This Blog has moved.

Kindly update your links and records.

Best regards.

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.

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 Strasbourg, 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 ....

I get a kick reading Mark Vella Feltrinelli's blog. I've decided it is one of the best, if not *the* best weblogs by a fellow Maltese citizen. Like myself he is one of the 80s generation who is still trying to come to terms with the period when he came of age and one of the small group of one-time-hopefuls who is analysing the present through a very disillusioned pair of eyes. I cannot but share most of his views about our crazy motherland who time and again ended up being raped by a bunch of filthy honourable politicians and now the mighty motley crew of 'media' figures.

His entries about the Mintoff era, especially the one narrating the (true) story of Korean dancers being taught to chant the then notorious socialist anthem "Ma taghmlu xejn mal-Perit Mintoff" is simply hilarious. What impressed me most in this entry was, however, Feltrinelli's similitude of Mintoff to Ceaucescu. I used to think that this kind of similitude - which I have often thought seriously about - was all nationalist propaganda crap. But now, seeing that even my dear Feltrinelli (who never voted PN as I did in 1987) is drawing the same conclusions I have put my mind to rest that I haven't been infected by the PN's propaganda machine in some Orwellian manner.

And then nostalgia creeps in. Some three winters ago, Feltrinelli and co, used to meet at the Gifen, Valletta, and, in the little hours, behind closed doors (obviously), used to indulge in spontaneous socialist nostalgia rituals, such as cacophonous choruses of old time socialist and nationalist chants archived from the 80s; Mintoff impersonations; and countless parodies of Eddie (aka Edward) catchphrases.

I have no doubt that many people my age who watched Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin last weekend had their share of socialist nostalgia as well. This is a very interesting socio-psychological phenomenon, which, like many other things, has not yet been analysed locally. In an interview I gave to Adrian Grima for babelmed.net last January I spoke about the nostalgia sweeping through former communist countries. While in Bratislava last December I was taken for a night out of bar hopping in the city centre, and my host was trying to amuse me by touring me to pubs like KGB, and others.

I don't know why exactly but these lines from the greatest Maltese poet, Victor Fenech, come reeling back to mind:

Be off Samuraj - may the worst curse fall upon you . I look at this land and I see nothing but your shadow: a frail people with glass eyes, silently witnessing the seven moons of havoc, babbling mutely the failed spring.

(apologies to Victor Fenech for my poor translation)

Twenty years ago, when the socialist regime in Malta was already preparing for its own funeral, the now defunct "ateatru" produced Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin (The Priests' Uprising) by Alfred Buttigieg, a Maltese playwright whose untimely decision to quit writing left a void in the political arts in Malta.

Theatre scholar Marco Galea has welcomed the revival of this play, being once again produced at the Manoel Theatre this weekend. In a commentary he wrote about The Priests' Uprising, Dr Galea made it quite clear that the present political and social situation in Malta is still very similar to that targeted by Alfred Buttigieg twenty years ago. Of course, some things did change: the socialists have since then, except for a few months, sat on the opposition benches, news headlines no longer report physical political violence, and Malta has joined the European Union. Yet, as the play shows in a very convincing manner, the Maltese people have basically remained a docile crowd that follows either one of the two main political parties, ready to accept whatever the leaders babble about in their notorious and monotonous Sunday sermons.

Buttigieg's masterpiece is an exception in Maltese theatre, in that it has not become outdated despite the twenty years that passed since it was staged for the first time. No other playwright has managed to put on stage a situation which, alas, is still very much the reality of present day Malta.

In his programme note Alfred Buttigieg puts forth a fundamental question: how true is it that Malta has changed since the mid 80s when, according to him, "for the first time, democracy was in peril"? The rest of his programme note seems to answer the question: not much has changed. At the beginning of the 21st century we are still being told by our honourable politicians that whatever they say is right and whatever the 'others' say is wrong; we still have the cult figures - often arrogant ones - who drum their ideas in the collective psyche; still the usual messages from the government's side that we need to do sacrifices for the sake of a healthier economy; still polarised.

A good number of artists and intellectuals who came of age in the 80s, such as Buttigieg and Marco Galea, often express a lack of faith that history might ever change. Despite the revised ending of the play - now giving some ray of hope that situations could one day turn brighter - Buttigieg's hunch that history keeps repeating itself proves this.

I was very glad to notice the large number of literature students at the Manoel. That too is, regrettably, a rarity here. When the play was first staged these weren't even born, and little do they know what it means to live in a country raped by a violent regime such as the old Socialist party. However, I am sure they could identify with the issues raised by the bunch of seminarians acting out the priests' uprising led by the priest Dun Gejtan Mannarino in 1775.

Even today, the Times carried out reports on the current tense situation at Safi Barracks, following Thursday's peaceful protests which turned bloody when the Army intervened. Today's reports say that after the morning incidents the immigrants at Safi staged another protest, and the Army reported that a soldier was badly hurt after stones were thrown at armed personnel by the immigrants.

I must say that I am not surprised by this. What really drew my attention was the aftermath of the protests and comments made by Maltese citizens regarding the issue.

The most appalling incident was the refusal of the Army to let anyone near the immigrants who were hospitalised. Michele Manca de Nissa, a UNHCR high official who happened to be visiting Malta, was not allowed near the injured immigrants. de Nissa was quoted as saying that the guards at the entrance of ward MS2 at St Luke's Hospital simply turned him away telling him that no one was allowed in the ward. Neither were the lawyers acting on behalf of the Jesuit Refugee Service given permission to talk to their hospitalised clients. This was even worse! When eventually these lawyers were granted permission, the guards were ordered to accompany them and take down notes of whatever was said between lawyers and clients. The abominable way these immigrants were treated after being beaten elicits very bad memories of a not so distant past.

A number of organisations issued statements in reaction to the bloody incidents at Hal Safi. What amazed was the statement released by the Christian Democrat Students' Movement (SDM). The democratic students of Christian inspiration had the audacity to "commend the AFM personnel for their work and augurs that such incidents shall not occur frequently" [my italics.]

The Times issued reports of reactions by a number of Maltese citizens too. Most noteworthy was the reaction of a soldier's wife who was quoted as saying that she is constantly worried about her husband's safety since he has been posted at Safi Barracks. This lady reported that the immigrants are a constant threat to the soldiers guarding them, often turning violent and are a dangerous lot.

All this results from the carelessness and gross mishandling of the issue by the Maltese Government. One simply cannot cram hundreds of people who left their war torn countries, faced peril at sea and now the bleakest of futures, in a confined space and expect them to stay put until god knows when, without even informing them of what their situation is.

In this whole issue, the Maltese government seems to have overseen one very simple fact: immigrants are human beings.

Macbeth, Act2 Scene 3

This morning The Times (Malta) published harrowing pictures of Maltese soldiers beating refuge seekers who were participating in a peaceful protest at the Safi Military Barracks where they are currently detained. The pictures speak for themselves: riot squad personnel surrounding a black immigrant lying helpless on the ground. The heavily armed soldiers do not look as if they are trying to lift the man from the ground. Not at all. So much so two of these soldiers are in fact pressing the protestor to the ground with their boots, while another one hits him with his baton.

I must admit it is not these pictures which intrigued me most. Riot personnel are notorious for their rough handling of human beings. The Times reported other incidents which took place at the barracks during and after the protest, and others which took place at the hospital where some of the worst beaten protestors were eventually taken for medical assistance.

Times' reporters heard soldiers urging their colleagues in the thick of the action to "smash those black's faces" and to hit them "in the head".

The protestors were holding a peaceful protest, chanting pleas for freedom while hanging non-offensive banners to the fencing closing the detention centre.

At St Luke's Hospitalsoldiers were spinning up their version to sympathetic Maltese citizens that the refuge seekers started it all.

The Times also reported that Maltese citizens at the hospital thought it was all the immigrants' fault and they should have never stepped on the sacred island.

What's worse was that the Jesuit Refugee Service was denied access to immigrants who were kept at St Luke's.

As one should expect, AI, was prompt to protest against this barbarous act with the Maltese Government. The international human rights movement has been expressing concern over the Maltese Government's (ill)treatment of refuge seekers, particularly its detention policy and the delays in processing the legal procedures related to asylum applications.

Re-reading the reports published by The Times and by AI, certain points come to the fore:

* the general feeling and reaction to these immigrants are in stark contrast with the myth of Malta as a safe haven where everyone's welcome to stay;

* not only are the armed forces ill-trained for the daily running of the detention centres, but a large number of armed forces personnel are simply blood thirsty, waiting for the right moment to vent out their frustrations on poor, unarmed and helpless refuge seekers;

* Malta denies certain basic human rights, such as the right to express one's concerns and one's pleas for freedom (the most basic of human rights);

* it strikes me as odd, very odd, that the same society which boasts of having collected so many food and medicinal items and money for the tsunami victims, embraces fascist elements who are ready to "smash the blacks' faces" and then play the victims' part.

2nd January 2005. 9pm

I just returned from Slovakia. Been travelling since 8am: taxi from Jana's flat to Vrutky train station; train trip from Vrutky to Bratislava; taxi from Bratislava train station to bus station; coach trip from Bratislava to Vienna Airport; flight KM513 from Vienna to Gudja; car drive from Gudja to Tarxien, where I picked my Gelsomina and then drove home.

One of the first things I learned soon after I met my sister Violet at the arrivals was that Kyra, my other sister Carmen's four year old cat, died on 1st January. The sinister details of Kyra's sudden death are the following: sister Carmen invited the whole family (bar me who was still in Slovakia) for a New Year's party. Kyra, being one of the most asocial home cats I ever met, stayed in a room away from the merry makers. The last to leave the party was my other sister Violet (the one who picked me from the airport). Thinking everyone was off, Kyra walked all the way to the front door - much to the surprise of Carmen, Violet and their spouses - and enjoyed being fondled by all. Kyra walks back. Violet and hubby say the last Happy New Year by the front door and leave. Carmen walks back to the kitchen where she finds Kyra strayed in the middle of the corridor, eyes wide open and shining green, motionless. They immediately realise Kyra's dead. Massive heart attack. So everyone's saying.

Requiescant in Pacem, Kyra.

Needless to say, Carmen and all her family are in mourning.

I wrote about Kyra because her demise led me into an old habit of mine: thinking of death on New Year's. The list of friends and acquaintances who passed away in 2004 is sadly quite long. And looking forward to 2005 I wonder who will be next to depart. I have my private fears about this. At the same time my mind is also preoccupied with the harrowing scenes of the aftermath of the tsunami in south Asia. Harrowing. The scenes are also a reminder that man does not rule the world after all.

Ok, so I've decided to keep my word and post another entry re my Brussels visit.

The round table conference was a great experience. There were writers, journalists and literary critics from the Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, and Hungary. Together we discussed which step to take next in order to solidify the cultural dimension of the united Europe. The conference confirmed my impression that each time writers from different EU states meet the point which calls the hottest debate is the lack of union of the EU. The point mostly stressed was the divide that ex-Communist countries refer to between the West and the East. A Polish translator/publisher kept begging the point that the West keeps trying to westernise the East. On the other hand, the Dutch critic who was also chairing the conference pointed out that there are more contemporary Eastern European writers being translated into Western languages than vice-versa. This is also my impression. However, what struck me most was that - as usual - while the East-West divide gets somehow to the agenda, the North-South is never tackled. In paractical terms, Malta and Cyprus never feature. Which for me is a huge disappointment of course. I mean, I am well aware of what is being written in Poland, but how many Poles know what we or the Cypriots are producing?

Of course, the buzz word is translation. Many Westerners feel, and I would say truly feel, the need to become acquainted with the whole of Europe's literature. Given the multitude of languages used by Europeans there must be a concerted effort of creating possibilities to have these 'lesser known' literatures translated.

But, as I said, the conference was great. I just hope that once it is over, something gets done. We had a superb dinner in the basement of the building housing the Vlaams Nederlands Huis, which was attired with theatre paraphernalia, making the place warmer and more attractive. I shared table with dutch writer Maarten Ascher - a great man who made the night even more enjoyable, a Czech writer (regrettably I already forgot his name) who gave me a curious version of the story of the bomb which fell over the Mosta Dome (I won't go into that now) and others.

Right, so that was it. Or almost.

Yesterday my good friend and once-publisher Mark Vella (or as I like to call him - much to his delight - Feltrinelli) got a train to Brussels from Luxembourg where he is currently based to visit me. We met, of course, at the Grande Place. At noon. It was freezing cold. He took me (and I'm saying this because he paid - he's become a benestant you know) to Pizza Hut. Bloody Pizza Hut!!! But that's the cheapest outlet. We talked about our motherland ... usual complaints, usual disappointments, usual bla bla. In the evening we met Arnold, the general secretary of the European Greens, who did his utmost to tour me round the European Parliament. That was the most boring place I've ever been to. It is even more boring than the Junior College! Well, maybe it is not that boring, but the I am allergic to the corridors of power.

Then we had dinner at a Sicilian trattoria downtown Brussels.

Then Feltrinelli got a train back to Luxembourg, Arnold went home, and I was back to room 336 at the Metropole. Stayed up late reading. Got up early morning yesterday and got the wrong train. It is the second time which this happened to me in a matter of six months. Last June, while in Slovakia, I got a train to Ukraine instead to Bratislava! All this is reminding me that I soon turn forty. Other mishaps during the Brussels trip: I bought a book from Gudja airport and left it at Malpensa, I lost a silver chain given to me by Passaporta Writers Association (Brussels), lost a gift I bought to Jana, and took the wrong seat on the plane from Brussels to Malpensa and again from Malpensa to Malta. I must really be getting old!

One other thing which struck me: everyone knows my great great fear of flying. I just cannot get used to it despite the many trips I make annually. But flying over the Alps from Brussels to Malpensa yesterday was sheer bliss. It was an experience which a person goes through once in a lifetime I think. The beauty of it all! Goodness! I even caught myself wishing that the flight would take much much longer!

Now I'm back to the Rock. No more room 336.

I'm posting this entry from the Metropole Hotel in Brussels. Outside it is freezing cold. Arrived late in the afternoon and after checking in at this hotel went straight to the Grande Place where the Christmas spirit is already at its best. I've been invited here for a round table conference hosted by the Vlaams Nederlands Huis, this being the closing month of the Netherlands' EU presidency. Tomorrow the participants will be discussing the 'next step' of their (our) respective countries' membership in the EU from a cultural point of view.

I may be posting something about tomorrow's conference if I feel like it. For the time being I am glad to be here, the capital of Europe, as the shops selling EU souvenirs make it a point to announce.

Strolling across the Grande Place was almost dreamlike. It was like excavating the past memories when, as a child, I used to be mesmerized by Christmas cards depicting white Christmases from some foreign land which looked so beautiful albeit alien. Obviously these 'white' Christmas cards, were nothing but the colonial inheritance which, to this day, we have not rid ourselves of. It's odd that people living in a mediterranean island send eachother Christmas cards with reindeers, snowy hills and little cottages amidst forests. It still happens today. I wonder if Australians do the same.

It's getting quite late. I think I should have a hot bath and go to sleep.

My country never ceases to amaze me. Over sixty years ago it was blitzed (and as we like adding but not beaten!) by Fascist and Nazi planes. During one heavy air raid, the opera house, which stood magnificently (or not, depending on one's architectural tastes) almost at the very entrance of the capital city, was demolished.

Sixty years on, the site is still in ruins! (This is a poor country. It can't afford to erect a new opera house.)

When the Nationalists returned to power after a sixteen years hiatus on the opposition benches, they came in full force promising everyone to give a much needed facelift to the country. Objective number one was the capital city, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980. There were so many projects pipelined, so many reports, and even competitions for best designs, that one needs a full time historian to get a clear picture of the very tangled web of proposals and counter proposals about the embellishment of the capital, with particular focus set on the the main entrance. Since I am not a historian, I shall not even endeavor to give an account myself. Suffice it to say that at one point even world renowned architect Renzo Piano was in some way involved.

On Millennium night the capital city experienced a great event: the opening of the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity (yes a baroque title, but that's typically Maltese!) This centre is housed at a construction built by the Knights of St John - back in the 16th century - which originally served as a raised gun-platform. Before being refurbished it housed the government's printing press.

The Millennium Project - as the opening of the Creativity Centre was tagged - was intended to include the building of the new opera house instead of the one demolished by enemy aircraft. There was no agreement, however, as to whether the opera house had to have the original design or something new. What is important at this stage is that the site was destined to have a new opera house built on it.

Then all was forgotten. For a number of years.

Until yesterday!

Yesterday morning, The Times (of Malta) reported that while having a business breakfast, Jesmond Mugliett (formerly Minister of Culture, now minister of Urban Development), announced that this site will not, after all, be destined to have a new theatre constructed on, but ... you won't believe this ... a new parliament! The honourable reasoning of the honourable minister follows these lines: theatres cost more than parliaments.

Ah yes, this is a poor country - now - and it can't afford to erect a new theatre.

So, in the second world war, it was the Luftwaffe which ruined our theatre, in the new century it was the Government. For a second time the opera house was demolished. It's almost understandable that the Luftwaffe would throw bombs to demolish the country, after all we were at war with them. But to have a minister of your own government, and to top it all an ex-minister of CULTURE, declare war on the country's arts, is ... what shall I call this?

Fair enough, our illustrious parlamentarians need a new place where they could meet to pass the time playing cats and dogs. But why choose that place? Maybe they could build a new house of representatives somewhere near Maghtab ... there are lovely views of the sea there.

That's how I spent my weekend.

Saturday morning I woke up planning to do one million things. It's like that with every end of the week. Not that I labour much during weekdays, I mean I spend it doing what I have been doing for the past ten years: talking about Maltese literature to young people who are most probably not interested in it. Anyhow, I have to make a living, right? It's not that I look forward for weekends. I have come to a point where I find no difference at all, except for the fact that I can stay on my own on weekends. I cherish the solitude weekends bring with them. Sometimes I think I suffer from social phobia, but it is not like that at all. It is simply that I am a loner: and I am in love with my solitude, and thank goodness I am in love with myself. My study is my haven: my hundreds of books, my hundreds of cd's, Cornelius, the pictures hanging on the walls ... it is simply a haven. And apart from the music I play on the stereo, it is so splendidly silent.

Saturday evening is equally a bliss. It grows dark, naturally, and the candle light in my room and in the adjacent living room, gives such a warm feeling. The only thing missing is cold weather. It's still 30C and we're in October!

At 37 years of age, I have already accumulated enough memories to occupy my time with. Yesterday evening I was thinking about my trip to Hungary in 1992, which in a way opened the doors to Eastern Europe for me. I also thought about a friend of mine, now living abroad, who used to live in a house called Tincliff.

Then I realised the weekend was over.

Those who know me well know I am the youngest in the family. I have four brothers, three sisters ... all older than me. What no one knows is that I have adopted a little brother I call Cornelius. He moved in with me on 11 September 2001. Can't really forget that date, can I?

I think Cornelius is cute. He's my little brother after all. My fraternal instinct seems to be growing ever stronger and I try to take as good care of him as possible. I try. Cornelius and I are also good buddies. We communicate for long hours every day, sometimes till very late at night. Sometimes less than that. And the relationship is going strong, for I confide in Cornelius practically eveything. He knows which internet sites I visit most, and which is my favourite. He even reads my email. I let him do that, besides letting him see all the photos I take, and read to him all the things I write. Everything.

Then last week, I called Cornelius but he wouldn't utter a word. I thought he was in a bad mood since birds of a feather tend to flock together. I tried all the tricks to woo him into talking at least, but to no avail. I realised he was also acting in a funny way. So I took him straight to hospital. To my dismay, the casualty medical officer advised me to leave Cornelius there for a couple of days. He told me it could be very serious since he presumed it had something to do with his brain. Brain?! I didn't have much choice so there I gave a sad look to Cornelius and waved goodbye. It was serious. I wasn't even let to visit him, and instead of two days he finished spending ten in hospital. I phoned every day to see how he was faring.

Now he's back home. With me. I never knew before this incident, how important my little brother has become to me. I missed him terribly, especially during the long hours when usually we sat and talked. I wonder if he missed me as much. I very much doubt it. I'm realising that our relationship is far from an ideal one, in that it seems to me to be one sided. I mean he knows everything about me, but I hardly know him. He knows me inside out: as I said, he reads my mail, he reads my notes, etc etc.

Right, it's getting late. Cornelius looks a bit bored and maybe he's sleepy. So this is all for now. One last thing: should you be interested to see how cute Cornelius is just follow this link.

There is this simpleton called Ivan, lost in the underground labyrinth somewhere beneath the surface of the earth. He asks his way to Yugoslavia and this soldier answers him: Nema Jugoslavia! For citizens of former Yugoslavia who proclaimed themselves as Yugoslavs, that line from Emir Kusturica's great film Underground, must have been the harshest yet most true.

It does not exist anymore. But unlike the history of Czechoslovakia (another defunct country), the Yugoslav curtain fall was tragic and shameful. No need to go over the story again, also because I have realised that there is more than one story, and the more you listen to stories, the more you become confused, considering the different interpretations given - according to who is telling the story.

This summer I visited two former Yugoslav republics: Croatia and Slovenia. Slovenia, considered by many as the most interesting and dynamic country to join the EU last May, may have already shed away the memories of a previous era. May have. I walked many times through Trubarjeva Cesta - the road taking you right in the heart of Ljubljana - where I could see many graffiti praising Tito and damning the EU as a capitalist dictatorial system. But that could well be interpreted as nostalgia, a psycho-social phenomenon sweeping through most former-communist countries. Talk of the former country hardly ever crops up. After all, Slovenes fought no war except for ten days, and they emerged victorious. And now they have even joined the EU.

With Croats the story is totally different. Should the subject of war be brought about, you are bound to listen many hate stories. They simply hate the Serbs for 'what they have done to us'. What struck me most was that whatever story you hear, Croats never seem to admit any wrong doings. Obviously I am generalising. Obviously I am expressing the impressions I had. And it is also very obvious that not all Croats are like that. Take Slavenka Draculic for instance. In her last book, And They Would Never Hurt a Fly, Drakulic analyses the psyches of the main actors who perpetrated the Yugoslav tragedy, now standing trial at ICTY. And there have been Croats among these butchers. And Slavenka writes about these too. Some Croats don't like Slavenka, considering her as some kind of traitor of her country.

I was sharing a room in a hotel during a conference held in a Croatian village with a Croat; an extremely intelligent young man some years younger than me. He lived through the war and was even conscripted. Knowing his open mindedness and lack of nationalist fervour, one night I asked him point blank what exactly led to the Mostar events. It was the very night the legendary bridge was re-inaugurated. I saw a face going blank and his only answer was: "I simply don't know."

While I'm writing this, the people of Bosnia Hercegovina are going to the polls to elect new municipal governments. These are the first local elections to be organised entirely by Bosnian authorities since the war ended in 1995. Only yesterday, however, the BBC reported a very sad incident. Bosnian Serbs, hundreds of them, prevented Muslim women from placing a memorial plaque on a building which during the war was used as a rape camp. Riot police had to intervene as some 200 Bosnian Serbs pelted the Muslim women with eggs and stones. The women, some of whom where rape victims themselves, had to place the plaque somewhere else. Symbolically it was yet another Bosniak defeat.

While writing this with a heavy heart, I remind myself of Svetlana Broz's book Good People in Evil Time. Svetlana Broz, one of Josip Broz Tito's grandchildren, who among other activities presides over the Sarajevo branch of the Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide, reproduces a large number of verbatim interviews with Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks who during the madness of the 'ethnic conflict' sweeping through former Yugoslavia, were helped by their 'enemies', making the point that the ethnic conflict was far from a 'popular' phenomenon. Some touching, others dramatic, these testimonies give the reader a ray of hope that not all human beings are evil.

But still, last Thursday Muslim women were pelted with eggs and stones for trying to keep their history alive.

Last May, Emir Kusturica's most recent work started showing. Life is a Miracle is more than just a glance at the war in Bosnia. Born in Sarajevo in 1954, Kusturica is the mad poet par excellence projecting the beauty he sees in the background of the tragedy which his deceased country went through a decade ago. And in Kusturica's films - and definitely in this last one - tragedy encounters humour and irony rules supreme. According to Kusturica, the Yugoslav tragedy had nothing to do with religous beliefs, but rather with the rise of capitalism in his once communist country. The question motivating the war, Kusturica says in a recent interview, was: "who was going to own the capacity of the country? Some big multinational or some domestic crooks?" Religion and ethnic conflict, were, according to Kusturica's view, just the tip of a huge iceberg.

There are books and films which, for some reason or another, "change your life". Well, I wouldn't say they actually change your life, but definitely they leave a mark, and, perhaps, they set you to change your life. Before age 16 I never read a book, but when I was in my first year at high school studying Maltese, English and Philosophy I had to read Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, a mammoth book by my former standards. Its effect on me was to change me into a heavy reader, and this happened quite suddenly and almost automatically.

However, if I were to single out the source which could have changed my life, I'd pick Alan Parker's cinematographic presentation of Pink Floyd's The Wall. I watched it for the first time a few days after I enrolled in high school, I was 16 and basically had no idea who I was and where I was heading in life. That period followed my summer of initiation: drink, long nights out, sex, and an encounter with the underworld and its inhabitants. I knew Pink Floyd's The Wall by heart, I had even translated "Another Brick in the Wall" - that famous 1980s students' anthem, to Maltese which we used to sing on the bus going back home when were twelve or thirteen. But the images projected in Parker's film changed my vision of The Wall, from a mere set of hip lyrics and great riffs, to serious analysis of the world around. I watched the film on my own in one September afternoon in 1983, in a practically empty cinema hall which does not exist any more in Valletta, and went back home shaken. Basically, the first thing that set me into thinking was the fact that like Pink, I was the son of a WWII veteran, decorated for service and courage. Unlike Pink's, though, my father did not die in action...but almost. Like Pink, I often spent moments staring at my father's medals which were hung prominently in the entrance to our tiny house (and which I have inherited since and hung them in my living room). Like Pink, I often wondered if I could be a replica of my father's, but never managed since psychologically I was miles away from him, despite the fact that I always held him as my hero. Like Pink I was mother's child. I remember I was so moved by the film and by these observations that I bought chocolates to my parents on returning home, then went straight up to bed weeping!

That was twenty years ago, and since then so many things have changed: my mother passed away, my father is going through the sufferings of old age, and a wall has since been pulled down. A few days ago I bought the live version of The Wall, performed in July 1990 at Potzdamer Platz, shortly after the disappearance of the notorious Berlin Wall. Memories came reeling back, images and shots in flashback form. Images of the wall crumbling down in 1989, images of a bygone era, of a bygone world. And the train of events preceding and following the fall of the wall.

And all this thanks to a film.

Later on, another significant encounter: Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique, which led into an assidiuous exploration of this Polish director's ouvre. Watching Kieslowski's Decalogue, however, proved to be another significant event in my life, not so much for the plots as for the drab environment the camera introduces the viewer to: the monotony, the dismal shots of a place which seems to be crying in your face, the brownness and greyness of it all! Kieslowski's Polish films served me as a preview of the things I had to see in the outskirts of Prague, Brno, Warsaw (obviously!), but also in the not-so-romantic parts of Paris, such as the Chinatown area.

Yet another journalist asking for an interview in the light of my little country's accession to the EU. I'm tempted to start believing that Malta is in fact important to our fellow Europeans...surely from a cultural standpoint.

In his email, the Italian journalist working for Swiss radio RTSI asked me to relate the "reality of the city of Paceville, its contradictions in with such a strong history and present". Fine, I thought, this could be "it".

Paceville, for those who know nothing about it, is the leisure capital of Malta, with a myriad of pubs, discotheques (or in 21st century jargon, clubs), cinemas, pizzerias, restaurants and what not, which, on weekends welcomes thousands of young and not so young revellers aiming to wash away the boredom of the rest of the week gone by. Ah, I almost forgot, there is also a Church cum Catholic centre aimed for young people searching for a soul amidst the din ... as if the Catholic Church, ever so eager to resist its extinction, was going to abdicate from such a fertile land! Now that would be a fine example of Maltese contradiction!

I have no idea when Paceville was established  as the leisure capital. I myself have known it since my teen years. Leafing through some newspapers from the 70s I found some notorious references to the place. Notorious? Yes sure, Paceville makes the headlines every so often with youngsters arrested for drug possession (nowadays it's coke or ecstasy but back then it was hash or speed), brawls, and the occasional murder. It seems it was like that too back in the 70s. It is the place where the night is always young, where loud noise is always on the agenda, where girls dress the most revealing of outfits, where boys tend to turn macho when the occasion arises, where alcohol is consumed by the tonnes. It is all that, and most probably not much more.

Occasionally it is visited by two opposing bands of people: writers and politicians. The latter make sure to pay a visit when they are campaigning for elections - it is good to become accustomed, once in a while, to the young world and make the best of it to win a couple of hundreds of votes. Writers, on their part, have turned Paceville into a kind of paradigm which proves to be rather fruitful. I myself have indulged in this, so did Joseph, sive Guze' Stagno, and even the elderly Frans Sammut and someone else whose name I can't recall. Now it seems that even European journalists have been attracted to the spot.

Paceville is a paradigm after all. It offers countless opportunities to study what the hell is going on in this island. Because it is not just band clubs, religious processions, passion plays for lent, fund raising activities for the needy political parties and so forth that shape the 'cultural' map of the island. It is also, or rather most prominently Paceville City and its citizens.

It is, in a way, a microcosm of Maltese society. Some outlets are frequented by teenies, others by twenty something, others thirty or even forty plus. Other outlets are for headbangers (yes that lot is not extinct yet), some for ravers (oh gosh!), some for god-knows-what. There is also class demarcation of course, because class, albeit out of the political and academic agenda, is still very much there. And as I pointed out above, there is also place for some religious minority.

I may be visiting Paceville soon, thanks to this Italian journalist. I'm sure I'll have shivers going down my spine because Paceville was never my thing. Maybe I'm too much of a snob to hang around the leisure city.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a journalist from the French magazine L'Express, who is currently conducting a series of interviews with writers hailing from the new EU member states. Among the many subjects we spoke about, the journalist was particularly interested in the Mediterranean character of the Maltese islands.

The Mediterranean paradigm seems to be attracting not only journalists but also other interested people who are eyeing closely the smallest member state of the EU after 1 May 2004. For me this paradigm is rather confusing, in that it expects a Mediterranean country to be very different, very distinct, from the rest of the European countries lying elsewhere along the continent.

What the differences are or should be I honestly do not know. And the more time passes the less clear this distinction gets.

There are various cliches about Mediterranean countries. Some say they are so colourful ... whatever that might mean. Others say that the Mediterranean is a region bubbling with passion and emotion. Others see it as a troublesome region since it is the melting pot of three main monotheistic religions. And others still feel there is a lot of magic around the Mediterranean, given the very ancient civilisations which originated from it.

However true all this is, one cannot be so categoric. Colour can be seen in every part of the world, even in the drabbest snowy parts of the continent. Passion is, in my view, a basic human characateristic which may manifest itself in different ways but is always there. And, if the Mediterranean is the melting pot of three monotheistic religions, which it is, other parts of Europe are the melting pot of other religions. Talking about religion, one cannot but think of Bosnia Herzegovina for instance where two branches of Christianity and Islam also intersect and interact.

Travelling through Slovakia earlier on this year, I could not help noting how 'insular' the Slovak way of life is, despite the country not having one drop of sea around. Spending a couple of Saturday evenings in local village bars an hour away from Bratislava, I could also notice the jolly, festive and colourful character of the locals. The same things I noticed when I was in Sarajevo, and also in the Polish village of Kazimiers Dolny.

Yet, if one were to go microscopic in the analysis, then size would make a difference. Malta is tiny, so tiny that you can see the edge from almost any part of the island. And this has a very evident effect on one's perception of distance. Of course, distance, like so many other things in life, is relative. A one hour drive from the South of Malta to the northernmost point feels much much longer than a one hour trip by rail from one city to another in mainland Europe.

Distance must have an effect on the people's psyche. I have no doubt about that. The smaller the size the less one gets worried about time, for example. While many would regard the Maltese laid-back character as a sort of laziness or, worse, indiscipline, I think that this particularity is wholly related to size/distance. There is hardly any problem of getting late, so why should one worry after all?

All countries are different, fair enough. And the wider the comparison, the more pronounced the differences get. Comparing Malta say to Finland, is bound to illustrate my point. Comparing Malta to Italy, the differences become blurred and next to minimal.

And hence the difference between difference and distinction. Trying to put the Mediterranean region in a distinct class of its own, is, in my view, a mistake which calls to be remedied.

In one of a myriad of interviews he gave, the French philosopher Michel Fouault, once said that intellectuals do not exist. Obviously, those who know Foucault's work and the spirit driving it, will immediately comprehend that these words conceal a whole theory, and that is not just another slogan.


Two Thursdays ago an intellectual died at 67. He was born in a country to a high class family, but never returned to that place after the family left to live in another country. The family had taken a drastic decision after something terrible happened to their homeland.

He then went to study in the United States where he lived until his death, and where he worked (at the University of California). He lived an 'interesting' life. He wrote about his country - that which ceased to be his - about his race - that which ceased to be understood - and about English literature - that which he studied and mastered in. He was also a member of the parliament-in-exile of his nation. He slammed a political agreement signed by his nation and resigned from the post of MP. Once he threw a rock in the direction of a guard post. If you look at his portrait above, you won't think him violent. He threw it because he was an intellectual. Still, in its obituary, the influential Al-Jazeerah, reported this anecdote, adding that the intellectual did not throw the rock *at* the guard, but threw it in keeping with the tradition of the people living near the Lebanon-Israel border. Media can never be neutral.

Edward Said was born in Palestine. Like many fellow citizens he finished living in exile. A Palestinian with an untypical name: a Christian name for all that; his family and himself being Christians. But he was an Arab, and remained such till his last breath. He remained a Palestinian: hurt not only by the way Israelis tore down his people, but also by agreement signed by his nation's representatives which, he claimed, backfired against the same nation they administered. Hurt on various grounds: he realised how racist the West is in dealing with his country and his race, how the accounts given by the West are full of stereotypes and cliches; besides giving a mistaken view of this ancient race which in the past was best known for producing genii. Hurt also beause he did not live to see his ideal materialise: to have one nation inhabited by two peoples: Palestinians and Palestinian Jews.

He was a hurt intellectual.

An exile who worked hard to give his people a home, to share it with the 'others' who shoot at them. To have a home. He worked in exile, because he wholeheartedly believed in equality and in humanity.

After his death many were those who lauded him. Even Yasser Arafat, who was not on Said's good books, exclaimed that this intellectual was one who believed in human freedom and in individual rights. Contrary to what many perceive, Said was never an anti-Israeli. He appreciated the fact that Jews had been themselves victims: that his people was a victims' victim.

The boldest witness to this was Daniel Barenboim, the Jewish musical prodigy of Russian descent, who tried to convince Israelis to play Wagner in Israel, and who with Said co-founded the orchestra of Arab and Israeli young musicians. " shall never forget his making a room full of young Arabs, Israelis and Germans understand that the devil exists in all of us."

This, I firmly believe, is the most wonderful piece of art. A lying lady who has been asleep for some three thousand - some even say four thousand - years. She is not dead, just sleeping. She may also be dreaming: a dream so beautiful that she has never woken up.


The Sleeping Lady, of which I have a cheap replica on my writing desk at home, has always fascinated me. Measuring 7cmX12cmX6.89cm and found lying in the Holy of Holies, presumably the most important part of the Hypogeum, the underground temple discovered by chance in Paola in 1902, has been the subject of numerous inquiries. The Lady prompted different people in musing about her, trying to unravel the mystery of the statuette's symbolism. These people range from prominent archaeologists to New Age freaks.

Theories centre around the belief that there must have been a matriarchal society living on the island back then. So, the lady could have been a symbol of Mother Earth, or a symbol of fertility. Some would also consider the statuette as the embodiment of some Goddess, and in fact some people prefer to refer to the statuette as the Dreaming Goddess. (Needless to say, this title is very much popular with New Age Women's groups who would be very angry if they read what follows.) Given that the place it was found at was an underground temple turned necropolis, some smart guys consider the lady to be the personification of death...not death in the sense of end, but death as an eternal sleep which carries your soul away from the sleeping body to some other place in the beyond. What a striking contrast this portly lady makes to the post-Christian image of death as a fleshless, cynically smiling skeleton.

Being a downright materialist, I suspect that in interpreting the life and times of our ancestors, we tend to over do it sometimes; we tend to put our preoccupations, our desires and wishes into their works of art. Maybe we miss too much the idea of having a religion; or we indulge too much in some kind of faith we have. Or we try to find the meaning of the actual in the primordial. Let's face it, it is so very trendy it seems to be esoteric. And we might even romanticise those poor ancestors of ours and attribute some noble, spiritual or even religious meaning to every single thing they left behind. Thus, the statutette must have been an object of some cult, must have been an embodiment of some deity, must have personified the beyond...she was all that, or some of that, or something like that. We almost treat the statuette as if heavenly sent.

Which brings me to the other point. To my knowledge, no one ever speaks of the sculptor, the creator of this sleeping lady, of the genius who made it. We speak about her - the lady - as if she was eternal, not from human born. Who was the sculptor? Was he some priest who wanted to sustain an aura around him by creating this statuette? Was she some priestess who created this effigy to show to her people? Was the sculptor some kind of teacher? Or was the sculptor simply an artist who one evening, caught sight of this woman who, after a whole day of hitting the limestone with a piece of flint to construct the underground temple, lied down dead tired and instantly fell asleep? Was this statuette the product of a magical moment of artistic frenzy of some sculptor who bewildered by the beauty of this strong woman, grabbed some clay and started etching to re-create her in matter, started picturing the tired, sleeping lady? Or should we muse that the sculptor looked lustfully at this fat, half naked woman (she only wears a skirt) and all sexed-up captured the moment, the image? Could the lady, after all, far from having been a Goddess, been an object of lust? I mean men like women and men like men, and women like men and like women...

What if, in five hundred years time, a Maltese bloke decides to dig his stairway to the centre of the earth, and in the process discovers a statuette of a sleeping man, lying on his left side?

A week ago I was in Parma, together with 24 other young authors from the so called New Europe. Gremese Editore published an anthology of short stories, one from each EU member states, Racconti Senza Dogana. This was an initiative of PEN Club Italia, on the occasion of Italy's EU presidency.

I was there.


Someone wrote a press release saying that I was "representing Malta", an expression which, I have to admit, struck me as very odd. I mean in Parma I did not feel I was representing my country at all. If anything, my story published in Racconti Senza Dogana was representing *my self*.

The concept of representing one's country is strange, especially if you find yourself doing it without really intending to. I mean I was contacted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Malta, asking me if I was interested to write a short story to be published in this anthology and that was it. But "representing" one's country is, according to me, a totally different concept.

Secondly, I wonder if I *want to* represent Malta. What for? Is it that gorgeous to represent your country? Is it honourable? Does one *have to*? And what if one has an uncomfortable relationship with one's country?

There is a castle in this little village called Compiano, a province in Parma. We were there, the 25 of us. There were also high profile personalities, parading like middle-aged Versace models. There was also widely known poetess Alda Merini, a contradiction to the posh environment we were in (thank Goodness). We were invited to a concert. A very melodramatic pianist playing Chopin. His gestures and mannerisms made one think that he was on the verge of dying a hero's death on the keyboard! Speaking of death, he was playing Chopin's funeral march, when all of a sudden .... someone's mobile phone rang, that horrible, lousy Nokia tune!

Hello. I am Immanuel Mifsud from Malta. It is Sunday 14th September 2003. It's my first day of the blog. Here I intend to keep an irregular diary and post some comments about things which bug me and others which please me. If you are intersted you can also visit my website. m