Letters to the editor – 18 August 2022
Odious comparisons
I completely agree with everything that John Vassallo wrote (on 13 August) in response to the Chinese ambassador’s letter in the Times of Malta. I felt like doing so myself but Vassallo is eminently more qualified and more educated and I am sure that in his letter he reflected the feelings of the majority of the Maltese people.
On a different note, he said that he is proud to belong to the EU and referred to an independent Malta – a contradiction in terms. ‘Independence’ means free from outside control and not subject to the authority of others. Malta, of course, is submitted to EU laws and under the control of unelected commissioners, who, from time to time, send some entity that is not a Malta entity to investigate corruption, when they really know that Malta is irrelevant for everything that is done in the (itself corrupt) EU.
It was also disingenuous for Vassallo who, for some incomprehensible reason, uses the United Kingdom and Scotland to become independent (which he obviously knows nothing about) as some kind of analogy. Thank God the United Kingdom left the EU and asked for its independence and no longer subsidizes corrupt countries (mainly Malta) within the EU.
Perhaps Spain and Catalonia, which are within the EU, would have been a more appropriate comparison but, of course, Vassallo, who tells us that he is a past ambassador for a number of EU countries, knows very well that this could be annoying to his EU friends. and brought the wrath of Spain and the EU on our islands and generated another attempt by Catalonia to declare UDI.
Oh, how I would have loved to have seen this. Sometimes it is better to stick with what one knows best.
Paul Brincau – Uxbridge, United Kingdom
Memories of Commune
It is tragic to see the environmental degradation of Kemmuna, supported by the “good balance” of the Prime Minister in favor of the commercial exploitation of the small and fragile island.
There was a time when Kemmuna was accessible from Malta only by those who had their own motor boat – and not many.
The first time I visited Kemmuna was in the early sixties, when I went on an excursion to the island together with the Jesuits, thanks to a benefactor who provided his yacht and his own pilot to take us there.
We visited the island on a Wednesday afternoon in August and had the Blue Lagoon all to ourselves. It was a pleasure to swim in the crystal clear sea in such a pristine and secluded place.
This is a strong contrast with the actual degradation of Kemmuna, as seen in the videos of the Graffitti Movement. The video shows boats full of visitors arriving at Kemmuna, one of the many “big boats that arrive and deposit hundreds of tourists” every day; crowded beach; dozens of deckchairs and umbrellas; kiosks and billboards; litter all over the place; and dozens of yachts moored in the inlets of Kemmuna.
When I spent a day in Kemmuna in the summer of 1984 on my brother’s yacht, while I was on holiday in Malta from Canada, there were only about five yachts moored in Kemmuna. The island was as tranquil and peaceful then as it was in the sixties. There were no Captain Morgan cruises and no commercial activity.
On one occasion towards the end of the sixties – when tourism in Malta was in its infancy – I went to the cinema to see a Hollywood film which was set in an overpopulated future. In one episode, hordes of tourists got off a boat on a dry, Mediterranean island, similar to Kemmuna, and wandered all over the place.
I thought to myself: “Is this the way it will be in Malta in the future?”
Unfortunately, this is the way it turned out in Malta and in Kemmuna as well.
John Guillaumier – St. Julian’s
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