The dream of social history

I decided to revisit Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra and its environs, the unfortunate area earmarked to be transformed into a golf course.

I went up to the place several times, and I met different people, farmers and residents, all perturbed and disillusioned at the prospect of having this unique area of wild scenic beauty permanently destroyed. The general feeling was one of mixed incredulity and anxiety, anger and frustration. How could people in authority be so unaware of the farmers' activities and of the area's numerous environmental and cultural attributes?

All the people I talked to are deeply hurt, to say the least, and they are suffering in silence, shocked and disappointed at their well-being so blatantly disregarded.

The point is that simple farmers and residents have been served with official eviction notices, formally declaring that the land you occupy is required for a public purpose.

That is the point. Being kicked out of the place completely disregarding the site's cultural, environmental and social aspects.

Farmers are being asked to evict their homes, fields and vineyards after investing in them their physical efforts, their lives and all their monies.

Heart-broken Randa

"Where shall we go now?" cried a soft-spoken woman called Randa with trembling rough hands as soon as she returned from her fields. "This has been our house for decades, we have always paid what they told us to pay, we have always done our duty as good citizens, we have raised a large family too. Two of my children are full-time farmers; if they take our fields, where will they work? What shall we do?"

"And I had applied to reclaim a tiny part near my fields at ix-Xatba, at the Xaghra l-Hamra," said part-time farmer Joseph Sciberras. "And I wanted to modify a rubble wall, so I asked MEPA permission. But they objected because rubble walls are protected. And they told me that putting soil on the garigue would kill fauna and flora. I was consequently refused permission by MEPA."

Joseph stopped in amazement. He shook his head.

"But how can they now override what MEPA decides by allowing powerful people to destroy not a tiny piece of the garigue, but acres and acres of it? Huh? My old uncle... he is 76 years old, I inherited his land and my grandfather's land, we spend many hours in the beating rain and in the scorching sun repairing rubble walls. How can they now overrule MEPA by allowing these powerful people to destroy many kilometres of rubble walls? How can they ever let anyone destroy the garigue in this manner?"

He looked at me in silence. He fidgeted with the marching orders papers in his hands. He cursed them. Understandably.

"They have taken all my fields. I used to be happy. I have vineyards here. My son used to be happy helping me and I saw a future at the Xaghra. I cared for my projects and I worked hard to see them maturing. Now I hate the place, I cry when I come here, my son is so disheartened!"

Bluish black grapes

Some farmers took me around some places on and around the garigue. I inspected a beautiful military beach-post, the best preserved post I ever came across. Then we came across the Qasam l-Antik. This is the uninhabited site of the old Manikata settlement. It is a tiny hamlet confined cosily and unobtrusively in a land depression south of the Xaghra l-Hamra itself.

You come to this depression so suddenly that it leaves you speechless, a sudden, awesome appearance of past social activity, a derelict site of human action plunging you immediately into human troglodytic activity, giren, the old razzett, the old ashlar building.

The organisation, segmentation and concentration of the buildings hidden in this depression are all indicative of a past society that should shed important light on our social history if properly investigated and studied. It reminded me of the remains at the Citadel in Gozo.

The moment you step inside you feel you have stepped into a long bygone era, and you could see the human activity all around, perhaps one big extended family, or community of families with rubble wall divisions, you could see the animals in their pens, the chickens and the rabbits, the children playing, the women with their chores, the cooking, the gbejniet, the suckling child, the old man in the cave, the males in their fields down in the valley or at Il-Bajjad, or Ix-Xatba.

I then came across a neatly lined set of vines, long lines of green healthy vines set over several terraced fields with red soil and bordered by beautifully finished rubble walls. It was very evident that the area was very well looked after, not just with professional and meticulous patience, and with knowledgeable pride, but also with real love of nature.

The black pipes of the drip irrigation system intertwined unobtrusively with the branches of the vines themselves. The trees themselves were heavily laden with thick black bunches of the bluish black grapes, blackest of growing grapes, jam-packed, dense and compressed, fighting as it were for elbowing space as they suckled the earth's milk, thousands of them, millions of them, bending the strong flexible branches supported by the horizontal steel supports Piju had purposely fixed earlier on at the beginning of the vine's pregnancy.

"It is very strange," said the farmer with a sad look on his face. "I have done all my best these last ten years... Look at these vines..."

Piju has invested all his strength, he has invested all his money. He has no other riches in this world. These vines are his only treasures. His only pride in the world. He told me that he does not live in a rich house, because all his riches are here in these six tumoli of land that previously were used by his parents and his grandparents and his great-grandparents to grow potatoes and other crops. All he possesses now are these 6,000 vines he set up himself.

"I have four sons," he said in his calm and solemn voice. His bright eyes shone in a very strange and sadly way. "And one day I said to myself, let me start something big. I was very brave. Let me start a project, let me convert the fields I had inherited from my fathers into something better. So I embarked on this project and I asked the Government to help me build these vineyards. And they gave me all the help I needed, I was given aid to start this vineyard and to build these rubble walls."

Then he stopped. He gulped.

"Why would they want to send me this requisition order for, then? Why would they want to take all these fields from me? They knew all along that this land was Government land. So why would they want to let me do all this work, invest my money, my time and my own strength, jeopardise the wellbeing of my own children, my family, and then requisition all this land?"

He kept looking at me, a look of sorrow, a look of anger.

"I almost dropped dead when I read the paper they sent me," he continued. "Why would they want to ruin all this? Do they know what they are doing?"

Then we went in the vines, we walked around, all along one corridor between the vines in the vineyard, and then along another, and another, his youngest son showing the way attentively, happily demonstrating the fine grapes and the pride of his old-man's toil and hard work, but happily oblivious of the bitter blow struck at his family.

Graves

"Let me show you something," Piju said when we had left the vineyards. "I have more vines on the other side, not just these terraced fields here, but more on the other side, and all have been requisitioned in connection with the golf course project. But let me show you something that will certainly surprise you."

Joseph was next to me at that moment.

"You will not believe this," he chuckled. "But you have to see it. You must see it and you must make sure everybody knows about it too."

We walked further up the fields, up along a wide footpath. I confess that the scorching sun had by then taken every single drop of water stored in my body. My mouth was dry. My lips were sticking together, my tongue unable to wet them any more. I perspired profusely in the heat and hated myself for not taking some water with me. But I was suddenly so curious, so excited that I was sure I could endure all hardships.

The cicadas sounded their incessant, piercing shrill as they hid in the branches of nearby carob trees heavily laden with their brown, almost ripe fruits. We passed by some prickly-pear trees, and I could almost feel the sting of the tiny thistles as they flew off the delicious red fruits now burning in the fiery sun.

Presently we came to a wide opening at the foot of a long cliff facing south where the terrain was almost horizontal although it still sloped slightly downwards further south at some places. Joseph showed me the cliffs. At the foot of the cliffs, at the base where the soil met the rocky roughly vertical surface, there were some wide, deep holes cut into the rocks. Randolph sped towards them with his camera.

"They're graves, Papa!" he shouted excitedly.

They surely were. Prehistoric graves bang in the middle of the requisitioned zone. We spent the next hour forgetting our thirst and forgetting the scorching sun above us, inspecting the graves of this hidden archaeological site.

The first one and the one most visible, was unfortunately bang in the middle of an old quarry so that although some of it was still intact, its inside had been grossly exposed, since the quarry went further down than the bottom of the grave itself. This meant that the grave appeared to us in longitudinal section at the side of the rocky cliff, yet it still showed clearly some of its features, its rough extent and the headrest quite clearly.

There were other graves, all cut on the surface of this south-facing cliff, one of which we could enter using four steps that led downwards into the tiny entrance. One then went straight into the internal chamber that made up two burial places facing each other laterally.

Another grave is just visible and it seems to be still untouched, so that an expert investigation is urgently called for.

The terrain slopes further up slightly as one moves towards the east along the foot of the cliff, and the line showing the position of the exposed graves slopes also eastwards, but with a slight declination relative to the terrain so that there is the possibility of other unexposed graved lying further eastwards, towards the trees.

"And another thing," Piju said to further arouse my interest. "There must be something very important down there, on the other side, down the road. I remember when they were digging this secondary access road to lay the electricity cables down there, they came across a big mysterious hole in the ground on the side of the road. Who knows what was there? All we know is that then they continued digging further away from it."

I was told that the workers blocked it immediately. Was it something important? Was it another site? Was it another archaeological site worth investigating even further?

Open-air park

But other questions started leaping into my brain: shall we be able to investigate this site?

Do we have to implore, to beg our government to save these sites for us? Must we be in this ridiculous position to have such environmental and cultural attributes jeopardised by an impending golf course project? Cannot we dream of a large project, a big open-air park that incorporates the cart-ruts at the xaghra, the graves, the beautifully preserved beach-post, the nearby Qasam l-Antik of the old Manikata, guided tours, etc?

I keep thinking of Blists Hill, Ironbridge, of Tipton Open Air museum about medieval England, I keep thinking about Hagen museum of industry and social history, Skansen in Sweden, the open-air museums in Copenhagen, the one in Aarhus, also in Denmark, showing exactly similar sites to Qasam l-Antik.

These are some sites I have visited. I am sure readers are able to mention many others. Why do these European countries want to show that their ancestors were active and intelligent enough to participate in human social development? Why cannot we do the same?

Thousands of visitors visit these museums daily because people like culture and are eager to learn about social history. And that is something we can and must offer. Can we ask for European funds and expertise on the matter? Can we call off this golf course project and turn it instead into something which preserves our culture, identity, and environment which - with good management - would be a money-spinner for us as it is for other countries?

Why cannot we dream of knowing our social history well? Why cannot we too show off our rich culture? When are we going to start taking our social culture to the tourist? Why can't we dream about this instead of golf courses?