Sometimes I wonder what universe some people live in. We have a million problems we could choose to worry about – pollution, crazed old men raping little boys, national powercuts, endless potholes – but apparently according to the Luqa local council the most pressing issue for their locality at the moment is the relocation of the Colonna Mediterranea monument from a local roundabout. They think that if the Pope lays eyes on the tubular sculpture he will think that we are a bunch of sexual deviants.
What started off as an April fool’s joke has morphed into ridiculous reality, gaining international exposure in the process. The news of our phallic problem was picked up by several news agencies and was published in the UK, US, France, and who knows how many other places. The country can use some international PR, but frankly I am not sure that this is the kind of message that we want to send out to the world.
What I found most amusing about the whole debacle was the statement made by Luqa Mayor John Schembri. According to him Malta “is considered to be the most Catholic country in the world.”
If that is the case, then the Catholic Church has a serious problem on its hands for let’s fact it, the Maltese are no paragons of Catholicism!
Recently the local Curia’s ‘Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times’ published the results of its 2005 census, which showed that on census day only 50% of the Maltese public attended Sunday mass. The other half of the population had better things to do. The trend is that every year less and less people are going to mass, so I am sure that by now, five years after the census was held, less than 50% of the population are going to church on Sundays.
Furthermore a survey published by this newspaper at the beginning of April found that 53.4% favour the introduction of divorce, 69% disagree with the Church’s stand against condoms, 66% of under-35s disagree with the Church’s views on sex before marriage and 57% reject dogma on Papal infallibility.
So much for Malta Cattolicissima!
Shooting at anything that flies Spring hunting has always been a highly divisive issue, with the 10,000 registered hunters and their families being firmly for this “national pastime” and the great majority of the rest of the population being against.
I am one of the ones who have mixed feelings about hunting. I have no problem with those who practice the sport legally, shooting only at those birds they should be shooting at. It is the cowboys I don’t like – the ones who shoot at anything that flies.
News of the shooting of rare birds, such as the pallid harrier that was shot on Easter Sunday makes me sick. Here we have an extremely rare bird classified as a Species of Conservation Concern and also as Near Threatened under the Global Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, shot while trying to roost in fields near Ghadira. Records show that there are between five and 51 breeding pairs of this bird in Europe – now we can strike one off that number courtesy of some illegal Rambo hunter.
Unfortunately the rest of the hunting population get caught in the bad press generated by stories such as the one above (or that of the black-winged stilts, also a protected species, that were shot on the same day in Marsalforn) so they did not get much sympathy. They do not seem to understand this, claiming that it is unfair that they all get tarred with the same brush.
The reality is that common perception is against them and it is not going to change unless FKNK does something concrete to stem the tide of popular opinion, such as for example naming and shaming members who shoot protected birds (sure beats naming and shaming those who applied for the spring hunting licence!). Ultimately hunters have had years on end to prove that they can self-regulate and they have failed abjectly in this regard. If they really want to safeguard spring hunting they should report all hunters who flout the law. Their failure to do so has been their downfall.
Over the last couple of weeks it was a joy to hear bird song and catch occasional glimpses of birds flying by. So all in all my first reaction when I heard about the proposed short spring hunting season was positive. However, when I read all the details I was appalled.
Only a quarter of registered hunters will be allowed to hunt (what about the other 75%... are they expected to watch them enviously from the sidelines?), they will have to wear an identification armband (echoes of the Jews in the early days of the Holocaust) and they are expected to send a text message every time they shoot a bird (with a grand total of three birds allowed per licensed hunter).
How on earth does the government propose to police the situation? Is it going to have hundreds of police officers roaming around the countryside checking on armbands and hiding behind rocks to ascertain whether hunters send text messages every time they hit a bird?
Let’s get real!
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