Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/556862
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 16 AUGUST 2015 Opinion 20 Christian Holland Opinion Declare war 1S\b`S>]W\bB`W_2c\9O`[ 0W`YW`YO`O0g^Oaa0W`YW`YO`O 09@'!%;OZbO >V]\S(!#$ ! "!!" ESP(eeeRW[SQVS\bQ][ 3[OWZ(OZO\.RW[SQVS\bQ][ M alta is under siege like no other and the enemy is from within. 450 years after the Great Siege the very fabric and soul of the land is being stripped of its beauty and aesthetic dignity by rich contractors with a cheap 'halluna naqalghu lira' mindset, aided and abetted by our own Prime Minister. It is pathetic to see a cowboy mentality take over this country. This posse of ruthless and clueless men have rounded up the cash cow, fenced off our land and laid waste to our claims to the common good. Our environmental NGOs have been overwhelmed by a sustained onslaught on more than one front while the Prime Minister engages in the diplomacy of duplicity, pander and feigned acknowledgment. We are in a crisis, and in denial. This environmental crusade is going nowhere despite herculean efforts by all concerned. We look down despondently at a threadbare carpet not realising that it's been pulled clean from under our feet. We keep hoping that the MEPA demerger might possibly work when it means our horse has been tethered to the cart before it. Muscat has cleverly outmanoeuvred us, decimated your dreams and mine, rode over detractors like a latter day cowboy hell bent on rousing the village square and corralling our hopes. It's about time that eNGOs realise that in this race he has 'SPED' so fast and silently that we look stationary by comparison. It is time for war. Actually it should have been declared way back in 2006 when the infamous and no less disgusting efforts of George Pullicino resulted in another uptake of land just so he could waddle back to power, and I had said as much to the then Din l-Art Helwa president at the time. War is a reaction to a situation where society feels that it has lost, or is fast losing its right to matter, to decide its fate, to be counted in the important discourses of a nation. Society has been disenfranchised by the kind of falsehoods that Muscat had espoused in his party's manifesto, grandly declaring that Malta is for All, when what he meant was a free-for-all. Environmental NGOs are presiding over a mess, a takeover of the public domain both physically and culturally. It is an environmental coup d'etat and we are the unwitting collaborators in this tragedy by engaging with the government. This disaster is happening on the eNGOs' watch and we need to put a stop to it or die trying. Time is running out fast for the countryside. Delaying would at best result in an environmental pyrrhic victory But guile and craftiness are not Muscat's monopoly. As in war, we have to be ready to lose everything to gain it all back. Otherwise we shall only be remembered as a side show of hecklers who at best saved a few medieval towers, soon to be surrounded by kitsch maisonettes. If the government wants to rape and ravage what's left of this country, let no man claim in the future that environmental leaders did nothing to prevent it because they were too happy in their public role, too vain to divest themselves of their position and shed their robes for the cause. Self-sacrifice is the true measure of leaders. Give the keys back and stop the talk. Revoke your status as cultural custodians now, a full three years before V18. Let the government do what it will, on its own. Let it squander on its own. Let it be remembered for doing so on its own. Let Muscat dig his own grave if that's the price he is constrained to pay. Wash your hands of this filthy game. Then and only then will we see the tide turn. It is time to stop the watch, call time on this charade, throw the keys on Muscat's table and declare hostilities. It is either confrontation now or slowly wasting with increasingly less to fight for. Let us show the nation how to behave, enough is enough. Let us use Gandhi's example and declare a war of non-cooperation. We are only three years away from the European Capital of Culture experience. The government will not want any embarrassing situations where its own national trust and other important environmental NGOs and their sympathisers coalesce and stop engaging completely. We must force the government to cease and desist. V18 may well serve to rocket Muscat to heady heights or he may be hoist with his very own petard.