It has to be a chronic dependence on the unforgivable noise that hits out at most Maltese and Gozitans. And when I mean noise, I mean unlimited decibels which are not justifiable by any legal notice or audio specialist.
For the last 45 years I have lived around St Michael’s factory in Lija and I can tell you it has been a nightmare. Many people who watch fireworks for an evening will surely forgive the discourteous enthusiasts who make it their business to turn the life of so many residents into sheer misery.
But if you happen to live next to the fireworks factories of Mosta, Naxxar, Birkirkara and Gharghur among others, you might as well spend the rest of your time in a war zone. One night of fireworks is ok, but certainly not every bloody weekend and evening.
The fireworks factory off Lija, by the way, has been highlighted by the so called pyrotechnics commission as being far too close to an inhabited zone. But Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg has not quite decided on the future of this factory.
Which is perfectly understandable, considering that Dr Borg is a Lija resident and depends on Lija residents for most of his votes.
But it isn’t only Tonio Borg who sucks up to Lija’s fireworks frenzy. Writing in l-orizzont, Labour candidate Edward Zammit Lewis, sounding more Nationalist than Labourite, praised Lija’s wonderful contribution to noise.
Like countless other Maltese, I have succumbed to the tradition of saying ‘how nice the fireworks’ – just because fireworks seem to be intrinsically related to sacred feasts, most Maltese and Gozitans refuse to speak up against the excesses of firework enthusiasts.
Noise pollution of this kind has nothing to do with Our Saviour. But then not many parish priests think so, and many of them simply say nothing. Those who dare do something become pariahs in their own parish.
The more beer gets swigged, the more girls prance about in hot-pants, and the more boys parading bare-breasted in the streets during a festa, the greater the feast. To crown this pagan event, there has to be noise. If this does not make you question your religion, living for six days next to St Michael’s fireworks factory will surely make you lose your religion.
The Lija feast has been something special to many people. It was to me, where my grandfather and aunt once lived, and where my great uncle was once the parish priest. So dear has Lija been, that I was named after my grandfather and of course after Is-Salvatur.
Now it has finally dawned upon me that to celebrate the feast of Our Saviour, you have to drown all the natural noises and blast the heavens for six consecutive days until your eardrums burst. The people who organise feasts couldn’t give a hoot about the aged people in their home, sick people in their beds, the newborn who simply cannot take the noise, not to mention animals.
I am still waiting for an answer as to why one needs to explode petards day and night, leading to car alarm systems setting off as far away as Mosta or for glass panes in Iklin, Birkirkara and Naxxar to rattle relentlessly. I wonder if all this is legal – I am sure that most of the size of the petards are illegal.
There is nothing wrong in having fireworks with colourful displays. But to encourage the non-stop explosions and louder bangs at eight o’clock in the morning until midnight and sometimes beyond, is simply criminal.
And the same cacophonous orgy of noise continues in other villages and towns, in Mqabba, Qrendi, Zurrieq, Siggiewi and Mosta… well practically every nook and cranny in Malta and Gozo.
What’s surprising is that despite all the unnecessary deaths and injuries caused by the same irresponsible firework enthusiasts, over the years the politicians continue to do nothing. What they definitely do is to pay lip service to the issue and they continue to do everything possible to do nothing.
It proves beyond doubt that the few firework freaks overrule everyone else. It also continues to prove that people-power is absent. What we need is for some brave politician or political animal to come forward and do something about it.
I guess, we could hope for a change from the daring and progressive Michael Falzon, Labour’s fireworks aficionado (and deputy leader), or could it perhaps be the intrepid forward-looking Josie Muscat? Josie, I am sure, would like to adjust this Maltese aspect of our fireworks tradition.
Probably, it will be mean even more ear-splitting fireworks to keep up with our Maltese tradition of making life unbearable for our neighbours. Well, I am sure that in 45 years’ time, Lija and its environs will still celebrate Is-Salvatur with all the noise it can muster.

I remember that back in the good old days, you would have to tune in to Rai Uno to get to know what was going on in Malta. In the Egypt Air massacre where the Egyptian commandoes were allowed to kill most of the passengers when their goal was to actually release them, we got most of the news from Rai Uno. At the time, Xandir Malta was attuned to censoring all the news.
Times have changed. Today we get news about Malta from down under. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, on his extensive visit in Australia, has said St Luke’s Hospital will be no longer. I cannot understand why Maltese Australians who decided to go for the easy life down under should be given preference over us islanders when it comes to first-hand news.
Why should we learn about the fate of St Luke’s hospital from a correspondent down under?
And if the correspondent wanted to get out of the monotonous pace of meeting wallabies and nostalgic Maltese, why did he not ask the PM why he was not over the moon with the latest news about a nuclear power station in Libya?
As he addressed the Maltese whose staple diet is kangaroo meat, Gonzi outlined his vision for 2015 which was for the St Luke’s hospital site to be developed. Great news I guess. More building, more cranes, more dust, more speculation and most important of all… more noise.
But one important thing to remember is what we commonly know as unfulfilled promises. In 1987, Eddie Fenech Adami said the Marsa Power station would be closed down and replaced. Well it is 2007 and if you happen to pass through Marsa, just be sure to cover a gas mask as you take in all that sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Another promise that fell flat on its face.

Not one day has passed without a front-page picture of the Prime Minister shaking hands with a specimen from the Australasian animal kingdom, an Aborigine, baby or that other thriving species, the Maltese emigrant. The one interesting story was a reference about keeping the Maltese language alive in Australia. Better start worrying about what happens here first, I guess!

A foreign journalist hailing from New York talked about the fine food in Malta when writing about the island. What she did not say is that the food in Malta is overpriced and overrated.
Mainly, restaurants here welcome you to presumptuous menus, and then present you with dishes that are more often than not inedible. Not all, but the good restaurants are simply far too expensive. There are a few bistros or trattorias which offer moderately priced but good food.
And the last persons who should be taken seriously about food are American travel journalists whose staple diet tends to be little more than half-a-dozen burgers and seven litres of Coke a week, and six packets of chewing gum.

sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt