The tower on Comino was built by Grand Master Wignacourt in 1618 in order to house a modest garrison that would keep at bay the Barbary corsairs that approached the island to hide in its caves and from there attack transportation crossing between Malta and Gozo.
Four hundred years later, piracy returned to Comino but not from the Barbary coast. The new pirates are locals, and instead of scimitars and arquebuses they are armed with umbrellas, sun-beds and other beach paraphernalia. They come to take over the public space at Blue Lagoon for their own illegal, lucrative business. Every summer it’s the same story: the whole beach is covered with sunbeds rented out at extortionate prices, the public complains, the media reports, and yet, no one in authority seems to be listening.
Like Wignacourt, Moviment Graffitti resolved to take the situation in hand, raided the beach and cleared it of all the clutter preventing public access. Unlike Wignacourt, though, Graffitti is not the state. Unlike Wignacourt, Graffitti cannot post a garrison on Comino to prevent the return of the pirates. Graffitti is a band of dedicated activists doing what an inert state ought to have done ages ago.
Graffitti’s ‘Raid on Blue Lagoon’ was spectacular and deserves to be recalled with a spectacular name. What made it more so was the public endorsement that followed.
Graffitti has been around for quite some time. For much of its history, Graffitti activists were reviled – especially by the uptight and the ‘respectable’ – as ‘commies’, ‘leftist loonies’ and ‘hippy environmentalists’.
However, Graffitti always had a penchant for community activism. It supported farmers threatened with eviction from their lands in Tal-Virtù to make space for a golf course. It objected to the Portomaso development in the 1990s that gifted the Fenechs with a nice chunk of public coastline in St Julian’s.
Since then, Graffitti has polished its brand of community activism, transforming itself from being the voice of protest to becoming the enabler for community voices of protest to get organised and be heard.
Since 1993, some local communities have enjoyed the benefit of dedicated leading personalities (usually mayors, with or without the support of the rest of the council) who, even risking umbrage from their party of provenance, raise their voices and dedicate their energy to safeguard their locality. Paul Buttigieg of Qala and Christian Zammit of Xagħra immediately spring to my mind as excellent examples.
Other communities haven’t been so blessed. Take Naxxar, where at least on three occasions the local community was sold off by its local council. Such communities, failed by their councils (whose vested interests must lie elsewhere), certainly welcome the likes of Graffitti to get organised and voice their plight.
In response to my last article, Wayne Flask, Graffitti activist and writer, asked whether I agree that change springs from community action and not from “writers, academics, statistical gurus, engineers, the media or people trying to regain lost credibility”.
Communities can be agents for change. However, that last display of parochial lunacy, with the infamous portrait of developer Joseph Portelli in the guise of St John of Nadur, is nothing but a stark reminder that communities (and communities within communities) can also act to reaffirm iniquitous relations of power. It is also a fact that so far, most ‘positive’ community action has been local in its nature and the presence of the likes of Graffitti and a few selfless, spirited local leaders has been crucial to hold such resistance together.
For community action to have lasting effects it needs leadership to inspire, strategise and organise, provide vision and set goals- Aleks Farrugia
We are very far from widespread community engagement that would bring consequential change within our country. Endemic tribalism at different levels of community doesn’t help.
Neither does the inherited mentality that – to quote Voltaire’s Candide – one would be better off “tending one’s own (back) garden” rather than – to borrow that much maligned phrase – engage in “draining the swamp”.
It is quite telling that a third of those interviewed for the ‘Stat tan-Nazzjon’ survey admitted to having asked for help/favours/assistance from politicians, perpetuating the system of political clientele which is at the root of the petty and not so petty corruptions that plague this country.
Having said all this, I do tend to favour Flask’s conviction that, in the present situation, if any tremors that might shake the system occur at all, they will inevitably come from community action. Probably it would be from different communities with different interests and because of different concerns, acting independently from each other – so, let’s keep our feet to the ground and not mistake tremors with earthquakes.
Where I think I differ from Flask’s view of the world is that I still believe that artists, intellectuals, the media, etc., have a crucial role to play in moulding the consciousness of our communities and drive towards sweeping change – if only their interests lay with the desire to see this nation evolve and mature.
For community action to have lasting effects it needs leadership to inspire, strategise and organise, provide vision and set goals – including forging alliances of interests and concerns that turn isolated communities into a thriving movement for change.
The problem I highlighted in the previous article, and which I reiterate, is that at present I am doubtful how much the people Flask identified as “writers, academics, statistical gurus, engineers, the media, etc.” (forget the irredeemable “people trying to regain lost credibility”) are willing to cast aside their vested interests to favour this nation’s growth.
Instead, they keep re-enacting the rituals and reiterating the narratives that keep public consciousness mired in petty parochial distractions. And here again, I think that Wayne and I are in agreement.
In the meantime… Let’s open a can of Lager as the banda is approaching and the beaming face of St Joseph Portelli looks down on us sweaty bums singing his praises for sponsoring our pseudo-baroque bandalora!
Aleks Farrugia is a writer and historian.