Three-pronged dilemma

I don’t know about you, but I am seriously concerned over this sudden cultural change that is occurring among us

It is an Italian trait, particularly from nearby Sicily, which historically takes these islands back by a century or so to what was known as The Language Question. A time when the Maltese, among the Maltese, harshly debated whether or not the nation should adopt English as its working language, in place of Italian which, for centuries, had been our official lingua franca.

Maltese was then the kitchen language, as the upper crust protagonists of that epoch called it, so better left among the onions and the cockroaches. It eventually surprised both sides in that awfully humiliating national debate by wickedly winning the race, becoming an official language at shoulder level with the coloniser’s own. The “Italian” side, not exactly subliminal in its fascist leanings, had conceded to the adage that fra le due litiganti, il terzo gode while the

British governor and his splendidly-uniformed cohorts congratulated themselves on a magificent feat.

The third outsiders, made up of a few academics, writers and poets, knew they had to accept this unique parallel existence for Maltese to become the everyday language in schools, the law courts and many other official domains. In the homes of Maltese and Gozitan families and in the streets of towns and villages, however, it had long been the established vernacular. Nothing changed there. After all, the Maltese had also long shown a predilection for bilingualism so necessary to meet the challenges posed by the various imperial powers that had previously occupied their land.

Fast forward to the current situation where we are seeing the names of too many shops and restaurants, and even the vast majority of supermarket products solely in Italian, most of them illegally so, according to EU directives, since Maltese consumers should have product details in Maltese, an official EU language. No one seems bothered by this, neither the national nor the European consumer authorities. In this case, the subliminal is horrifically explicit.

But I also detect a much less visible process among individuals; those setting a trend by changing their names, the Joes metamorphosing into Giuseppes, and families opting to give their babies Italian names rather than English ones. The few that go for Maltese names, like Xandru, Wenzu and Peppi, are more of a charming oddity. I am sure some readers are having a good, judgemental look at the irony of my own name. There was some metamorphosing there too, from Carmel and Ċali’ to Charles in unexplained mutation, confoundingly reflected also in my final school certificates and academic credentials. So there you have it. No vestal virgins.

There used to be a British Culture Association. Does it still exist? The last social post I have found from them is dated 29 November 2010, about an illustrated talk on David Lean’s film versions of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Oliver Twist to be held at St James Cavalier! It would be interesting to know whether its members or ex-members, anyway, do get the feeling there is this linguistic juxtapositioning taking place in front of our noses. Do they feel like we’re going back to a more Mediterranean cultural texture, that very same old argument used during the turbulent days of the Language Question?

We have a reality here that is more of a three-pronged dilemma. Maltese – English – Italian. Should we just laugh out loudly, celebrating this bizarre linguistic streak or should we be concerned that, in a very worrying opposite transition, this time Maltese would most likely be the victim rather than the winner it had been a century ago? Mario Xuereb’s highly acclaimed three-part documentary on TVM recently unbolted an enormous space for discussion but not many seem to have offered themselves, alas.

Only this week in Valletta, however, a most interesting seminar was organised on the initiative of the Minister within the Prime Minister’s Office, Carmelo Abela, about the state of the Maltese Language in broadcasting. An old bone to chew for many of us. There has been, over the decades, so much neglect on the part of broadcasters, journalists and station masters that there really seems to be no way out of the quagmire.

Why, for example, have the broadcasting brass hats, the Broadcasting Authority in particular, let the numbers in Maltese being practically replaced by those in English? Telephone numbers, dress sizes, age and prices are mostly delivered in English by teleshopping presenters, DJs, advertisers and interviewees. Have they just given up, arguing that most people in the street do that, anyway, so why should they interfere?

Some of our linguists sanctimoniously subscribe to that. If this is the accepted rationale, than we really have forsaken our national language and no amount of seminars, books, authors and literary events can salvage what should still be our pride and paragon.

Unique event

Oh, I see, Harry and Meghan are set to have another child. Unique event. Isn’t it exciting? This has never happened in the history of humanity. Tigers and monkeys, elephants and hippos have them, but not humans. With this one exception. The royal and media pimps are saying this offspring will have his or her path laid out in gold – he or she, in fact, can become king or queen of Great Britain and even president of the United States.

This is because birth in America, which is considered most probable, will confer citizenship upon the child, who will also be eighth in line of succession to the UK throne and its residue of 15 ex-colonies.

There is precedent for a foreign national becoming a king in Great Britain: in 1714 when Queen Anne died with no living heir, the Elector of Hanover became King George 1st.

Interestingly, the infant could potentially qualify to be both a sovereign, by accession, and also be free to run for the presidency of the United States.

I can’t wait.

The utilisation of the sun’s energy is dependent on what gets in the way of the sun’s rays when we need them! When most of the Local Plans were approved way back in summer of 2006, the permissible heights of building development in a multitude of areas were substantially increased. At times this increase was from 2 to 5 floors, including a penthouse level. It is worse where semi-basement garages are permissible. This change was in particular applied in respect of large areas with a previous predominance of two floored terraced houses.

The impact of this change in the permissible height limitation is increasing in severity with time as the redevelopment of old properties is being gradually taken in hand. This is resulting in the shadowing of an ever-increasing number of residential units in a number of residential areas. As a result, solar water heaters and photo voltaic panels installed on a number of roofs in the past years, are now in the shade for a considerable amount of time and consequently are practically useless. Investments made by a number of our families have been sacrificed on the altar of development greed. Subsidies (including those originating from EU funds) which were utilised to assist the tapping of solar energy in a substantial number of cases have thus been thrown down the drain.

This is the result of myopic land use planning which failed to consider obvious impacts. Specifically, it is the result of the failure to subject the proposed height relaxation planning policies to the EU Strategic Environment Assessment Directive. The Strategic Environment Assessment Directive seeks to examine policies, plans and programmes in order to ensure that their environmental aspects are effectively considered.

Those of us familiar with the workings of the Planning Authority are aware that most of the Local Plans were rushed through to approval during the summer of 2006. This was done as any further delay would have made them subject to Strategic Environment Assessment procedures which would have inevitably highlighted the impact of height relaxation on the generation of solar energy. As a result, the conflict with the need to have solar energy generated would have been highlighted and most probably addressed.

While one section of government was encouraging one and all on the need to tap the sun’s rays to generate clean and renewable energy, another section, hostage to the development lobby was obstructing this and pushing forward their need for more space to develop! The rest is history. That space is currently being developed today, in the process obstructing the further generation of renewable energy on our rooftops.

In Parliament, earlier this week Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development Miriam Dalli in reply to a Parliamentary Question from Ryan Callus, spokesperson for Energy on behalf of the Opposition, stated that government was holding internal discussions on the matter.

The matter has been discussed many times to date so I cannot decipher exactly what Minister Miriam Dalli has in mind. There are in fact very few possible options which can be considered.

The most obvious option is to revise as much as possible the height relaxation carried out in 2006. This will be very difficult to carry out, and, if done, it will be immediately followed-up by a request for compensation running into many millions of euro.

Alternatively, one can seek to introduce solar rights on new buildings without further delay. It is possible that planning policy is amended to ensure that all new properties, in particular blocks of flats, should generate sufficient electricity to cater for the number of units in the new block, thus ensuring carbon neutrality. Such a measure would essentially require that the roof is owned together with the individual units in order that owners of the said units may install photo voltaic panels. Consequently, it would signify that the space which till now has been utilised for the development of penthouses would henceforth be reserved for the generation of renewable energy.

In so doing a history of planning wrongs would commence the long and difficult road of correction.