Extreme function

Those extremists at Moviment Graffitti were at it again. For one day in June, they swarmed to the Blue Lagoon and cleared the area of the offensive deckchairs and sunbeds that normally litter the place. The rebellious upstarts were only doing what the government and authorities should have done all along – guaranteeing free access to the public coast. 

That glorious day for citizens in Malta will probably remain an exception as the encroachment of the idyllic area by the monsters of the tourism industry will resume, slowly, surely, and inevitably. The excuse for a minister’s justification over previous inaction was that through some divine coincidence, Graffitti had chosen to descend upon the lounge-peddlers the same day that the authorities had planned a visit of their own. In other words, Graffitti had beaten them to their job.

The next day it might have seemed that a new order was in place, but this was limited to prohibiting the placing of deckchairs on the scant parcel of sand at the end of the Lagoon. The cemented part would remain fair game for the deckchair rental industry. We have not heard yet what will be of the big boats that enter the Lagoon with hundreds of revellers shattering any remaining idea of a peaceful natural habitat.

Those extremists (Miriam Dalli’s words) had also listed several conditions for a better management of the Lagoon and for a better enjoyment by the people. Reading through these conditions I felt a bit of an extremist myself since, such is the situation in our country, the conditions laid out by said extremists seemed to me to be quite mild.

Allow me to elaborate. Moviment Graffitti concedes that a certain percentage of the Lagoon should still be given up to deckchair renters and that boats of a certain size would still be allowed into the Lagoon. Talk of a numerical limit to access the Lagoon was mentioned by Clayton Bartolo but the big gist is that we would still be looking at operating the Blue Lagoon in similar ways as are done today (but with limits).

My extreme view would be to ban all form of unnatural structures from the Blue Lagoon. Yes, ban. Completely. No deckchairs. No renters. No boats. No kiosks. We would not be reinventing the wheel. I’ve been to islands in the Canaries with such beaches. The closest car parking is a good 10-minute walk away from the beach and once you get there, the most amenities you get are dustbins at the beaches’ entry point. 

I am fully aware that the poison has set too far in Malta to be able to contemplate the crazy idea of not commercializing (read destroying) a touristic hot spot. Which is why our extremists are forced to propose not too radical compromises. 

The people behind Moviment Graffitti surely do not need my words of appreciation for their commendable work filling the huge vacuum left by spineless politicians. Those same politicians that are all too often prepared to talk down the valuable work of NGOs. Miriam Dalli’s put down of Graffitti was followed by Joe Giglio’s deprecative references to Repubblika.

The state of our nation is such that, our politicians having abdicated from their representative duties, it is left up to the NGO’s and pressure groups to perform the ‘extreme function’ of guardians of the Republic and its people.