Some people in Europe are arguing about the usefuness of the system by which as winter approaches, we put our clocks an hour back. So, dawn arrives “earlier”, and equally dusk. We have more natural light in the morning, and darker evenings.
It is being claimed that the day is “wasted” too fast in winter, due to the time change. Actually Turkey has already decided to reverse the custom. However, its geographic spread is quite different to that of the rest of Europe.
The present system benefits those who start their day at an early hour. I am not one of them.
However, they include – and in a big way – schoolchildren. I think it makes a lot of sense, once children have to be among the early risers, for them to do so not in the dark, but at least, when dawn is breaking. There is nothing more dispiriting than the view of six year olds, perhaps slightly older children, waiting in the dark for the minibus that will take them to school.
True, those who in the evening will be leaving their factories and offices, will do so when night is near. Still...
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Planning
The controversies that have followed the launching of the Paceville master “plan” carry a comic dimension. Independently of whether the plan is good or bad, one thing about it is quite certain: it won’t be implemented.
And not necessarily due to the fact that the plan is proposing extreme measures which give rise to suspicions about what the ultimate intentions behind them really were.Simply because it is a plan.
If there is one thing which goes against the culture by which in this country, we think about decisions and how to implement them, this is the idea that measures have got to be planned beforehand. Simply, such a method is unworkable here, because even when a plan has apparently been accepted by one and all, very soon during its implementation a thousand requests will emerge for this or that exception. And they are met.
Even if on paper, the plan is still being put into effect, in reality it would have long been clinically dead.
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Devolution
In the 2017 budgetspeech, the idea of introducing some form of regional management for Gozo cropped up again. At least, the reference to “devolution” regarding how certain matters could be dealt with there, seems to mean that.
For many years I have been advocating that some form of regional administration for Gozo – beyond the concept of a ministry for the island, which is absolutely not the same thing – would be beneficial. I admit that how to implement the concept, and to what extent it could be carried out, raise delicate issues. These cannot easily be resolved. Despite the limited space in which we all – Maltese and Gozitans – live, the complications that could arise and which have to be taken into prior account, are far from simple.
Among them, there is the possibility that as frequently happens, leeway could be provided for the devious launching of partisan sabotage, poisoning all developments.
To succeed, “devolution” in Gozo would need to be based on transparent procedures. It would need to fully involve civil society, not least young people. It would need to be designed according to criteria that prevent the “regional” management of affairs from degenerating into a tool to contest the policies of the national government.