Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1482386
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 OCTOBER 2022 OPINION 10 Raphael Vassallo OPINION A Mosque too far? IN a way, I more or less under- stand the dilemma faced by the Luqa local council, in its ongo- ing 'crusade' to prevent the con- struction of a new Mosque in its locality. For even if it does, at a glance, resemble a typical case of 'Mal- tese NMIMBY-ism' (that's not a typo, by the way. The acronym stands for: 'NO MUSLIMS IN MY BACK YARD!')… Well, let's just say that the of- ficial objections – as opposed to the real ones they seem to be masking – are not exactly what you would call 'frivolous'. But first, a little background. Last January, the Planning Au- thority received an application "to build a new place of worship [in the Luqa industrial estate] with ancillary facilities, including bathrooms, meeting rooms, ad- ministrative offices, and parking at basement level." In other words, a mosque: which (if the permit is granted, naturally) would become only the second such edifice to grace the Maltese islands, since the first was constructed in Paola back in the 1970s. [Note: obvi- ously, that doesn't include all the mosques that must have existed here during the Arab occupation of 800 – 1070; and even long af- terwards… as evidenced by street names such as 'Triq Mesquita' in, um, 'Mdina'…). But let's not resuscitate long- dormant controversies about Maltese history. Fact remains that – as of right now, anyway - there is only one official mosque, anywhere on the islands… and it was built at a time when Mal- ta's Muslim population was even lower than the 'approximately 6,000' estimated in 2010 (and which, unaccountably, remains the official statistic quoted on Wikipedia, to this very day.) The latest census of December 2022, on the other hand, places Malta's current Muslim popu- lation at 'somewhere between 6 and 7% of the population'…. and bearing in mind that Malta's population now hovers at around 550,000 [not counting, please note, the many thousands of foreign residents who are either here illegally, or on temporary work visas]… well, even someone as mathematically-challenged as myself, can easily work out – with the help of a calculator, of course – that there must be AT THE VERY LEAST some 35-to- 40,000 Muslims, residing in Mal- ta today. Now: that's an awful lot of people, to physically fit inside a single, 1970s-built mosque (which, unless I am much mis- taken, has a maximum capacity of around 800.) Leaving side that it's 'a tragedy of Hillsborough proportions', just waiting to happen – seriously, though: has anyone paused to consider the possible consequences, if a fire were to break out in Malta's only mosque, during a busy service? – it's also kind of, well… 'mathe- matically improbable', at the end of the day. To put that into perspective: if we were to take the same ratio – whereby 7% of the population, only gets given one (1) measly little mosque – and apply it to the percentage of Maltese people who identify as 'Catholics'… Well, the first question we'd have to ask ourselves, is: how many of those are there, to even begin with? Once again, most online sourc- es tend to be misleading. Stick- ing to Wikipedia, for example: it merely repeats the blanket statement that 'Malta is 98% Catholic'… a percentage that would (paradoxically) also have to include at least some of the '6 to 7%' that we've only just estab- lished are actually… erm, Mus- lim, remember? So - no offence, or anything - but I don't attach very much weight to that '98%' estimate, myself. And neither, it seems, does the Catholic Church: which last year published the far more plausible statistics, that around 40% of Maltese Catholics attend Mass every Sunday; and around 74%, 'at least once a month'. Now: in the interests of strik- ing a realistic balance, I have decided to go with a rough me- dian of '65%': that is to say, ap- proximately 360,000 practising Catholics… which not only cor- responds with the (proven) sta- tistic of 'one Church for every 1,000 Catholics'; but also with the widely-held view that "we have one Church, for every day of the year". Ah, but apply the same ratio used for Muslims to those 65%, and… how many churches would Maltese Catholics be left with, to actually worship in? Here, I have to admit that the calculation did prove beyond my own capabilities – even armed with a calculator – so I had to ask a friend to work it out for me over the phone. Believe it or not, the answer is… 9.28. (Yeah, I know: '65 divided by 7'. DUH!) But still, you heard right. Ap- plying the same yardstick to Catholics, as to Muslims: Malta would have no more than NINE churches – oh, and maybe one little Madonna niche, to account for the remaining 0.28% - to ac- commodate all the needs of its approximately 360,000 practis- ing Catholics. And those needs, I need hardly add, are not limited only to Sun- day Mass… but also to weddings; funerals; First Holy commun- ions; confirmations, and – last but not least - the annual 'Visit of the Seven Churches', every Easter! My, what an adventure THAT would turn out to be, with only nine churches to actually choose from. Which two shall we leave out this year, I wonder? And be- sides: what would even happen, in practice, if all 360,000 Maltese Catholics were to try and cram themselves into the same seven churches, in the space of a single day? I honestly shudder to imagine what even just the traffic would be like, every Good Friday: let alone, the tens of thousands of people who would probably end up dying of asphyxia; or crushed in the mad stampede to avoid suffocation… But, well, there you have it. There's a perfectly valid reason, why a Muslim community that now numbers around 35,000 (at the very minimum) would apply for a second Mosque, to add to the only one they've got. (Apart, of course, from the teenie-wee- nie little detail that 'Freedom of Religion' also happens to be just as much of a fundamental hu- man right for Muslims, as it is for Catholics…) But back to the application: which has now been greenlight- ed by all the relevant entities – including the project case officer, and also the Malta Transport Authority (which had earlier objected, on 'air traffic safety' grounds)… … leaving us with just the Luqa local council, to resist the ap- plication: supported, it must be said, by what seems to be a sizea- ble chunk of Luqa's (and not just Luqa's) population. But this only brings us back to that dilemma I mentioned ear- lier. On one level, it is very easy - TOO easy, in fact – to simply dismiss the council's objections as 'thinly-disguised Islamopho- bia'. (Though the same cannot be said for most of the online com- ments. There's nothing 'thinly' – or even 'thickly' – 'disguised' about any of those…) Because on the surface: the ob- jections themselves are actually quite valid, you know… yes, even when you factor in the possibil- ity that they're probably 'fake' objections, to masquerade the council's true intentions (let's face it: you can hardly write: 'NO MUSLIMS IN MY BACKYARD!' as your official reason for sub- mitting a Planning Authority ob- jection… can you now?) So let's take a closer look. As far as I can see, there are only two arguments, to speak of: one, "In a statement on Friday, the council said the approval of this appli- cation would cause residents to suffer 'extreme air pollution' due to the expected increase in traf-