Even though I could not attend it, the (delayed) ceremony for the allocation of national book prizes for 2019 held at end January triggered for me memories of literary developments in Malta. Some went back to the 1960’s, when a number of young people interested in literature (among others Mario Azzopardi, Frans Sammut, Victor Fenech, Albert Marshall) also used to gather round about noon on Saturdays in a cafe in the middle of Queen (now Republic) Square and discuss their literary aspirations. I would sometimes join them -- they had set up a literary society that is still referenced today: the Movement for a Literary Renewal (MQL).
I remember one day, at roundabout the same period, Lino Spiteri showing me the introduction to a book of short stories he was going to publish. I liked it a lot except for his use in it of the words pessimism/optimism, and I told him so.
Many years later: I took part in a discussion about art and literature (I think at the University theatre in Valletta) with Francis Ebejer. Who would have thought he would leave us so soon after?
Or on another tack, my participation in a “spirited” discussion at the ballroom of the Phoenicia Hotel when Oliver Friggieri’s novel “Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux Fjuri” was being launched. I inserted a version of what happened that evening in the novel “Bħal f’Dizzjunarju”.
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LIBELS
An intriguing analysis was published covering the libel cases that in the local courts went against PN frontliners and were then quashed by the European Court of Human Rights.
It was a curious finding as in my experience over long years, I lost libel cases made against me by PN exponents on the basis of partial and myopic sentences. But I never appealed to the European courts. Perhaps had I done that, the “statistic” referred to would have changed a bit.
The problem was that I ... along with others, one supposes ... never believed that the courts should be used as a political tool.
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EUROPEAN DEVELOPERS
I had a meeting with representatives of “Build Europe”, an organization that brings together building developers running smes or smaller ventures in the EU’s member states. They are registering an increase of demand in Europe for housing that families can afford. There is a growing interest in assembling a pan-European response to this problem that in many cases could become a crisis.
However I’m not so convinced that a European “solution” would be appropriate. The housing market to provide accomodation for families having an average or a low income, is basically a national not a crossborder one, in terms of construction and sales. National governments are best placed to introduce initiatives that could cope with the crisis.
Where Europe could have a role is in providing common rules to help with the financing of small scale developers. It could arrange for its social investment programmes to be designed to also underwrite smes in construction when they carry out projects on a national basis meant to address people’s demands for affordable housing.