The difference between honesty and dishonesty
Stop squeaking, Astrid. I'll let you out of this box when the photographer's finished.
Ian Waugh runs the website www.maltaoperahouse.com, which campaigned for the opera house ruins to become the site of a theatre rather than parliament house.
He was very much part of the ‘no to parliament house/yes to theatre’ campaign, alongside Astrid Vella and her FAA. But unlike Astrid, Ian Waugh has updated his website with news of the Renzo Piano plans for the theatre site, and a picture, and ends with these words:
“The controversy to reinstate theatre is over – now we will follow the story of the Opera House as it enters a new and exciting phase in its troubled life. We also look back to the history of The Opera House before fire ruined the original theatre in 1873 and enemy bombers destroyed it in 1942.”
Astrid and her FAA, meanwhile, are pretending that the whole thing isn’t happening.
Their latest website update is about the Qormi ‘armoury’ which, they have decided, needs protection. It is a listed building already, and because it is the Qormi police station, it is hardly subject to the depredations of developers.
They had identified the wrong building but don’t have the decency to put the record straight.
Nor do they have the decency to do what Ian Waugh has done, and say: “We got what we wanted. Valletta is to have a theatre on the opera house site, and what’s more, one designed by no less a man than Renzo Piano. Thank you.”
That’s the difference between somebody who is honest in his campaigning and genuine in his concerns and somebody who is not. Astrid and her FAA’s reverberating silence over the last couple of weeks betrays more than anything else the grudge-bearing, axe-grinding, politically motivated dishonesty in their actions and now, in their inaction.
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Just in case you missed his comment today beneath a letter on timesofmalta.com and have any relevant information:
Ian Waugh/timesofmalta.com
For a while I’ve been running http://www.maltaoperahouse.com which started life as a campaigning website to draw attention to the Prime Ministers idea to turn the Opera House bomb site into a parliamentary building. Since that decision, thankfully, has been reversed the website is looking more positively to the future as theatre is going to be reinstated on this famous site.
As a part-time, extremely amateur historian I thought it would be fascinating to include a fairly detailed history of the Opera House. I was wondering if anyone reading this have any recollections of the Opera House. Maybe people have relatives that performed, worked there or attended the performances. Even internal photographs or snap-shots of the building, artists that performed, bill posters or newspaper cuttings (which can be scanned).
Joseph Bonnici’s & Michael Cassar’s fascinating book and I’m conducting a deep search of the internet – but input from your readers would really bring this work alive. My disability and poor health prevents me from travelling to Malta to research in person currently however my contact is: [email protected] …. thank you so very much.
The problem with most NGOs seems to be that they have become very arrogant and think that they have the right to dictate. Most of the time they do not base their arguments on pure, unadulterated fact but on half-truths and wishy-washy statements and exaggerations. Obviously then it does not suit them to admit they were wrong. The shame of it all is that often there is money going to the NGOs because their less than honest campaigns have managed to convince the powers that be, and therefore they won’t want to lose that revenue. It’s a sad story.
The problem with most NGOs is that they have been perversely infiltrated by anyone who can attest to being anti-government for any reason whatsoever.
I can list them one by one and in each and every case it is either a case of ‘anti-government rhetoric’ or ‘can do it better than the government can’, scenario.
It is the only hope for the LP forming a future government if it takes under its wings more negative minded people which may work for them in the short term but ultimately will self-destruct.