I saw this meme the other day that had a couple of paraprosdokian phrases and particularly liked one of them. It said “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” Often life has its ways of coughing up situations that are full of tomato conundrums. Take the problem raging in the US’s southern states after the massacre of black persons in a church. The huge debate is whether the “confederate flag” – for long a symbol of slavery and suppression – should be banned and removed from public places.
The killer in the church shootings was a southern fanatic and publicly acknowledged that he did what he did because he wanted to provoke another civil war in the name of the confederate flag. So what do they do? They blame the flag. They blame the symbol. Sure, because it was a flag that shot and killed nine innocent persons in a church. Not guns. No. Definitely not guns.
The root of the problem – legal purchase and possession of weapons in the US is nowhere near being tackled because of the US’s perverted love of the right to bear arms. The Americans prefer to keep putting tomatoes in their fruit salad.
Back home we have just heard the announcement of a new possible 40 storey colossus in the middle of Sliema. What is another concrete tower? What indeed? The perverse conviction of the development community and of the politicians in their pockets that Malta can sustain a steady stream of new developments in ODZs and beyond seems to know no end. The recent non-partisan front created with regards to the Zonqor space cannot be limited to that space. The Sliema monstrosity is proof that a charter on sustainable development and a clear plan for the future of planning in Malta needs to be pushed and marketed.
Which brings me to the controversy on the church school plans for Ghaxaq. The church is now a victim of the Zonqor madness. While Zonqor was evidently an excuse and a provocation by the government to allow its trojan horse of a crazy development that has nothing to do with education to be pushed (and many swallowed the bait), it would seem that the Ghaxaq project is the result of studies and the proper use of exceptions insofar as educational development is concerned. We are now however faced with the socialist scythe of equality inducing measures: the analysis is not legal or environmental, it’s simply No Zonqor, No Church Development. We’re throwing the tomatoes with the pineapples and the melons. It’s crazy.
Using the letter of the law to smash its spirit. That is just the phrase I was looking for. We are witnessing it every day and the rapid decline and fall is preposterously horrifying for those who care to worry about the future of our nation.
