Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/614946
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2015 24 24 Opinion I t's funny how people get all soppy and sentimental about "the last farmer in the Valley of Honey" – if you'll allow that as a translation of 'L-Ahhar Bidwi F'Wied il-Ghasel' – but not about "the last butcher in the market of Valletta". Why is that, I wonder? Why does no poetry adorn the final closure of an equally epochal changing of the guard: a move that sees an old, family run institution in the heart of the capital city – literally the last of its kind: the only market stall still operating in what was once "is-Suq tal-Belt" – replaced with another faceless, modern supermarket of the kind that already litter the islands any way? Maybe it's because the dying trade in Valletta happens to concern butchery: a guttural, earthy profession that cannot be romanticised, no matter how hard you try. Not, mind, you, that there is very much that is truly glamorous about the life of a Maltese farmer, either. But somehow, we subliminally accord these two related professions a very different status when mourning their demise. Alongside shepherds, farmers are traditionally depicted as 'the salt of the earth'. They are a recognisable part of a bucolic tableau that instantly evokes honesty, rustic simplicity and close contact with nature. That's probably why Claudio Baglioni recorded the track 'L-Ahhar Bidwi' in the first place. It's not an epitaph on a single farmer: it's a nostalgic tribute to an entire way of life that once existed, but no longer does. Butchers? Not quite the same thing. The images they evoke have more to do with cleavers, meat hooks and bloodied aprons. That sort of iconography is difficult to sentimentalise: you can't exactly get all mushy over a profession that ultimately involves killing and dismembering a bunch of cute, cuddly animals. I suspect this also has something to do with why 'The Good Shepherd' works so much better than the 'Good Butcher' as an appellation for Jesus Christ... very unfair on butchers, I know; but no less true for that. So I imagine that Claudio Baglioni will not be teaming up with any Maltese songwriters to lament the fall of the last traditional Maltese butcher in the capital of Malta, who has now been given his marching orders to accommodate the fifth Arcadia supermarket on the island. Pity, because it would have made a good song. It is, after all, the very stuff that folk music is made of: the sad tale of a lone man's futile struggle against an establishment that deploys its full strength to bundle him out of the place where his family has toiled for generations. But let's hear it straight from the butcher's mouth: "I'm definitely not happy with having to leave the market where my father and grandfather sold meat for more than 100 years," says Charles Falzon – Oh, and by the way, that reminds me: are all butchers in Malta named 'Charles'? There seems to be a 'Charles Butcher' in every single town and village. And… do they become butchers because they were named 'Charles'… or do they change their name when they become butchers? So many questions, so little time… In any case: "It's the end of an era," Charles the Butcher goes on. "What once was a bustling market has become a desolate space which will now become a high-end food court […] It's a pity. Markets are the heartbeat of cities and Valletta will be one of the few capitals in Europe to have no real food market." The rest of the story will surely sound familiar. It's very much like the opening to every Asterix comic you've ever read: "Rome, 55BC. All Gaul is under Roman rule. All? No, a single village in Armorica still holds out, etc. etc." In a nutshell, the few other outlets that had somehow survived in the Valletta market were individually approached and bought out by the supermarket chain, until only one was left – P&J Company Limited, the lone butcher who resisted all advances and chose to fight, unaided, rather than just sell out. Then, strangely, the government got involved: not to defend the tenants' rights against an aggressive corporate takeover – as one would rightly expect, given that this particular government happens to also call itself 'Socialist' – but rather, to forcibly relocate the defiant butcher so that Arcadia's investment plan can go ahead as agreed. In other words, the government played the role of representative of a private corporation's interests… when its actual role is representative of the electorate as a whole (which, last I looked, also included Charles the Butcher). Naturally, a few questions spring to mind. I'd be curious to know, for instance, on what grounds the government chose to intervene at all, in what is ultimately a private business matter. Arkadia may have won a government tender to 'develop and restore' the 19th century market. But as far as I am aware, once a tender has been adjudicated, the government ceases to play an active role in any subsequent complications that may arise for the The last merchant in Merchants Street Raphael Vassallo The only plausible answer is that this is not any old ordinary takeover scenario, where the normal rules of business engagement apply The government got involved, to forcibly relocate the defiant butcher PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD Charles Falzon will be relocating his family business to Zurrieq after its more than 100 years at is-Suq tal-Belt