Dying Malta
Many things have made me feel like an alien in my own country but perhaps one of the things that has given me grief for the most extended period of time is how different my concept of beauty seems to be from most people’s. Not only do I not understand how things are done but they make me angry.
I remember when they “revamped” Castille Square a few years ago; I was nothing short of horrified. The lights jarred with the backdrop, bollards dotted everything like silent, thickset, angry soldiers and, to add insult to injury, random monuments started to pop up in ungainly clusters. The whole thing ended up looking clumsy, only made worse by the coloured uplights that are put on a few times a year, making Castille look like a second-rate casino.
A similar story took place over at Paola Square. Despite the €3 million price tag that that space came with, I gasped in audible horror when I saw it the first time. Gone were the beautiful trees, the holders of so many secrets and heartbreaks from the people that would sit on the benches below them and in their place stood a vast, stark ode to supposed progress.
The stringy, sad-looking twigs planted looked pathetic and forlorn and have pretty much remained that way. The few benches that are there look out of place. Even though this project was completed just a few years ago, it already looks dated and scruffy.
I had a misplaced, stray strain of hope that the authorities would be done with “improving Malta” for a while since the country is practically bankrupt but it was not to be. A few months ago, the cutting down of Mosta’s trees drew our attention to the “progress” being made on the square and I am yet to recover from seeing a photo of last week’s instalment in Mosta’s revamp: a poorly-shaped redand-white triangle complete with redand-white bollards imprisoning a statue of the Mother of God.
Grotesque and carnivalesque, you can’t help but wonder who would sign off on something so jarring and, well, awful. I challenge anyone who sees it not to shudder in dismay. No wonder the number of people in this country suffering from mental ailments is increasing on a daily basis with such an environment to have to contend with constantly.
It’s becoming more evident and apparent to me that we need some kind of aesthetics police if we are to save what is left of what makes this country special. Clearly, our authorities can’t be trusted to make things beautiful or protect our heritage if these are the decisions they keep making. As the fascination for grey concrete and huge empty spaces devoid of personality grows, I can’t help but dwell on the black irony that this new face of Malta very much represents the evolving soul of the country: a land bereft of morality, full of hot air and little substance and drunk on money without the proper education to back anything up.
How heartbreaking but apt it is that our outsides are looking more and more like how our insides have looked for a while.
And how bitter it is that so few can tell.
“A land bereft of morality, full of hot air and little substance and drunk on money without the proper education to back anything up