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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 27 JULY 2014 24 Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Would you ever have imagined, editorials in The Times that are critical of the Nationalist govern- ment, an Alfred Sant running a low-key, keep quiet campaign and the Nationalist party filing a libel against the editor of an inde- pendent newspaper? Whatever is happening? Well the times they are changing. A totally new and fast-changing landscape is developing in the country. People's lifestyle, their habits and trends together with their political allegiances are changing. The media is of course highlighting these changes. We are moving ever closer to a European lifestyle living in a more liberal and secular environment. We are undergoing the Europeanisation of Malta. It is a new ball game. The priorities are also changing in the sense that people expect instant gratification: the quick realisation of their desires. We are living in a society where people want to see, touch and experience the visible deliverables. They make a direct link between how they are being led and how they live. Their prime focus is quality of life. Indeed this will be the main is- sue come the next general election. The battleground will no longer be the restoration of democracy or European membership. No more mothers of battles, just a simple question being asked by the voters: am or am I not living better? This is the issue that will permeate throughout the next four years. Can I afford or can I no longer af- ford to retain the standard of living I have become used to? According- ly the management of expectations should feature as a priority for all political parties. The political parties too will have to come to terms with this new reality. Citizens will no longer label themselves, or be seen to be either Nationalists or Labourites but different colour schemes are fast surfacing. There exists a pale blue as well as a blue Nationalist, a moderate Labour supporter and a hard core one. The tendency of a pale blue person is not to accept blindly everything being said by his party. In like manner the pink as opposed to the red labour person is fast developing a mind of his own and is thinking independently of his Party. These developments in time will result in the existence of different currents and shades of opinion within the Parties themselves. The Parties will have to become even more tolerant internally. These develop- ments will spell the death knell of the centralisation and control of power inside Parties where real and effective control still remains the privilege of the few - some of whom are often not even elected officials. This school of thought will lead to people expecting more action and less rhetoric from the political class. More delivery of the goods rather than pious hopes. The era of visible deliverables is fast taking over. Government's popularity and very survival will depend on whether citizens experience retention of, if not an increase in, their living standards. This remains an issue for people even when the financial situation is poor. They fail to ac- cept they should be the victims of bad management decisions. They simply expect value for money and their taxes to be used wisely and fugally in the general interests of the country. They see politicians simply as the custodians of the public finances. There is a growing positive shift towards issue politics where issues, and not belonging to a particular tribe, will start dictating people's electoral choices. This requires a cultural change by the party strate- gists and leaders. Issue politics means the death of tribal politics. The placing of the environment, divorce, the reform of the rent laws and the pensions, the rights of single parents, gays and other quality life issues will become the burning issues. The political class will have to put them on their agenda too as they are simply the reflection of peoples concerns. The era of putting the uncomfortable issues under the carpet is over. They must be discussed and par- ties must present their policies and put them up for public scrutiny. Remaining silent and failing to take a stance on a controversial is- sue will be considered as cowardly and lacking in character. The institutions - distinct from the political parties - will have to undergo change. The Church must become more tolerant, the employ- ers more humane and the unions more realistic. With the passage of time we will see the strengthening of civil society with the institutions playing a bigger role, and getting more involved. Government will be forced to realise that without the participation of civil society the financial situation will not turn round. Civil society will become a key player, no longer happy to be used in a photo opportunity prior to a crucial election, but expecting its seat, by right, close to the seat of power. The biggest changes however will in time be the creation of a truly independent media. It is now in- evitable. A media where real value is given to the term pluralism to mean opening up the airwaves to all and not just to the institutions. In our country pluralism has taken on the restricted meaning of giving a voice to who already has a voice. In the case of broadcasting, pluralism in our country has just meant making the strong stronger - in no way has it given a voice to the voiceless. Worse still, the dominance of the political media attracting, together with PBS, the lion's share of the advertising sim- ply means that the chances of the privately owned media surviving are extremely remote. Ironically pluralism may bring about the death of private broadcasting media. Europe is all about transpar- ency, openness and accountability. These are the values the majority all voted for. Values which, once entrenched in our own system, will belatedly place Malta too in the post French revolution league where there is a clear distinction between Church and State where all issues are up for discussion in a serene and civil manner. It's best that the political class wakes up quickly to this new real- ity. The times they are a changing. It is a new ball game. The Times they are changing Editorial • August 1 2004 The missing stone of City Gate The main entrance to our capital, Valletta, can be compared to the central entry into our prehistoric temples. Entering the temples was like going through a portal. The focal entrance to a temple was composed of two pillars and a lintel; the left- hand pillar represented the north polarity and stood for the establish- ment, while the right pillar signified the south polarity and strength. A lintel or a trilithon united these two energies, symbolising stability. These were the attributes that sustained the society of the temple builders, as they knew the impor- tance of the act of entering a sacred place. There cannot be a real enter- ing to the sacred site without these three principal components in its structure. One can feel the difference when one enters a temple that has a trili- thon and one without. One notices and senses that it's not whole as something important and essential to the whole is missing. And that is precisely what is missing from the new entrance to our capital city; the absent trilithon that unites and gives meaning to the significance and the purpose of entering the City. It is similar to the Great Pyramid of Giza with its capstone missing, which means that the pyramid is an 'imperfect' structure. Even with the recent scaffolding, the entrance has a more united element. The Fifth City Gate designed by the world-renowned architect Renzo Piano can be an engineering masterpiece by the architect but it lacks the right energies to bring together this beautiful and unique city. The entrance stands out for the extensive use of Maltese hard stone, most of which came from a Gozo quarry. Stone: that is the beauty of our city and our temples. Stone is alive; it is a living body with its own sentient light. The temple builders used lime- stone for their construction because of its special 'crystalline proper- ties,' which are those of resonance, rhythm, vibration, balance and equilibrium. And so the old city builders used limestone in all their structures. It stands on its own with no need of steel and concrete. Yet our modern builders and architects cannot understand that stone does not dance with steel or sheets of metal. Look at what we modern Maltese are capable of building next to a prehistoric site: Hagar Qim Visitors' Centre and Ggantija Visitors' Centre made with steel and concrete, two dead materials. The temple builders have taken more pride in designing something that would be consonant with nature and they built structures to enhance and not mar the beauty of the surrounding environment. We seem to have somehow forgot- ten the beauty and meaning of form. Nature itself creates such beautiful forms and shapes, and we ourselves need to be in tune with the laws of nature and understand and utilise the vibrational element of stone as well. Francis Xavier Aloisio, Sliema If the Afghan people were to democratically elect the Taliban, or the Iraqis the ISIS, the Western world would abandon them to the sorry fate that they would have chosen for themselves and certainly not give them money or any moral support. So why is it different for the Palestinians? Hamas, which has shown in recent days its sheer disregard for the lives of the people that they are responsible for, did not come to power in a vacuum. Hamas, whose very raison d'être is anti-peace, anti-Jewish and dedicated to the destruction of Israel, was democratically elected by the Palestinian people. It is time for the inter- national community to recognise this fact and make the message clear to the Palestinian people; that while they support a Palestinian state, state- hood comes with respon- sibilities. The last thing the world needs is another terrorist state. Michelle Moshelian, Givatayim, Israel. I am extremely distressed to read John Guillaumier's letter to this paper ('The futility of prayer, 20 July, 2014). Of all the places in the world, surely Malta must be one of those countries which has a history riddled with in- stances where prayer was instrumental in saving the nation. The 8 September is one such day, still a public holiday, to commemorate the Turks' f light from the island on that day in 1565. Prayer to Our Lady must have worked! Also 15 August, the feast of the As- sumption, reminds us of the arrival of the tanker Ohio at a time in the second world war in 1942 when Malta was nearly on its knees. Just another coincidence, perhaps? I have no doubt that every family in Malta has a story to tell about prayer and how petitions to Our Lord God, the Most High, have helped in particu- lar instances where there was a family calamity of some sort or other. My family certainly has many instances where God's hand has clearly been seen to help out where all else failed. Who are we to say that "God has not responded to the prayers for peace"? God is a supreme being, the creator of our universe, from whom nothing but good can emanate. We cannot there- fore expect God to wave his magic wand at our beck and call of petition- ary prayers. It is in His time and at His convenience. Also God is a source of peace, the fountain of all that is good. He certainly does not wage war. It is our free will and our own choice that leads us into routes of disaster. I remember when we were young the whole island prayed every day for the conversion from communism, then depicted as the great bear on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It was through the 'unlikely' efforts of a Polish pope - now St John Paul II - and Mikhail Gorbachev that the Berlin Wall was brought down and the cold war brought to an end. Certainly not through sword and strife. No man-made division of countries, no violence, no rocket fire or crashing of planes, no terrorist act, no bombarding of towns and cities was needed for this peaceful effort to succeed. It was prayer and the will of God. The bible says that when Jesus Christ lived among us, He always prayed to the Father every time He was about to perform a healing, also He used to find a quiet place every morning to dedicate some time to prayer. So much so that when asked by His apostles to teach us how to pray He left us a prayer still known to this day - the Our Father. So how is it that suddenly prayer is a useless tool, a waste of time? Prayer is a way of communicating with the Father (provided we believe He exists) – a silent method of reaching the Most High. Let me end with a quotation attrib- uted to Einstein. "I would rather live as if there was a God and then find there isn't one, than live as if there is no God and then find that there was one after all". Neville Curmi, San Gwann. The futility of prayer Statehood comes with responsibilities