Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1512576
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 DECEMBER 2023 7 INTERVIEW The following are excerpts from the interview. The full interview can be found on maltatoday.com.mt as well as our Facebook and Spotify pages. Godfrey, thank you for join- ing us. Before we dive in, can you explain what the UNESCO recognition for the Maltese feast means? I think it's good to start by explain- ing why the feasts should be recog- nised. Culture is the heart and soul of a nation, and what distinguishes one country from another are the language, the history, and the cul- ture. When we look at Maltese culture over a period of time, we can find the Maltese feast as the culmina- tion of Maltese culture. The Mal- tese feast is a manifestation and it belongs to the church as much as it belongs to the community. While feasts do have a religious theme, they have social and cultural di- mensions. The feast contains spectacles, be it within the church, the decorations in the streets, band clubs and py- rotechnical shows. When you look at all of these factors, you will see that feasts have a cultural and social legacy. You mentioned that feasts partly belong to the church, but the church nowadays is not what it used to be (in terms of popularity). The same cannot be said for feasts though. They've evolved and grew in popularity. What do you think this says about us as a nation? Like I said, the feast is a manifesta- tion of the people, that's why it be- longs to the people and the patron saint. During the feast, the crowd is celebrating itself, as well as the pa- tron saint. In today's world, where we live at a faster pace and no one has time for anything, preparations for the feast start weeks prior to the date, and some people even start to work on feasts a year in advance. But apart from that, when it comes to the week of the feast, people fully participate, and they even have a social thirst for the feast. Nowadays, because of the lifestyle we have, we've isolated ourselves when it comes to social events. So the village feast creates an occa- sion where the community invites outsiders to join them during this special period, while also creating a spectacle for tourists, and we've recognised this. The Malta Tourism Authority and the Culture Ministry have recognised this and helped us greatly, and I thank them. Because of this, the cult of feasts has been promoted internationally, to the point where foreigners are almost more proud of our feasts than we are. I guess we've taken feasts for granted, but it's interesting that you talk about feasts bringing back a sense of com- munity… The feast brings about pride. But it also brings about a sense of uni- ty, despite the subcultures within feasts that are necessary. Feasts al- so bring about a sense of civic duty that not everybody appreciates. Unfortunately we sometimes look at the feast in a bad light because of certain aspects, but we forget the sense of civic duty it brings about, and the fact that it helps in person- ality development for youths. This is why we need to safeguard this tradition, especially in today's world. You can say that Malta is cosmopolitan nowadays, we have many cultures within the country. This is beautiful, as is diversity, but this also means that this generation has a bigger responsibility to help sustain and grow our traditions. Otherwise, globalisation can en- gulf traditions like ours because we are so small. That's when we start celebrating foreign holidays. For instance, Halloween is widely cele- brated nowadays in Malta. As a re- sult of this, our feast of Saint Martin suffered a loss in popularity because we didn't safeguard it enough. This is why UNESCO recognition can help Maltese feasts to grow, be- cause this is a heritage that we must appreciate and we are obliged to pass it on to future generations. You mentioned globalisation and this modern life of ours. Looking forward, what do you think can threaten this part of our heritage? I think that the largest threat to feasts is globalisation. Another ma- jor challenge humanity faces is arti- ficial intelligence. One of the difficulties we may face is that artificial intelligence may, in some way hinder our feasts. How so? I cannot fully understand it, but it is one of my own personal fears. Ar- tificial intelligence can substitute humans, but it doesn't have our feelings. The feast targets our five senses, and despite the fact that feasts now have a digital dimen- sion, artificial intelligence can hin- der feasts in that sense. The sensations that come from our sense of sight, smell, hearing and touch are not present in artificial intelligence, and I worry that might hinder the feast. PHOTOS: JAMES BIANCHI / MALTA TODAY