The plans for a parliament building on the empty lot where the opera house once stood have met with near-unanimous objection, even from the most unexpected quarters. It is all very interesting. The reaction tells us much about where democracy is ranked in the value system of the Maltese, who appear not, at least from these arguments, to understand the symbolic significance of a parliament building.

The most common argument being put forward against this proposal runs roughly along these lines: why should we spend a fortune and waste a good location just to house MPs in splendour and luxury? This argument is put forward with varying degrees of eloquence, but it is still the same argument. The thinking that underpins it is this: the parliament building is not the symbolic representation of our democracy and statehood, but a roof beneath which despised MPs may gather three evenings a week to do their dirty work. In other words, it is their office and their place of work and has nothing to do with us. We should not spend money on it or give Those People comfortable quarters in which to luxuriate.

I have had occasion to write before that democracy is not really understood in Malta, even by the better-educated. But what prompted me to write on those other occasions were matters like freedom of expression, civil liberties and so on. I never expected to find myself listening to people who should know better arguing that a music hall, a rebuilt opera house, or a museum of modern art has a greater claim to Valletta’s most prominent site than our first parliament building ever. In all these years that Malta has had a parliament it has never had a parliament building. That alone speaks volumes.

Perhaps it’s time to point out to all those who are arguing that we should have an opera house or a museum on that site that the only reason we had one in the first place, rather than a parliament building, was because Malta was not in control of its own affairs. It was entirely fitting, in the context of our colonial status, that the most imposing building a person saw on entering the city was a place of entertainment, rather than the seat of legislative power. It is not fitting now.

I find it disquieting, sad even, that so many people are talking in terms of shunting Them – members of parliament – down to the lower side of Valletta, where presumably they will be neither seen nor heard in some make-do “repurposed” (it’s the new buzz-word) building. Is that the value and prestige they place on parliamentary democracy and the fundamental symbol of our statehood, or do they just not know what they are saying?

The world over, those countries, provinces and regions which are fortunate enough to have gained administration of their own affairs through the workings of a parliament – sometimes only after prolonged negotiations, political battles and actual wars and bloodshed – enshrine that fact in an important piece of architecture in one of the most prominent locations of the national or regional capital. That’s why the British parliament is housed in the 1,100-room Westminster Palace, built for the purpose in the 19th century and an internationally-recognised symbol of Britain, to say nothing of a huge tourist attraction. Britain’s MPs do not hunker down in a bunker in Brixton or a “repurposed” hotel in Greenwich.

The strange thing is that some of those who are getting upset at the suggestion of a splendid piece of architecture in a prominent location as Malta’s first-ever parliament building – perish the thought of such a thing! – in the same breath make favourable remarks about what Norman Foster did with Berlin’s Reichstag building. It makes me wonder whether they know what the word Reichstag means or what actually goes on inside that building they so admire. Yes, that’s right: it’s the German parliament. The Reichstag was the first parliament of the German Empire, and that building was purposely designed to house it, which it did between 1894 and 1933, when it was half-destroyed by fire. It lay in ruins until the reunification of Germany 18 years ago, when a decision was taken to rebuild it and vest it with its new significance: the symbol of a reunified democratic Germany. And so Norman Foster was called in.

Nobody suggested turning the ruins of the Reichstag into a music hall or a centre for the arts. Nobody was wrong-headed enough to suggest that either of these two imperatives were more pressing or ranked higher in importance than the national parliament of a reunified Germany. Nobody let out the merest moo that Norman Foster’s fees and efforts should be expended on a place to hang paintings rather than on the symbolic home of democratic nationhood. Or if they did, I didn’t hear them. Since 1999, Norman Foster’s Reichstag has housed the modern German parliament, the Bundestag. The Bundestag does not sit in a repurposed ex-Communist building tricked up with a lick of paint and some clever lighting. No. It sits in the only Berlin building that your average Maltese person can name, if he or she can name a Berlin building at all.

In Budapest, with its tragic history of oppression, the most architecturally imposing building (and this in a city packed full of them) is not the royal palace but the parliament building. Most visitors mistake it for the royal palace; I certainly did on my first visit there, because it is built on that kind of scale, dominating the river-view and visible for miles around. The most recognisable building in Washington, after the White House, is the Capitol. If somebody were to show you a picture of a museum or theatre in Washington, you wouldn’t know what it was unless you had been there (and even so, you probably wouldn’t). But you’d recognise the Capitol even if you’ve never been to Washington, just as you’d recognise Westminster Palace. Westminster Palace is the symbol of British democracy. The Capitol is the symbol of American democracy.

The French national assembly has as its seat the former palace of the Bourbon kings, which is described as “a palace of democracy” and not as a palace for politicians – perhaps because the French won their democracy through wholesale slaughter and know its value and the significance of having representatives of the people legislating where once an absolute monarch gave vent to his whims. Spain’s Congreso de los Diputados is a 19th-century Palladian palace and not a converted (or repurposed) office block in one of Madrid’s less salubrious areas.

It is now that we take democracy for granted that we chafe at the idea of a grand building in a prominent location to house its workings. Take Scotland, for example – you’ll have to, because it’s the only example I can come up with, at the late hour I’m writing this, of another European country that has had to plan a parliament building within the last 10 years. The new Scottish parliament building is in Holyrood, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. It took five years to build, the Spanish architect died before it was finished, and the Scots criticised every aspect from day one: the choice of location, the “foreign” architect, the design (very avant-garde), and the construction company. It was over schedule by three years and over-ran costs by a truly heady few hundred million sterling. A public inquiry into the handling of the construction, chaired by a former Lord Advocate, was established five years ago, and was severely critical of the entire project. The building was, despite all this, warmly welcomed by architects and those who write about architecture. It won many awards, and will survive to give pleasure long after the whining has died down.

But that’s by the bye. The crucial point is that Scotland chose as the site for its precious parliament not some side-street in a one-time city slum, but Edinburgh’s Holyrood, near the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland, precisely the sort of location where permission to build an arts centre or a theatre would never be granted because they do not have the necessary national significance. With Malta, it appears to be the other way round: a parliament building – Malta’s first ever – is considered to be of less importance, and far less deserving of time, effort and funds, than a music-hall or a picture gallery.

To speak of an opera house or a museum of modern art would be to speak out of turn, for a music-hall and a picture gallery are precisely what they would turn out to be, the opera house having to stage Christmas pantomimes and various farces by amateur theatrical groups to make ends meet, and the museum of modern art having no worthwhile collection to hang in it, or rather no collection that anyone can be bothered paying to see.

It is not disgraceful that the site has been earmarked for a parliament building designed by one of the leading architects of our time. It is disgraceful that Malta has never had a parliament building. If a parliament building is the architectural symbol of the value a country places on its democracy, then this tells us something about how much we value ours.