The waning enthusiasm for festas

I wholeheartedly agree with John Guillaumier with regard to festas in Malta (July 18). I remember being one of the young revellers at the age of 16 riding on my mates’ shoulders waving the red scarf (Tal-Ħamrun) in front of St Gaetan’s band (the other band being the blues, St Joseph band).

Sometimes, fights broke out between drunken supporters and even members of these clubs. Politics generally contributed to these clashes.

Mqabba feast. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

That’s 60 years ago when we had nothing else to do or look forward to and people believed, as they still do, everything their political masters and (not so much now) what the Church told them.

Nothing like that now. Sixteen-year-olds have other distractions these days. Their parents can afford to send them on school holidays abroad. As I write this letter, even my three-year-old granddaughter is streaming cartoons from my iPad on to the TV screen and adjusting her cordless headphones while my six-year-old grandson is at skiing lessons at the local ski centre, getting ready for winter holidays; he also plays football and does drama at school.

I would imagine these are pretty standard pastimes anywhere among the young generation now.

Having said that, apart from the festas’ committees resigning en bloc, and having the riot squads out on the streets dispersing the hard core, there is absolutely no way of stopping festas taking place just yet; they’re big money machines. In recent years, my family moved to our holiday flat in Mellieħa during the festa days to avoid the inconsiderate noise of the illegal petards.

But do not despair, the fact that the younger generation is losing interest and support for festas is waning, together with increasing heatwaves, is an indication that change might be on the way.

Paul Brincau – Uxbridge, UK

Public decency violated

I read the article ‘Man ejaculates on woman in packed bus, admits harassing her’ (July 18). It is clear that Mohamed Mahmud Dirie is a disturbed individual. He admitted to ejaculating on a female passenger, presumably on her garments while they both were passengers on a crowded bus.

The man not only violated the woman’s rights of being unmolested but also violated the rights of dozens of civilian passengers inside the bus who were witness to that crime.

Thus, it is not just a crime Dirie perpetrated on one woman but a crime against society at large. Public decency is a fundamental law. He shouldn’t have been granted bail. Perhaps, if the punishments were tougher, it would deter many of these perverted crimes worldwide. Societies are civilised by weeding out vulgar and reprehensible activities. All of the passengers who saw this horrible crime should testify against the culprit. He did his offence in public, so let all the public witnesses have a say in convicting him.

James Marples – Longview, Texas, USA

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