News • 24 November 2002

The throes of Cospicua

COSPICUA - What do the poet Guze Chetcuti, the politician Leo Brincat, President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, Police Commissioner John Rizzo, the singer Chiara and Caffe Cordina have in common? Few will answer correctly first time round. But the answer is that they all have a common town of origin – Cospicua.

Unfortunately many people still look down on Cospicua as if it were the Cinderella of the south. It is true that this town has been somewhat afflicted by a series of social situations which have left it limping. In its heyday, Cospicua was home to twice the number of people residing there today. In 1931 it housed 12,163 people. In the period immediately following the last war numbers dwindled drastically to an all-time low of 4,822. By 1967 the population had picked up again: 9,123 people. In the eighties numbers started going down again, with a 1985 census showing 7,731, a number which went down even further to 5,961 in 1995. Today it revolves around the 6,000 mark with 2,931 males and 3,030 females.

The exodus occurred during the days of heavy bombing in the early forties. It was slow to get folks back in. Houses had to be reconstructed and in the meantime families which had moved out decided to stay put. Today housing still causes a great problem. Whilst the present population includes a high percentage in the 65+ age bracket, dwellings which are vacated are immediately re-filled. But residents complain that these vacant buildings are not offered to Cospicua people requiring housing. They are taken up families coming from other towns. The families highest on the list are those with ‘problems’ many of which include a history of broken marriages, separations, and difficulties which may or may not include unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse, the like. Cospicua residents are not too happy with the situation where a relatively quiet block of apartments is monopolised by new residents who do nothing to uplift the general state of affairs. And the attitude of ‘we’ and ‘the others’ is born, where ‘we’ are the people of Cospicua who are born, bred and live there, whilst ‘the others’ are all the incoming families who somehow do not really belong. The real Cospicua people have a certain pride of place, an attachment to the town. But many have left because of these housing problems. In fact, newlyweds will rarely choose to remain in their hometown, although surprisingly enough, some do eventually return if they find ‘nice’ houses.

If there were one clear-cut problem to pinpoint it would not be drugs, nor prostitution. Perhaps it would be gambling: many Cospicuans gamble money away at the Casino di Venezia in nearby Vittoriosa.

Appogg have recently opened a centre called Access – a Cottonera Community Resource Centre incorporating all the social services, ETC, a service for disabled, childcare, self-help classes for mothers, housing offices and community workers: a kind of global service for all the residents within the Cottonera area. The parish has also taken it upon itself to invest in a new parish centre in the area of San Pawl, with the intention of attracting children and youths through various activities.

Unfortunately schools seem to be producing a high percentage of low achievers. Some put the blame on lack of family support which is highly visible especially when one compares attendance by parents at the various parents’ day activities held in the primary state school. A laissez-faire attitude encourages children to shun schooling and this necessitated the setting up of a multi-disciplinary team which helps children from unstructured families.

But there is a tangible prejudice directed at the youth emerging from Cospicua. Even when these have the prerequisites for any kind of job, the fact that they come from this area puts them at a direct disadvantage. Many have had to change their home addresses on their personal CV, at least until they manage to acquire the job they are seeking.

But Cospicua is fast approaching its one important yearly event – the feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December. The only real highlight for a town which has not won a Regatta shield since 1994. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the culture of Cospicua, to allow these townspeople to feel proud of the fact that they are Bormlizi. The Cottonera Project will not do much to change reality. The Cottonera Rehabilitation Project has done much to improve the general state of affairs, such as investing Lm 25,000 to restore the façade of the church of St Paul, a church dating back to the 1700s.

But things happen slowly in Cospicua. Roadworks take longer to be completed, evacuated buildings earmarked for demolition have been standing empty for over a year, giving rise to vandalism and worse.

Perhaps it is the beginning of the end of a downward spiral that has continued since WWII. Bormlizi hope it is.