Building bridges

What's all this fuss about the appointment of Lou Bondi' to a wide committee tasked to organise national festivities in 2014 which happens to be a particular year with round number anniversaries of national festivities which have long divided us?

It is the 50th anniversary of Independence which traditionally has been a blue feast.  It is the 40th anniversary of the Republic and the 35th anniversary of Freedom day which are traditionally red feasts.  It is the 95th anniversary of 'sette giugno' which has no particular colour.

If we are serious about delivering what we promised and in particular about making these feasts as truly national events that unite us, it is a must that the organising committee has to have exponents of the broad political spectrum.

Should Prime Minister Muscat have excluded Lou Bondi', in spite of his undoubted merits in such event organisation, purely because he comes from the other side of the political divide, and in particular because he has no doubt unfairly abused of his access to the national TV station to try to keep the PN in power?

Those who think so probably have never read the story of Nelson Mandela and don't appreciate the wisdom of keeping your enemies close to you and under your guard while praying the Lord to protect you from your friends.

We need to build bridges to remove the political divides that has kept us back from exploiting our full potential.  The national festivities committee 2014 is a good place to start.   Lou Bondi' has offended the sentiments of all Labourites.   He has above all offended the sentiments and character of Prime Minister Muscat and his family.   It is time to put all this behind us and build bridges where the other side shows interest in meeting us half way.  Otherwise we use too much energy settling bills of the past rather than building well-being for the future.

These bridges are much more important than the pipe-dream of hard bridges to Gozo.

Gozo needs no hard bridges or under sea tunnels.   Apart from such projects being economically unfeasible they seem built on a false assumption that Gozo is too small to have a sustainable economy and needs easy access to the main island so that Gozitan residents can form part of the larger Maltese economy.  

Gozo needs economic bridges.   Gozo needs to be sustainable by having its own properties to render it economically sustainable without its residents being forced to travel to Malta to find a job, to go to university or to be treated in hospital.

Let's build economic bridges to make Gozo economically sustainable.