Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1211430
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 FEBRUARY 2020 OPINION FOR a good long time now, I've been wondering why Pink Floyd's 1979 album 'The Wall' – and, even more so, Alan Parker's 1982 movie of the same name – have left such a deep, indelible mark on that particular genera- tion in Malta (myself included). A couple of summers ago I at- tended a tribute concert at Ta' Qali's National Park, where the entire album was performed live by an assortment of local bands. An overwhelmingly middle-aged audience packed the venue… and most of it proved capable of sing- ing along to every lyric of every single song. Right: I won't delve any further into memories of that evening, as I might get all mushy; but I recall there was a distinct atmos- phere of emotional connectivity throughout (especially when it got to the guitar solo of Comfort- ably Numb…) Clearly, something about that album/film has resonated with Maltese audiences ever since. I suspect a lot of it has to do with Pink Floyd's brutal portrayal of the education system: as a fac- tory assembly line, in which faceless students are eventually ground into mincemeat by a gi- ant industrial processor (danced over by a cane-wielding, psycho- pathic teacher). To many young teenagers in the 1980s, that image must have seemed entirely appropriate: not just of the schooling system itself – bearing in mind that ours was the last generation to experience corporal punishment (literally) first-hand – but also of… well, how can I put it? The system as a whole. The prospect of a dead- end job in the public service, per- haps. The fear of a police regime that couldn't be trusted. The atmosphere of oppression that many (though admittedly not all) felt closing in around them at the time… I could fill entire newspapers with why that image seemed to hold such evocative power back then – oh, and there was another one: Gerald Scarfe's animation of a giant wall, slowly encircling its hapless pink victim until there was no way out… But like I said: there is simply too much to be discussed in a single article; and in any case, I was going somewhere with all this (trust me). The point is that, all these years later, I find myself suddenly (and forcefully) reminded of all those same sensations from the distant 1980s. The feeling be- gan when reading about how 30 traffic policemen were arrested for overtime fraud… and it deep- ened further, as revelations start- ed emerging from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder enquiry later that same week. This part, in particular, caught my attention: "[Marvin] Theu- ma recalled that the police had found some mobile phones after the arrests near the potato shed." He testified that: "Yorgen [Fenech] told me that in one of the mobiles they had only found [Chris] Cardona's number." But "it remains unclear wheth- er this information volunteered by Fenech is corroborated by po- lice evidence." Later during the sitting, Theu- ma reconfirmed "that Fenech was getting information about police progress in the murder investigation from the prime minister's chief-of-staff Keith Schembri." Having read all this so soon af- ter news of more than 30 arrests within the police force, I was struck by a disturbing thought. Could the police be overcom- pensating for – or possibly even diverting attention from – their lack of action elsewhere, by turning the big ones onto lesser crimes committed by its own? In an instant, I was reminded of that psychopathic teacher from 'The Wall' again; but this time, I recalled another scene from the Alan Parker film… in which the same teacher is seen at home, being brutally henpecked by his domineering wife; only to lat- er take out all his frustration on schoolchildren's backsides with his cane. There is more than just 'oppres- sion' at work there; embedded in that image there is also a sense of deeply ingrained, systemic injus- tice… whereby, at all levels, the weak and lowly always bear the brunt of the authorities' impo- tence against 'higher powers'. And suddenly it clicked: that, too, was part of the mysterious allure of Pink Floyd's The Wall back in the 1980s… and evi- dently, still is today. It seems to capture something of the help- lessness felt by the under-priv- ileged, unconnected individual, in the face of a system that seems Raphael Vassallo Tear down the wall...