From R. DeBono

Many people have dreams that are considered impossible; but what appears to be impossible for most people is not so for some others. Doubling the value of Mdina is very easy – without doubling the cost.

This is based on a calculation, and on an ongoing survey carried over a number of years. It is based on the presumption that over a million visitors enter Mdina every year. The figure excludes the residents, and includes the Maltese people and the busloads of tourists. A number of Maltese go to Mdina several times per week, just to enjoy its grandeur. Understandably enough, not all residents are happy with this huge volume of visitors – but do we have a right to stop them? We (taxpayers) have paid a large sum of money to have the Silent City repaved; we went to the extent of importing the paving from abroad; very expensive! Less than a year after inaugurating the new look with so much pomp, we already have new cart ruts. The article in the newspapers called “The New Maltese Cart Ruts” in fact refers to the karrozzini (horse-drawn carriages) that are officially (?) allowed to enter Mdina.

We can do a number of things with Mdina. We can leave it as it is; we can ruin it; we can double its value; and so on. If with 65 (paid) Members of Parliament we cannot find a solution, then how many more MPs do we need? One of our problems is that we criticise a government, when it CAN be changed every five years. We can solve that problem by holding all 65 Members of Parliament responsible. So no matter who is governing, all 65 have to accept the responsibility, all the time. We do not necessarily need to sack any of them, nor reduce their now established number; we need to ‘pair’ some of them up, and give them a task to solve. Many of them will actually thank us for helping them make their life more interesting than just sit in Parliament, to agree or disagree as their party dictates. We need MPs to

help us; but we have to help them too. We can help

them by holding them responsible.

Their parties dictated that we subsidise a hugely profitable low-cost airline to make more profit by (our) subsiding them to bring in something like another two million tourists – at least that is what this low-cost airline is promising to do(?). We criticise and fault everybody and everything as the reason why we are losing tourists. Are we honest enough to admit that we have not yet learned to cope even with just one million tourists per year? One million tourists means more than twice the inhabitants on this over-populated country. If we cannot cope with that number than how can we possibly cope with our present one million PLUS the promised additional two million? Three million would mean more than six times (600 per cent) our population. It is possible that this research and analysis could be totally wrong; it is also possible that it is our way of thinking which is wrong.

“From May 2007 Mdina will be classified as an open air Museum. This means that anybody (except residents and children under 16) entering Mdina has to pay 10 cents to enter through any of its three gates.” The ones who don’t want to pay will have to climb over its walls, but they have no guarantee that hot oil will not be poured on their heads. Humour is very important in life. The sentence in quotes is in fact the question used in the survey still in progress by [email protected].

The VALUE of Mdina can be doubled, or trebled, or perhaps even more. Not the cost, but the value. Mdina can be very easily the most valuable city in the world. If one million visitors per year pay 10 cents each to enter Mdina that would mean an additional Lm100,000 per year for its embellishment, plus the amount allocated by the State. If, because of the 10 cents contribution, half the visitors decide not to visit Mdina, there will still be Lm50,000 collected, plus the “achievement” of having reduced the volume of visitors by 50 per cent, thus even making it more enjoyable for the other 50 per cent who visit. Value can be added to anything and it does not always need an outlay to achieve it; it only needs ideas and dreams, and a strong will to achieve them.

Mdina can be the most valuable city in the world; and eventually even the self-denied Maltese visitors will learn to be more proud of it, instead of taking it for granted. It is not that difficult to achieve; we only need to be receptive to new ideas. Anybody interested can submit his or her opinion via the e-mail indicated. Why is it that we only work together and contribute when there is a disaster in another country, but not to our own country? We do not need to beg and subsidise, nor be temporarily grateful to any short-term ‘profiteer’ to bring back our tourists. What we have to do is to offer a high value, and we bring them back ourselves with our own capabilities and pride. What would we prefer –have 65 Members in Parliament, paid but bored or 25 in Parliament and the other 40 paired-up solving problems in the field? Should we prefer to have three million tourists (600 per cent more than us) who tire us because we cannot cope with that number; or just about one million with whom we can still feel at home?

Value can be what we decide to attach – to something or/and to ourselves.

R. DeBono