth reporting or not.

* * *

To be honest, though, maybe I’m being unfair on PBS. After all, it’s only a television station. How can it realistically be expected to stand up to government’s intransigence, when the “autonomous” structures created specifically for that purpose, are now bending over backwards (not to mention bending their own laws and procedures) to make sure the Prime Minister’s will is done, regardless of the law?

Yesterday, MEPA’s Audit Team announced that it would be “unfeasible” to carry out an environmental impact assessment on the new zones included for development, as required by law (see page 7). Which, I must admit, puts some perspective on things. After all, if MEPA has come to the remarkable conclusion that it is no longer “feasible” to implement the laws that the same authority was created to enforce, then why on earth should PBS, or any other government department for that matter, bother trying to do things by the book?

And so, one by one, all possible avenues to block the extension proposals are slammed shut in our faces, until there is only one institution left on the island (with the possible exception of the Law Courts) that can actually derail the entire project.

* * *

Hang on: I thought I taw an Austin Gatt a few paragraphs back. I did, I did! And guess what? It’s the same Austin Gatt who, just a few weeks ago, reminded us all why Parliament (that’s right, folks, the only institution with the power to deliver us all from unnecessary development when it votes on the issue on Tuesday) is in such a shocking state of disrepair. You all know the case I’m talking about: Debate? Why bother? What’s there to discuss? We’ve got a five-seat majority. We can do whatever we like, you can’t stop us, my whip is bigger than your whip, nyah-nyah-nya-nya-nyah, etc, etc.

And of course, Austin Gatt is completely right. After all, this isn’t the UK, where backbenchers routinely vote against their own governments on issues such as anti-terror laws, health reform, education, war, etc. This is Malta, where Cabinet can comfortably rely on a small army of Nationalist backbenchers who – not unlike the national television station and MEPA – have been bullied, terrorised and browbeaten into submission, and who will invariably do their master’s bidding in each and every single instance, for fear of seeing their precious little political careers come to a sudden, and very emphatic, end.

* * *

And so, back to the protest last Wednesday: you wouldn’t know this if your only source of information is the 8 o’ clock news on PBS, but all four speakers appealed to Members of Parliament to take heed of popular sentiment, and to vote against the development boundaries extension when it comes to the crunch later this week.

Apparently, if only three Nationalist MPs vote against the proposal, it would be enough to stop this insanity in its tracks. But then again, we may as well hope for unbiased PBS coverage, or a low-cost carrier service to the moon.