When homes become coffins, then we truly have reached rock bottom. This senseless and irrational drive for development has been around since the 1960s, and look where we are now.
As Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, I feel terribly distressed by Monday’s event. It is shocking but, unfortunately, a completely unsurprising logical conclusion to the race to the bottom we have undertaken as a country for the sake of the economy.
Some will lament that it is too early to say anything conclusive and the details of this case are still being determined. However, we do not merely look at instances but at overarching patterns within society. The complaints and groans of ordinary residents has long been overshadowed by the inane and never-ending cacophony of building and demolishing.
It has been convenient to ignore the effects on the mental wellbeing of residents and the issues for those who have mobility problems to move across the craters, broken pavements and the unreimbursed damage that so much building has caused, which should be shouldered by the developers.
Not only, we are well aware that our houses are not able to take in the external pounding of neighbouring construction work, not to mention that they are inadequately prepared for any tremors.
By and large, it has also been quite easy to ignore the writing on the wall that the building practices taking place were occurring too fast, not being researched enough and that health and safety practices were being ignored and laws broken, resulting in the damaging of a number of buildings.
If we are to prevent such tragedies, we need to become a lawful nation
But on Monday, a line was crossed. Our stash of miracles, our meaningless ‘wegħdiet’, our ‘uwija’ attitude did not come through for us. We find ourselves unequivocally facing the results of our hubris and the person and family that has paid the price were not causes of the fate that has befallen them.
This moment must be used as a turning point, if we want to take anything from this tragedy.
We cannot accept the mediocre and inferior results produced by a somewhat corrupted and tainted system which serves the interest of some self-appointed elites in such a crass and abrasive manner anymore.
We must stop desiring to benefit from such a broken system but gain the resolve and the sacrifice to fix it, even if that means that in the short run, we might stand to lose some temporary advantage. Politico-entrepreneurs, developers and investors do not get the audacity to break the rules in a vacuum.
If we are to prevent such tragedies, we need to become a lawful nation that holds persons in power to account using laws and regulations accessible and known to everyone.
We need to wrestle ourselves from the hegemonic domination that the term ‘economic growth’ has imprisoned us in. Not everything can be about the economy and about money and about growth.
There is intangible and unquantifiable wealth and wellbeing which is to be protected even if it is not obviously convertible into euros. Finally, we must take on the dictatorship of the haves and demand that our little island becomes a sanctuary also for the have-nots.
The tyranny of complacency ends today.
The Faculty for Social Wellbeing would also like to extend its deepest condolences to the family of Miriam Pace. Loss, especially senseless loss, is inconsolable, but as a faculty we promise that we will use this pain to ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again.
Andrew Azzopardi is dean, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta.