Are we cultured?

Culture is a wide-ranging term and veers towards elitism. I am not including ‘customs’ here, because to my mind that word used by many to suit their agenda belies the true nature of what culture should be all about.

Culture should be about appreciating art, music, literature, architecture and other related activities, which require intellectual engagement, and not shooting birds and launching petards.

We have to face up to the fact that there are still many who lack the sophistication to distinguish between culture, tack and plain macho egoism. Hence the elitist factor. So is it the educational system, government in general, or the media that is failing to enlighten through education and exposure to the right kind of cultural activity?

It is not enough to throw open the doors to museums once in a while if the public is not aware of what to appreciate and why. In Malta, Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco seems to be aware of this, “Museums must be accessible to all, but the first responsibility was to get the Maltese to appreciate the contents of their museums”, he said in parliament on Tuesday.

He was responding to Evarist Bartolo, Labour spokesman on education, who said that whole sectors of the population were still unaware of our heritage and its importance. He queried:

“What education results were achieved under the objective presented last year to make heritage sites socially inclusive?”   

The fact that school visits are being encouraged is a good start, but how are those visits followed up when the children get back to the classroom? Educating children about the arts has to be fun and itself creative to be successful.

If as I read, Malta is designated to be the European Capital of Culture in 2018 we have a lot to do. Dr de Marco said in Parliament, “Malta had a duty to look at 2018 humbly and take stock of its needs in cultural heritage for years, not a year, of excellence.”

Ah, yes our long neglected heritage. The debate in parliament on the estimates of Heritage Malta and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage raised quite a few relevant issues. Mr Bartolo said that the country still lacked a national cultural heritage strategic plan. Despite the current upheaval, there is not even one for Valletta.

Cultural experts believed that lack of management plans in the city have led to changes being carried out in a chaotic way, he said. Well, it certainly seems the people responsible need to get their skates on. Seven years is not that far away in terms of such planning.

He also spoke about the Domus Romana in Rabat, claiming, “It was unacceptable that a large sum of money had been spent in 2005 to restore it and only six years later part of the work has to redone”. Let’s hope the lack of planning on work in Valletta will not lead to further financial mismanagement.

Besides, the experts’ opinion that “lack of management plans led to changes being carried out in a chaotic way” reminded me of something, and I shall digress slightly here. As I now have to drive round the houses, in more ways than one, from St Mark’s street to get to the Hastings area, I noticed a sort of traffic light, which indicated that St Mark’s street could be closed on occasion.This is now one of only two access points into the city and, as far as I know, the only access point to the top of Valletta.

I met someone last night, who lives in the neighbourhood and has been phoning around – local council, police etc - for information. Apparently, nobody knows why or when St Mark’s street could be closed to traffic!

Could the authorities please tell us how we could get to Hastings when and if they decide to close St Mark’s Street? How will an ambulance gain access in an emergency?

Also, since the bastions are being cleaned up near the House of Four Winds and there are still two huts housing pigeons, has it not occurred to anyone that this is not only a futile exercise but also a waste of EU Heritage funding.

Back to the parliament debate, Mr Bartolo criticised the government for failing to publish the State of Heritage Report for 2009-2010 and said the report had to be more analytical and critical giving a true picture of how things stood. He added that MPs were only given the balance sheet for the heritage superintendence for the debate.

Responding to his point of the lack of a national cultural heritage strategic plan, Dr de Marco said that a cultural strategy had been laid out in 2006 and would expire later this year. Work had already started on a revision of the document for a second edition.

Heritage Malta’s board of directors had laid out a strategy for the three years between 2011 and 2013, realising that this year’s work must be done within a longer-term framework. The agency’s biggest challenge was to transform museums and visitors’ centres.

A national forum on cultural heritage would be held next October and November in which the State of Heritage Report for 2010 would feature, he said while committing himself to hold such a forum annually.

On the issuing of warrants to conservationists and restorers, he said a number of loopholes had been tackled and he would soon be submitting a memo to Cabinet to authorise the necessary amendments.

He agreed with Mr Bartolo on the need of a policy tool. In the next few weeks, an ad hoc committee under the superintendence would be working to draft a national agenda that would include the university, Heritage Malta, Mepa, heritage units and NGOs.

Mr Bartolo also asked whether the government had ratified the 2000 Florence EU convention on landscaping and the 2005 Faroe Islands Council of Europe convention on cultural heritage for society? He emphasised that the landscape convention needed to be implemented because the countryside and coastline were under threat.

Dr de Marco responded that several international conventions were to be ratified within the next few months. The sooner the better. Nevertheless, it is not enough to ratify conventions if rules were ignored and enforcement was weak and sometimes non-existent.

There is no doubt that our countryside and coastline are on the brink of total ruin. Our coastline, especially in Tignè, and along the Strand, has been so horrendously dented with monstrous buildings that views of the sea and of our prime heritage site Valletta, except from some of the monoliths, are becoming rarer and will soon disappear.

It is not just in Sliema that the coastline has been messed up. It is obvious when travelling by boat around Malta that much of the coastline is diminishing fast and our urban landscape is being reduced to an arid concrete jungle.

Ancient, majestic trees are summarily chopped and any green space is built over. Malta, with its extremely high population density, remains the EU country with the lowest share (less than 0.5%) of land covered by trees. The countryside is also slowly but surely fading away.

It is true that a large number of trees have and are being planted, in Mellieha, Salini, Ta Qali, and Xrobb l-Ghagin. But what about urban areas? It will take centuries, not seven years, for them to replace the very mature trees that have been destroyed.

How long has the Manoel Island green lung got before that also disappears? Oh, that also reminds me, we have a great cultural activity there now – a Luna park.

I had to laugh when I read that Minister George Pullicino had said: “We want the public to take ownership and embrace a green environment.” Did he mean the green environment the government is not protecting?

However, appreciating nature and being a tree hugger are not really cultural activities, so let’s get back to the nitty-gritty and preparing Valletta to be the European Capital of Culture of 2018. As Mr Bartolo rightly pointed out,  “although enthusiasm was welcomed standards and guidelines were needed for heritage activities.”

We need to get rid of all the naff, tacky stuff and concentrate on serious cultural activities. Better to have fewer high quality events than a conglomeration of bustle. For that year, the eyes of Europe and beyond will be upon us and it is crucial that we get it right, especially, since one of the aims of the venture is to raise Malta’s visibility and profile on an international scale.

I tried to garner information through the Internet on Malta and the EU culture programme and this is what I got:

“What's happening in Malta? Cultural operators from Malta submitted last year 6 out of 819 applications for funding under the Culture Programme. None of these applications was successful. However, eight organisations across the country were active as partners in other European projects.

“Stay tuned for more information about Maltese participation this year as complete figures will be available at the end of 2009.

“The stories from your own country. Last update: 01 September 2009”.

I do not know whether we have done better since, but it looks like our ‘cultural operators’ are going to need all the help they can get.

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Confusion reigns on mobile phone risks

Here we go again.“Confused about mobile phones and base stations risks to your health?” I wrote in July 2000, in my Sunday Times column “Sacrificial lambs to Midas”. Well, uncertainty still reigns on the subject. Over a decade later we are still getting experts telling us of “possible risks” to our and our children’s health.

My column in 2000 had followed the news that Dr George Carlo head of the Washington-based Wireless Technology Research (WTR) had publicised his concerns on health risks posed by mobile phones. He had upset the goldmine trail by throwing caution to the wind and admitting that even the experts are confused.

This was the same year that the Stewart Report was released. After a call for clarification by Professor Liam Donaldson, then the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (he retired last year), the independent expert group on mobile phones chaired by Sir William Stewart had advised that “individuals might choose to use phones for as short as time as possible, use phones with low specific energy absorption rate (SAR), use hands free kits and other devices provided they have been proved to reduce SAR.”

Professor Donaldson had also asked the group to be clearer about what age children should be discouraged from using mobile phones for other than essential calls? “Children under 16 years of age should be discouraged from using mobile phones.

“They are likely to be more vulnerable to any unrecognised health risks than adults...the developing nervous system is likely to be more vulnerable to potentially hazardous agents because of their thinner skulls and higher tissue conductivity children may absorb more energy than adults if there are detrimental health risks caused by mobile phone signals,” said the expert group.

The report had concluded that it was “not possible at present to say that exposure to RF radiation, even at levels below national guidelines, is totally without potential adverse health effects and the gaps in knowledge are sufficient to justify a precautionary approach.”

But that advice had not been given much weight by either the mobile phone industry or governments. The mobile phone industry continued to grow and grow and antennas were mushrooming.

Then in March 2008, we got another warning call. A study, by award-winning cancer expert Dr Vini Khurana, warned that using handsets for 10 years or more could double the risk of brain cancer. Khurana warned of a huge rise in tumours and called on industry to take immediate steps to reduce radiation.

The Mobile Operators Association dismissed brain expert Khurana's study as "a selective discussion of scientific literature by one individual". It then said it believed his study "reaches opposite conclusions to the WHO and more than 30 other independent expert scientific reviews".

Yet, in that year 80% of (WHO acknowledged) studies on people living in the vicinity of mobile phone base-stations, showed a significantly increased risk of neurological diseases, impaired well being and cancer.

I happen to live very close to a huge mast and have been increasingly suffering from vertigo, so I am just wondering whether the masts close to my bedroom are the cause.

Research in Austria showed that: People living near mobile phone masts reported more symptoms of fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea, loss of memory, visual disorder, dizziness and cardiovascular problems the higher their level of microwave exposure.

In Egypt: Residents living beneath and opposite a long-established mobile phone mast in Egypt

reported significantly higher occurrences of headaches, memory changes, dizziness, tremors, depressive symptoms and sleep disturbance than a control group.

In Israel: A four-fold increase in the incidence of cancer among residents living within a 300m radius

of a mobile phone mast for between three and seven years was detected.

In Germany: A three-fold increase in the incidence of malignant tumours was found after five years exposure in people living within 400m radius of a mobile phone mast.

In France: 530 people living near mobile phone masts reported more symptoms of headache, sleep disturbance, discomfort, irritability, depression, memory loss and concentration problems the closer they lived to the mast.

Then why had WHO claimed that there was “no evidence” of health impact from mobile phone base-stations?

Earlier that year, the French government warned against the use of mobile phones, especially by children. Germany also advised its people to minimise handset use, and the European Environment Agency had called for exposures to be reduced.

Dr Khurana had repeated the warning that people should avoid using mobile phones whenever possible.

"We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation... "There is a significant and increasing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone usage and certain brain tumours".

He believed this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade and said that unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps, the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long, said the top neurosurgeon who had received 14 awards for his work by that time.

Yet, did anyone listen? Even the users and parents still did not seem to take the warnings seriously. Of course the industry’s counter advertising, proclaiming safety, together with some doctors who backed the industry’s claim worked.

Now, in 2011, the alarm bells are off again. But guess what? The experts are still not giving out clear messages and are still only managing to confuse us. I read last week that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) told a press conference, "After reviewing all the evidence available, the IARC working group classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

“Possibly carcinogenic”? After all these years of research the experts still have not come to a conclusive assessment. "We reached this conclusion based on a review of human evidence showing increased risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, in association with wireless phone use," said panel chairman Jonathan Samet, MD, chair of preventive medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine.

Although “human evidence showing increased risk of glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer”, the IARC didn't make recommendations to consumers, but Kurt Straif, MD, PhD, MPH, head of the IARC Monographs Program said that there are precautions people can take.

"Some of the highest exposures come from using mobile phones for voice calls. If you text, or use hands-free devices, you lower exposure by at least [10-fold]," Straif said at the news conference. "So this is left to consumers to consider whether this level of evidence is enough for them to take such precautions." Apparently, just like the smoking warnings, some people just don’t seem to care.

This ‘advice’ was echoed by  Otis W. Brawley, MD, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, who noting in a press release that the IARC was a highly credible group, said “People who are worried can reduce their risk. On the other hand, if someone is of the opinion that the absence of strong scientific evidence on the harms of cell phone use is reassuring, they may take different actions, and it would be hard to criticise that."

What are these people playing at? The question is should we be worried or not? When is it likely that “strong scientific evidence” will surface? And as my title in 2000 suggested it was, and is, the risk to children that should concern us most.

And how can there still be an “absence of strong scientific evidence”? In the late 1990s, the IARC developed a multinational case-control study, INTERPHONE, to address strong public concerns about cell phone safety.

The goal of the study was to investigate whether the radiofrequency radiation emitted by cell phones is carcinogenic. Thirteen countries participated in the project (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK).

The study ran from 2000 to 2006, cost 30 million U.S. dollars (Economist 2008) and involved 14,078 study participants. among them 2,765 glioma, 2,425 meningioma, 1,121 acoustic neurinoma, 109 malignant parotid gland tumour cases and 7,658 controls.

And they still can’t make their minds up? At the end of last month the World Health Organisation decided that “Cell phone use may cause cancer”. So what’s new? It now “groups cell phones in the same hazard category as chloroform, lead, and engine exhaust.”

“May cause cancer”, why all this hedging?  “There is not enough long-term data to link cancer and cell phone use directly, reported a group of 31 scientists from 14 countries. But there is enough information to issue an alert.

But we have been getting “alerts” since 2000. However, it now seems that some action is going to be taken. The Council of Europe is calling for a ban

on the use of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology in all schools in its 47 member states.

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Powerful institutions losing their grip

Well, the babaw tactics did not work and I was as surprised as many other people, especially since the result of last weekend’s referendum goes beyond divorce. It was a clear message to the Church and politicians that the Maltese are no longer cowed by threats and were not impressed or influenced by senior Government or Opposition members.

And what a relief that is. No wonder that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has expressed concern about tension in the country. Although he stressed “especially” tension with regard to the Church, there is no doubt that his apprehension is due to what the referendum result spelt for his party’s influence.

In a country where, up until now, many still voted on partisan lines regardless of the issues, with the possible exception of joining the EU, we saw the emergence of a crucial factor - that of people no longer accepting partisan dictat.

Opposition leader, Joseph Muscat read the signs correctly when he said “the vote signifies the birth of an era where political parties can no longer expect to tell the people what to do.”

He could have also scored points when he stated, “the divorce issue went beyond whether voters were Labourites or Nationalists and it would be cheap to try and score political points from the referendum result”, had he not then chosen to go down the “cheap” route after all and said, “People have a choice between a confessional party that expected to dictate matters to the people and the Labour Party that listened to everyone without dictating. The Labour Party is the home of liberal-minded people.”

Although he did have a point about the Nationalist Party using undue influence to ensure the Divorce referendum loses, he can’t have his cake and eat it, by first playing honest Joe saying it would be “cheap to try to score political points” on the issue then barging in shooting to score.

It is also of course nonsense to say that the Labour Party is the home of liberal-minded people. Although the LP does have some liberal-minded people, it also has its fair share of reactionaries, not all as overt as Adrian Vassallo.

He made it even worse by adding “The Labour Party was the natural home for everyone.”  What an inane comment. Shame, I was beginning to change my mind about him, he then went and put his foot in it with this and the contradictory comments on scoring political points.

And how does him saying that Labour MP’s would not hinder “the people’s will” on divorce tie in with his party’s position of allowing MPs to vote according to their conscience?

Which raises a vital question should MPs vote according to what they believe in, or what their constituents want and believe in?

Anyway, how can Joseph Muscat be confident that the Labour parliamentary group will respect the mandate given to them by the people? When he has people like Adrian Vassallo who had declared that he would only vote in favour of divorce if Jesus Christ came back on earth and told him to do so.

Since it is unlikely that Jesus is going to pay him a personal visit he will vote against the Bill irrespective of the referendum result. He has now reiterated his stand and said on Thursday “If the party wants to kick me out... I really don't care”.

Let’s face it both parties’ MPs are under pressure to vote according to their party’s leaders beliefs. Marie-Louise Coleiro, shadow minister for health, who joined the “No to divorce” lobby said on Wednesday that she will abstain “after assuring herself that the Divorce Bill will be approved in Parliament”.

How can she be “assured” that it will be approved before the vote? Since there seems to be secrecy and confusion on how the Nationalist members will vote and we don’t really know how the rest of the Labour camp will vote except for a few.

Now these two MPs (Vassallo and Coliero) are in parliament representing their constituents (as are all MPs), so if their constituents have made it clear to them that they do not want divorce then Marie-Louise Coliero should not be abstaining and Adrian Vassallo need not wait for Jesus to give him a call either.

I am intrigued as to why Ms Coliero made her announcement about abstaining on Wednesday, saying that Joseph Muscat had appointed her to a small group of MPs that will be working towards “tweaking the Bill” so that divorce would cause the least possible harm, if she had already told JM that she would not be standing at the next general election the day before?

The announcement that she would not be standing was made to the press on Thursday. Now this is not a minor backbencher backing off, but a shadow cabinet member, a former Labour Party leadership candidate and a former PL general secretary for many years. So all within the PL is not honky dory.

The dark side of the whole divorce issue was the name-calling and worse on both sides of the highly controversial public debate and it is appalling that Marie-Louise Coleiro had been threatened and slandered and her family had been intimidated because of her stand against divorce.

But it is also inexcusable that outrageous comments like: “No person, no MP can vote for it (divorce) without sinning seriously against God! Divorce is intrinsic evil and as such it admits of NO exception! Divorce is always a grave sin that separates the sinner from God and puts them on the path to hell  & and to hell for ever!”And “God will award the good and punish those who choose evil, like divorce, and this punishment will be in hell for ever if they don't repent before”, are still being posted on The Times online.

Labour MP Carmelo Abela who had joined Ms Coleiro in the against lobby, obviously is not intimidated by such threats of eternal damnation and has said that he would vote in favour, respecting the will of the people.

Now, apparently, Ms Coleiro is not the only one going to abstain on both sides of the House. The Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has said he would not exclude voting against or abstaining, while stressing that the will of the majority must prevail.

Now how is that going to happen with most MPs keeping their cards close to their chest and the Nationalist members confused and very wary about going against the PN hierarchy, who are mostly, if not all, against divorce?

On Tuesday Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, who had made it very clear that he was against divorce, told The Times “People voted for divorce, and it is parliament’s duty to have the law the people want. I will not be there to obstruct it,” adding “It’s important the law passes.”

So here is the PN’s quandary they know that they are in parliament to legislate according to the people wishes, which are in opposition to their own desires. Although there are some within the PN who might want to vote for the Bill to go through.

However, like the PM and other ministers Tonio Fenech did not say how he would be voting. While the PM reiterated that Nationalist MPs were being given a free vote, the undercurrent is murky and rumour has it that most do not want to be seen as being “disloyal to the Party’s stand”.

Transport Minister Austin Gatt, who had made it clear that he was against introducing divorce, on the other hand is not shilly-shallying and came straight out in a letter to the Times on Friday saying that he will vote against the Divorce Bill in Parliament.

"I have full respect for any other opposite and contradictory position but I cannot see how you can say that in conscience you are against divorce and then vote yes in Parliament!" Which, yet again, begs the question: Should MPs vote according to what they believe in, or what their constituents want and believe in?

I would have thought that the people who voted an MP in to represent them in parliament would want to see them do just that and not impose their personal beliefs.

Now for the Church, what is very clear is that confusion reigns within that powerful institution. The divorce debate has shown that while attempting to mystify the faithful it has only managed to confuse itself and is fast losing its grip.

It has demonstrated even more clearly that the Bishop of Gozo really wants to outdo Archbishop Cremona, who in turn seems to let the Pro-Vicar Mgr Anton Gouder be seen as the ‘bad guy’ while he appears benign.

Bishop Grech’s and the Pro-Vicar’s fire and brimstone threats of sin and exclusion, plus the maverick parish priest of Zebbug with his highly controversial billboards, not to mention the many leaflets with “Jesus Yes, Divorce No” posted in letter boxes combined with the Archbishops’ subtler message of accepting sufferance have been instrumental in bewildering the nation.

And the confused not knowing whether it was still a sin if one voted yes “according to one’s concious” abstained. Now we know why many of our MPs (mostly PN) will be abstaining. The PL can see a vote catcher in this one, so can the PN hence their current dilemma.

Others of course abstained because they were simply put off by the tactics of both sides of the debate. I could not work out whether the Curia’s apology, embargoed for last Sunday but released on Saturday, was issued because the Church was sure it was going to win and did not want to lose the people who voted “Yes”, or that it was beginning to fear that it was going to lose.

Can you imagine the wrangling that must have gone on between Archbishop Cremona and Gozo bishop Grech over their joint apology? As for the “No crusade” statement by Archbishop Cremona, it obviously has not sunk in deep enough that people are becoming more sophisticated.

While conceding, “although 30 to 40 years ago the Church was protected by culture, things have now changed”, he still thinks that people still believe a crusade is conducted with swords. “Swords were used to spread the gospel during the crusades in the Middle Ages,” he said on RTK also saying “to crusade meant to attack”.

But a crusade these days means vigorous concerted action to promote or eliminate something and that is exactly what was being done by the Church throughout the public debate on divorce.

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