Two Bangs

The Malta Independent of Sunday

My earliest childhood memories go back to that Maundy Thursday of 1955 when an explosion at the fireworks factory of St Philip’s Band Club at my village Zebbug claimed the lives of four young men. They left behind fatherless families that included quite a few eventual close friends who grew up without the support of a father figure in their lives.

Just as the two Zebbug band clubs dedicated to St Philip were still arguing their inability to get together and agree on a common programme to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of this tragic event, as parochial narrow-mindedness continues to prevail even in events that should unify us rather than divide us, the fireworks factory of another Zebbug Band Club dedicated to St Joseph exploded in air on Monday 4^th July.

Two fathers again lost their life in the tragedy and two other young men are still struggling for their life in hospital. Even if they make it, as I sincerely augur, life for them will never be the same again.

How tragic that it had to be a fatal live re-enactment of the 1955 tragedy to get the three Zebbug band clubs to agree on a common position on the funeral of the fresh victims! May the fireworks explode our parochial narrow-mindedness and rather than the legs and limbs of our able-bodied.

The appeal made in Zebbug Parish Church by the brother of one of the victims was clear. Do not re-build the fireworks factory, he cried out loud. Since that awful day of April 1955 in my village I can recall at least five other fireworks related fatal tragedies. How many tragedies must we count before we restore order to protect lives and save families from devastation?

Right after the funeral I had the opportunity to visit the widow of the younger victim. I had met her when I was making the political rounds in Dingli and stayed close as my better half has known her a score of years. Baby Jerome, as few months short of his first birthday was all smiles having not the slightest inkling of the tragedy that has changed his life with a bang this week.

When the tragedy falls out of the headlines, when the funeral marches go silent, when the flags start flying at full mast again, and when the feast will be celebrated again in future years with band marches fireworks and all, as undoubtedly it will, that young boy will still be asking his widowed mother questions that cannot be answered. Why? How? Who was daddy’s greatest love? Who is to blame?

We are all to blame. We need to grow out of our senseless parochial piques which force individuals to take undue risks to do better than the others. The others are us, our fathers and our brothers. If a widow has to bring her three young children without the support of a father in family it is a shame on all of us who congratulated that father year in year out for manufacturing fascinating fireworks that pleased our eye at the risk of his life.

Fireworks cannot be left to passion, amateurism and senseless pique. If we love fireworks so much as to want it in abundance in our festas than we have to pay to induce professionalism, risk management and compliance tests.

On the very same day of the funeral we had other fatal explosions in London that has so far claimed no less than fifty innocent lives with the frightening prospect of the victim list extending from the hundreds that have been seriously injured in the blasts. While the details will only emerge in the fullness of time there seems enough circumstantial evidence to attribute the tragic event to international terrorism.

Just when Spielberg is filming in Malta the re-enactment of the Munich Olympics terrorist tragedy of 1972, in many ways the first large-scale terrorist attack, London had to the join the list of New York, Bali and Madrid as the land-mark of the new invisible enemy of world peace and stability.

How telling that this had to happen less than twenty four hours after Londoners were celebrating in the streets their city being chosen to host the 2012 Olympic Games, again re-establishing the mental link with the Munich Olympics. What a difference a day and a few bangs make! The celebrations of Trafalgar Square were in no time changed into grief and confusion in the Tube Stations and in Russell Square.

How many children have been forced to share the same tragic fate of baby Jerome through the senseless passion of terrorist to make their case by hurting innocent people?

As an active participant in the financial services industry, as someone who earns a living from it, I am ambivalent about the reaction of the financial markets following this tragedy. From a performance point of view I am pleased that the terrorist attacks have not disrupted the operation of the financial markets as the New York events of 9/11 had done. In fact following a knee-jerk reaction where international equity markets dropped by more than 3% as the news of London terror attack flowed, the markets clawed back so quickly that by the evening New York markets closed in positive territory and European markets recouped all their losses by Friday even though the price of oil was hitting a nominal record of sixty two in dollar terms.

On the other hand I am almost ashamed that the markets just shrugged off the negative effects of the terror attacks reasoning that in comparison to New York. Bali and Madrid this was pretty small; that once the markets were in any case expecting for London to be hit sooner or later, the way it has been hit is quite less spectacular and negative than could have been expected in a most likely scenario.

For those victims who suffer loss of life through explosions, whether from fireworks accidents or from organised terrorism, the size of the overall event counts for nothing. For their dear ones the loss is 100% and for them nothing will ever be the same again.