In his article entitled “Culture, creativity and my foot” of Sunday 12 August, Charles Flores heaped praise on the successful seminar “Socjeta Krejattiva” organised recently by the Labour Party. I was also present for this seminar and, like Mr Flores, I would like to congratulate the Labour Party for this initiative. It was a very well attended event with five very interesting presentations from the members of the panel, all experts in their professional fields. Their presentations stimulated a lively and constructive response from the large audience representing a wide cross section of local cultural and artistic practitioners.

Reading further down the article I got the impression that Mr Flores was more concerned with the form rather than the substance of the seminar. He admitted that he “always feel embarrassed when a so-called, self-perceived cultured Maltese announces to an overwhelmingly Maltese audience that he or she is will speak in English as he or she feels more comfortable”. He explained that his embarrassment was caused by the fact that the three female members of the seminar’s panel delivered their presentation in English. First of all I find the definitions “so-called” and self-perceived” used by Mr Flores unjustified and nearly insolent. Secondly, the success or failure of a seminar, discussion programme or presentation depends on the ability of the panellists or speakers to communicate their ideas, thoughts and proposals clearly and coherently to the participants. All five members of the panel, speaking in Maltese or in English, succeeded in doing this. This was manifestly clear by the comments their five presentations received from the audience including Dr Joseph Muscat and Dr Owen Bonnici.

As Mr Flores remarked, English as a foreign language is a valuable tool that he himself uses to communicate with the many Maltese-speaking readers of your English language paper. The three female members of the panel who delivered their presentations in English did nothing different. They managed to communicate their ideas successfully and I do not think that they embarrassed anyone, except Mr Flores of course, by doing that.

Vincent Camilleri