Un cavallo bianco ... via da qui ci porterà

White horse at Nadur Valley, Gozo

I came across this picture I took last November while on a 12-hour holiday in Gozo. I was fascinated by the beautiful landscape. Actually I could hardly believe my eyes since in my country it is quite rare to find a spot with no streets, without cars parked on both sides of the road, etc etc. It almost struck me as surreal; especially the white horse which immediately reminded me of that 1976 Matia Bazar tune Cavallo Bianco, particularly the lines: Un cavallo bianco, bianco come un velo, /via da qui ci porterà.

These past few days I met three Maltese emigrees who returned to the Rock for a short visit. I met Toni Sant first, who came home one Saturday evening and we watched the final night of Sanremo while eating cous-cous with red hot chilly peppers and sipping my mulled wine.

Then I met Sharon , with whom I talked of a project which I won't go into details about. (More of that later on).

This morning I found this voicemail message on my phone: Feltrinelli announcing his arrival in Malta. I immediately phoned him and he came over for lunch (overcooked veal, tomatoes, brown rice with broad beans, peas, basil, cheese and god knows what else. He also had 2 cans of Cisk and some 200g Edam cheese, plus smoked two Silk Cuts in the balcony as smoking indoors is from now on prohibited).

Great to meet friends you usually email or Skype. And it is also interesting to read the posts on their blogs reporting their Malta experience. And it is also interesting how they, maybe due to their turning past 30, speak so fondly of their Rock and its inhabitants (should I call these Rockers??). Take this tear jerking comment by Toni Sant for instance:

Instead of turning this blog into a moaning gripe (so no one can scream "sour grapes" at me!) I prefer to cherish the beautiful moments I experienced during the last couple of weeks. In essence, I am very pleased to have met a handful of people I treasure as the warmest and/or most interesting people in Malta I've had the opportunity of meeting during my lifetime.

Or Feltrinelli's:

Change hasn't taken place, so far, and so I enjoy the eternal beauty of this country which no motherfucking contractor or corrupt government can ever destroy: the sunshine, the sea, and the other romantic accessories which characterize our homeland.

Sharon's nostalgic muses take a culinary form:

Today I was invited to lunch with friends in Mqabba. Lunch was a barbecue and I chose to taste Maltese sausage for the first time! It wasn't strictly the first time, I had had it once or twice previously with pasta but this time I actually had the whole thing plonked on my plate with lots of tomatoes in olive oil and a large baked potato. There were also chicken legs basted in some secret recipe (because I never found out what the dripping actually was) but I was too full to attempt any. Lunch being a thoroughly friendly affair, we planned to meet at 12.30, I turned up at 2 and we were at table till 7. For tea we had kannoli tal-irkotta and sfinec (zeppoli). I refused the wine because I needed a break after two days running of the free-flowing stuff. I'm out of practice!

Jacques Rene Zammit, born in the year of the Rabbit, opens his most recent post thus:

Tomorrow I will reluctantly leave the Maltese Islands. Much more reluctantly than usual. I had a distant forebodeing that this would happen as I stepped off the plane almost seven days ago. The first sniff of Mediterrenean air was of the kind that makes you fall in love with the place all over again. The smell stayed throughout and its pulling factor was immensely improved by the good company, good wine and good fun to be had on the rock.

I find these posts cute. For some reason I find it hard to share their romanticism. Most probably because unlike these fellow Maltese I haven't met the white horse waiting to take me away. But yesterday, at the reading session of the EACLALS triennial conference, before reading some poems I had written during my trips to Poland and to Slovakia, I surprised myself when I improvised an introduction, saying: as a poet-traveller I search for self in the other.

The Other

Feltrinelli's most recent post got the attention of a number of people, motivating them to post their own response. These are my comments following the post itself and the replies to it:

1) I am still uncertain whether to consider self analysis a positive exercise or not. At times I'm inclined to think that this is a 'natural' tendency of an inward looking small nation which tends to take itself too seriously. At other times I think that this is an equally 'natural' tendency of a nation with a long history of colonisation, which finally has reached that state where its people are starting formulating their own thoughts rather than adopting the other's discourses as their own.

2) wwwitchie's reply to Feltrinelli's post included a comment on bilingualism. I'm not at all sure we share a common definition of bilingualism. Contrary to what university lecturer Charles Briffa believes, bilingualism has not always characterised the linguistic situation of the Maltese islands. There were cases of diglossia, as in the period of Roman rule, but bilingualism is a more recent linguistic phenomenon. The Maltese are becoming ever more conscious of their bilingual quality, but care should be given to Chapter 1.5.1 of the Constitution where it is clearly stated that the National Language of the Republic of Malta is Maltese. This does not mean that there is only one language used by the inhabitants. However, one has to keep in mind that Malta's second language was introduced to the Maltese people by a colonizer, and hence it remains the language of the other.

3) Ironically, many of us need to use this language of the other to define ourselves, to express our position and to make our presence felt as it were.

4) It is not the language of the other (in Malta's case English) that is 'jeopardising' the proper use of the native language. Worse than that is many people's inability to write and speak properly. I have in mind, for example, those television stations which since a few months ago have started streaming viewers' smses written in a non-language, those journalists who can't write correctly, and those self-proclaimed DJs who, for some unknown reason, speak Maltese with a strong English accent (!!)

Feltrinelli's back on the Rock

Feltrinelli's back on the Rock. While packing his things, or before that or after, he sends a post on his blog. He refers to the Spring, and makes a very intriguing comment:

I am all the more believing that this phenomenon of Maltese blogs
(particularly those written in Maltese or in a bilingual form) could prove to be
the precursor of radical changes in the Maltese cultural sphere. Whether it is
culture with a small or a capital c is yet to be seen. We still have to debate
on the point if there is any such thing as a Maltese c(C)ulture, or if we should
talk of a plurality, including those cultures on the margin. Possibly the New Spring - the last illusion which Fenech Adami fed us - will eventually emerge from these initiatives. (my translation).

Let us be frank about this: the spring we are referring to, even if hysterically anticipated by politicians during some massmeeting or Sunday sermon to their loyal followers, cannot be brought to life by them. We may be making a gross mistake in expressing hope with regards to a class of people who have not yet realised what it means to be in the driver's seat. Feltrinelli's right: spring must dawn over different horizons.

Nevertheless, we must accede that there were other geneses in the past. A remote past, true. Unfortunately, as Victor Fenech wrote, such spring failed. And this failed for a number of reasons, one of them being that the harbingers of a movement towards a new era transformed themselves into Party people, puny spokespersons who sign with the endoresment of some hidden hand while loitering in the corridors of power.

Yes, this new spring has nothing to do with the Sunday glory roaders. It has to emanate from the undertaking of those who have lost all confidence in the self-erected momunents lying about in every corner of the Rock.

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Spring is in the air

Life it's a candy

With a red hot chilly pepper

Filling inside

- Nenad Jankovic (The No Smoking Orchestra)

Spring is in the air. I'd say you can see it, feel it inside you. My balcony is full of fresias, and the fields next to the street where I live are green, with yellow spots of mimosa, corn sorrell and wood marigold.

Since Mother Nature favoured me by not subjecting me to hay fever, I'm happily welcoming spring.

This morning, while driving very slowly to work, I saw little flowers in the centre strip at Hal Balzan, frightened to their death by the speeding vehicles. Somehow I recalled good old Edward's forecast of a new spring. I'm afraid that is already over, or maybe it has stopped somewhere for refuelling.

I say, it's been some time since we heard this metaphor.

Guzè passes away

I was saddened with the news of the death of Guzè Cassar-Pullicino, a pioneer in Maltese folklore studies. His formidable academic credentials earned him the respect of the Maltese intelligentsia and others.

Cassar-Pullicino, who was born in 1921, authored a number of studies on Maltese literature and folklore; his latest, published in 2003, dealing with riddle telling as a means of popular philosophy.

Of nerds, stars and romantics

Today's Corriere della Sera, ran a short article about a recent discovery of an early 1960s documentary produced by Florida State University in which Jim Morrison appears as an 18 year old applying to study at the said university. The short video shows a docile-looking Jim Morrison acting the part of a disappointed student who has just received a refusal notice from FSU. The unsigned article rightly observes how different Morrison looks in this documentary to the usual Jim cult-pix we are so accustomed to seeing. In a short interview given to Corriere, the famous Italian music critic Mario Luzzato Fegiz, spoke about how pre-Doors Morrison looked 'just like one of us'. Actually I thought Morrison looked like a perfect nerd.

Like many other Maltese generation-xers I came across The Doors when I was twelve or so through Carlo Massarini's Mister Fantasy series, aired on Rai Uno in the early eighties. For many Sunday evenings I followed the series more devoutly than the Sunday Mass, looking forward mostly to the final minutes of the programme which, for many of its episodes closed with some Doors video clip. It was thanks to Mister Fantasy that I first heard (and watched) "Light My Fire" and "Riders on the Storm". To be honest, though, I never grew into a big Doors fan, preferring back then the politically charged Pink Floyd (which I also got to know thanks to Mister Fantasy) and Zep's blues tunes. In fact, when I went to Pere Lachaise cemetry one extremely hot morning in June 2001, I did not visit Jim's grave - which draws large crowds on a daily basis - preferring instead to visit those of Michel Petrucciani and - obviously - Fryderyk Chopin, both a stone's throw away from Jim's.

I'm sure my very old friend Toni, who is in Malta for a two week visit, would take a look at this Morrison video. I remember lending him a Doors cassette when we were class mates. In his most recent post Toni expressed a certain concern that Malta hasn't changed since he was here last. I'm not surprised by this. There has been so much hype about the dawn of a new era that returning migrants would have sky high expectations. Well, I don't know what these expectations could be like. What I was very surprised with was Toni's reply to one of the comments posted on his blog which urged him to spend some time at San Blas munching on a ftira and enjoying the peasants looking him up and down while strolling towards the bay. The reply contradicts the post. But then again, this is symptomatic I think: on the one hand we expect this country to change and become modern (?), while on the other we are still in love with the romantic depiction of the island and her inhabitants, very much in the style of some Dun Karm poem about sexy, chubby female peasants.

It's like watching Jim Morrison looking like a nerd while expecting to see him looking at you, bare chested like some Classic Greek demi-god.

Blogscape

The recent proliferation of Maltese blogs is an interesting social and intellectual phenomenon. While some of these blogs are merely diary-like posts fulfilling the owners' narcissitic and exhibitionist needs, others are creating a discourse which is not yet to be found anywhere in the local print. It seems that writing a blog gives one the freedom that the Maltese print is still denying to citizens who, for different reasons, have distanced themselves from mainstream journalism and intellectual engagement. Salvu Balzan's commentary on last Sunday's edition of Malta Today, gives a clear cut picture of the poor and non-democratic state of affairs in Maltese media. In his article, Published and Be Damned, the ex-Alternattiva Demokratika activist argues that the content which makes it to print in Maltese newspapers is tightly controlled and censored by their owners, namely the mighty Parties, the less mighty Catholic Church and a bunch of filthy rich businessmen and powerful families. Disassociating oneself from these powermongers means inhibiting oneself from expressing views in the public sphere.

A number of blogs, particularly those owned by Mark Vella, Toni Sant and Robert Micallef, even if on varying degrees, are committed alternatives to what Maltese journalists are feeding the public. This new, emerging chattering class, seems to have promulgated a no-confidence vote in Maltese print, and have seeked new pastures, which presumably defy the red felt-pen of some hidden censor ready to file reports and send them to court once the 'borders' are crossed.

It is also very interesting to note that a good number of these weblogs are written by Maltese emigrees. Mark Vella is based in Luxembourg, Toni Sant in the UK, and there are others, like Pierre Mejlaq and a certain gybejxi in Brussels, and Sharon Spiteri currently studying in Scotland. What imbues these Maltese emigrees to write weblogs loaded with comments about the country they left? Perhaps they are carried by a sense of freedom and detachment, making it easier for them to look at what they left behind, the way James Joyce was when he wrote Dubliners in some shabby room far away from his native country.

Those Maltese bloggers who like Mark Vella and myself have opted to post their logs in Maltese are carrying the phenomenon a step further. Except for Malta Today, there is no serious, engaging newspaper or journal in Malta. But Malta Today is an English weekly. Reading Mark Vella's blog, as I have already commented elsewhere gives me a kick not only because of its content but also because of the way language is used. Xifer blog, is the only space on the net where one can truly enjoy reading something in Maltese. There is nothing else in Cyberspace, except a horrendous 'news' portal - maltarightnow.com - owned by the Nationalists, which is full of apologia, propaganda and spelling mistakes.

Malta needs a critical, biting newspaper which offers an alternative to the mainstream print. Or at least some kind of portal which overtly aims to shake the status quo tightly held by those in power. Which reminds me that once upon a time there were newspapers written in Maltese that ....