People are fed up of the rich and powerful walking all over them and buying out governments.
That, activists believe, is why a video of them last week confronting the Planning Authority, as it discussed building a huge fuel pumping station on pristine land, captured the public imagination.
The video showed a young woman using a megaphone to chastise board members as they nervously twiddled their thumbs on Thursday. It was an instant viral success.
“Thanks for destroying our future,” shouted Victoria Pisani, “Thanks for making Malta an ugly place to live,” she said, as board members looked on helplessly.
Her heartfelt pleas resonated with thousands who shared, liked and commented on the video.
“To be honest we were surprised too. It was viewed tens of thousands of times in the first couple of hours of us uploading it. We got hundreds of messages of encouragement and haven’t really had that sort of support and feedback before,” Andre Callus of Moviment Grafitti told The Sunday Times of Malta.
Some 14 applications for new fuel pumping stations to be built on green land have been submitted to the authorities, four of which have already been given the go-ahead. This would eat up a whopping 46,500 square metres of land – roughly 10 football fields. The government is reviewing the policy allowing fuel stations to be built in the countryside, but in the meantime applications are still flooding in.
Speaking from the fringes of a rally against a mega development in Pembroke a few days later, Mr Callus pointed to a crowd of residents that gathered.
“I mean, look at all these people who showed up here today to protest– it’s quite a large number and they came of their own volition. We didn’t set this activity up, they did – because they too, like many others, have had enough,” he said.
To Mr Callus, a life-long activist and campaigner, there is an overwhelming feeling that Malta is a commodity for the few with deep enough pockets.
And, as the sprawl of development continues to devour what is left of the island, activists sense a window of opportunity in this rising social tension.
“I was quite angry myself. That was why I joined Moviment Grafitti in the first place, and why I spoke out at the board meeting,” Ms Pisani said.
Her foray into activism has been a short one so far, but she says she is among many who know that construction cannot continue to go on unchecked.
“When you are standing in front of a board of people who don’t even seem to care, they don’t even try and hide it anymore, you really know this has become an emergency now,” she said.
Mr Callus is quick to admit that the Maltese are not the most vocal when it comes to protesting for their rights.
The two major parties, he says, have so far maintained the monopoly on mobilising the public. And standing up to the construction lobby is something no party has ever had on its to-do list.
But perhaps the parties’ successful outreach could also be their undoing.
“The PN and PL have always been good at reaching out to masses of people while also connecting on an individual level. But this dependence on individuals – due to Malta’s size and electoral system – does give us a chance,” he said.
Mr Callus believes that just as developers and big businesses have held parties to ransom, so too can the electorate.
The recent downscaling of the development planned for Manoel Island, Mr Callus says, is a case in point.
“Public pressure forced the government and those involved in this project to rethink it, at least partially. So with more and more citizens waking up we are hopeful,” he said.
