Aviation fuel tax

The editorial on aviation fuel tax (August 20) made interesting reading but did not mention that certain islands, such as the Canary Islands in Spain, have already been exempted from this aviation fuel tax. The arguments put forward many a time that islands such as the Canary Islands and the Azores are within EU states do not hold much water as the citizens of both these islands and Malta have the same hardships and difficulties to get to mainland Europe. 

As far back as July 2021, the EU commissioned a report on the effects of aviation taxes on GDP of places like the Canary Islands, Malta, Crete and Ireland and Malta came out the worse off.

Philip Micallef, former CEO Air Malta – Attard

Light pollution

Looking down from Nadur or Qala at night, one cannot but admire the almost beautiful street lighting that has spread over many parts of the island. Soft, pinkish-beige light is directed downwards and very little escapes upward to create light pollution.

Well done to whoever is responsible.

Then, unfortunately, there is the garish, vulgar, exaggerated and insensitive extremely bright light coming from the overlit mole in Mġarr Harbour that spoils everything.

Something really ought to be done immediately.

Stephen Zerafa – Mosta

Damages of colonisation

While congratulating India on its 75th anniversary of independence, I could not overlook the letter by correspondent Alan Cooke (August 20) in reaction to Alin Trigunayat’s feature marking the anniversary. Without going into particular details of the points raised, may I recommend some serious research on the British Empire’s past, including in India, for the benefit of the esteemed readers.

Inglorious Empire, What the British did to India (2017) by Indian author and politician Shashi Tharour is, according to the Irish Times, “a timely response to empire nostalgia”.

Time’s Monster, History, Conscience and Britain’s Empire (2020) is another oeuvre, this time by American historian, professor at Stanford University, Priya Satia, in which she offers ‘a hugely important and urgent moral voice’ on the history of the British Empire which, for generations, was written by its victors.

Empireland: How Imperialism has shaped modern Britain (2021) by British journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera is a recent tome, which the Financial Times judged as “a scorching polemic on the afterburn of empire”.

Finally, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (2022) is by Harvard professor of history, Caroline Elkins. The editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire deems this 900-page volume “an exceedingly valuable book on the dark side of the British Empire”.

Charles Xuereb – Sliema