For those of you who don’t remember or were shooting spitballs at their friends during their geography lessons, Malta is 27 kilometres long and 14.5 kilometres wide.
According to the Google gods, our island is the 10th-smallest country by area and the ninth most densely populated. Given these numbers, it’s little wonder that we have no room left to stretch our legs in our towns and villages, and yet, somehow, according to the internet, we inexplicably have nine Lidl supermarkets in Malta (and one in Gozo), over 80 The Convenience Shops, and almost 30 Maypoles.
I suppose it’s safe to say that while money is definitely our first unofficial god, food is a close second.
It’s not the food itself I’m objecting to; everyone who knows me knows I live to eat, but when I read a recent article announcing that a new Lidl is being built in Żebbuġ and that the green light has been given to open another branch in Qormi, I really have to wonder if we have (pardon the pun) lost the plot. The country is already tiny; do we really need dozens of places to buy food from in every locality when we are already struggling with space?
Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, as I was thinking about all this, I happened to come across an article that stated that ‘Santa Cement’ (a statue made by a group of architecture students as a commentary on the country’s devotion to cement) had found its way to the entrance of the University of Malta’s Faculty for the Built Environment, in time for Freshers’ Week.
It’s hard not to be hit in the gut by the endless messages it sends about the state of the country and our psyche- Anna Marie Galea
Standing at an imposing two metres and giving me definite Gandalf the Grey vibes, the piece was initially called Min Ħexa Mexa and now stands on what appears to be a platform draped with a cloth on which there is written “Ħa Tadurani???” or “Will you worship me???”
Looking at the stark greyness of it, with its upstretched arms hovering between preaching and praying and its eyeless face, it’s hard not to be hit in the gut by the endless messages it sends about the state of the country and our psyche. I can’t help but wonder if the statue has no eyes because we can no longer see the ugliness we are surrounded by and because our greed seems to have no limits. Or maybe it’s because so many of us close our eyes, ears and mouths to what is going on time and time again because it either suits us or because we are tired.
In a time when hope and energy are in such short supply, seeing such a powerful message at university makes me optimistic. We don’t need another supermarket or overpriced, middling boutique hotel, and we don’t even need to redo the same road multiple times a year, but what we do need is for more to want better for themselves and their children, and not be afraid to say so in whatever way they can.
Don’t say you love your country if you worship false gods.