Last week your newspaper carried a fine speech by Simone Mizzi, executive president of Din l-Art Helwa. There is no denying the fact that Din l-Art Helwa does a lot of very good work but Ms Mizzi’s words ring hollow when she criticises “inappropriate adjacencies” yet at no point raises the matter of a modern new parliament building on stilts at the entrance to the baroque capital of Malta. What could be more inappropriate than that Ms Mizzi? But then we have to remember that Din l-Art Helwa has always been 100 per cent behind this project and the question is why?

Ms Mizzi talks about the “protection of the beauty of Malta and its reinstatement where it has been lost” and the “sophisticated new buildings even in high value landscape areas eat away at the public horizon because ‘views’ sadly are commodities”. The point I’m trying to make here is that one can’t pick and choose where environment and heritage are concerned. You can’t stand on your soapbox and shout to the masses about the illegalities of certain development projects in Malta and at the same time give your support to Gonzi’s little Wendy House project, which is going to threaten the UNESCO World Heritage status of Valletta.

Similarly, Din l-Art Helwa rails against the Manoel Island project now that it’s too late to stop it, but did not campaign against it before Manoel Island was handed over to Mizzi. Could it be that DLH did not want to put off a listed sponsor? DLH has to make its mind up whether it is an NGO some of the time or all of the time.

James A. Tyrrell

COUNTY ANTRIM

N. IRELAND