The government is there, amongst many other things, to ensure justice for the people.  To ensure that what is rightfully theirs remains rightfully theirs.  To ensure that things which belong to the people are not abused by the few, and to ensure that if there is any abuse taking place it actively clamps down on it.

When the government fails to protect the people’s interests however, it is then up to the people themselves to step in to protect their own interests.

That is actually what happened in Comino on Saturday, when activists descended on the idyllic island which has been invaded by umbrellas and deckchairs by private interests, in spite of the fact that it remains under question as to whether any of the private concessionaires have licenses to rent out such deckchairs and whether they can hog pretty much all of Blue Lagoon Bay with them.

In previous years, deckchair operators could only lay out deckchairs if people actually rented them – a term in the concession which was wholly and totally ignored, and which went completely unenforced by the authorities.

Now – ironically in a story carried by The Malta Independent on the same day as Moviment Graffitti’s direct action on the island – Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo has seemingly given up on actually enforcing this point and said that people have the right to ask for deckchairs to be removed if they so deem fit.

What exactly will happen if deckchair operators refuse to accede to this request was not a matter which the Minister provided any details on.

But in any case, removing the deckchairs themselves was exactly what Moviment Graffitti activists did on Saturday morning.  In a hugely symbolic action, they showed that when the government fails to protect the people’s interests – in this case, the people’s right to the enjoyment of public land and Malta’s natural beauty – then it is the same people who must step in.

It showed that there is nothing which can stand up to the public’s will.  Maybe this episode will serve as a catalyst for more direct public action to take back what rightfully belongs to the public.

It also showed what happens when there is a total absence of law enforcement.  The irony that soon after activists descended onto the bay and began removing deckchairs, police and Transport Malta officials suddenly appeared is inescapable.  It should be these same officials who ensure that what belongs to the public remains in the hands of the public, not in the hand of a couple of private interests who seem to have made the bay their own.

The public sentiment – at least on social media – was very clearly in favour of the activists and their action on Saturday.

That of course meant that we saw some more politically oriented people speaking out about the matter.  One of them was the head of the Labour Party’s media house, Jason Micallef, who appears to have finally awoken from some sort of slumber and realised that there should have been better enforcement in Comino and that heads should now roll over how the area has been handled.

It’s as if this was an issue which started on Saturday, not one which has been ongoing for years. People who actually cared about the interests of the public would have spoken out immediately, not after seeing that the people agreed with such direct action.

Still, Micallef is right in a sense.  Comino has been mistreated.  There does need to be more enforcement. There needs to be more transparency.  We need to know: has the government allowed deckchair operators to lay out their stock and take up the whole Bay?  Or have they simply been closing an eye to all of this and allowing it to take place?  Both of those options are objectionable, mind you.

One final word has to be reserved to Environment Minister Miriam Dalli, who during a panel discussion last week told Moviment Graffitti’s Andre Callus that “extremism gets you nowhere.”  She didn’t quantify exactly what she was referring to when she said “extremism” – but if she was referring to actions like Saturday’s, then we need more of this so-called extremism.

It remains to be seen what will happen next.  Will the authorities actually react to Saturday’s episode by doing their jobs?  Or will we return to the status quo?  As always, time will tell.  Hopefully the government will do its job of protecting what belongs to the public, rather than leaving it to the public, again, to protect what is theirs.