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Robert Kennedy once wrote: “The Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”
He was pointing with characteristic forcefulness to a profound truth: that there is a bundle of emotions, experiences and defining elements in all our lives that cannot be pinned down in mechanistic terms but that together make up the most significant components of our character, and the purpose. These elements form themselves into what we might call our own individual culture, our own sense of identity and self-worth; taken broadly together, across groups of people they represent what can more generally be seen as the culture of a community or a nation.
I strongly believe that it was this argument that led the Nationalist Government to open once again the doors of the San Lawrenz Primary School. The present administration fully believes that education is one of the founding pillars of society's social and economic structure. The re-opening of the San Lawrenz Primary School is the living proof that the educative structure in a locality, nurtures a locality's particular identity.
This is why San Lawrenz Local Council continues to give an absolute priority to education, as we are aware that a school is extremely important in building a community. The concept of local identity is so fragile that it needs constant attention! We will certainly not allow anyone to try to make us believe otherwise. And in no way whatsoever will we allow our children be victims of perverted social experiments anymore. Those who regard the human person as merely another number in a conglomeration can never feel what we feel. For us, the person is to be regarded and treated in a holistic manner. Having said all this, the support we are giving (and will continue giving) is already bearing its fruits in our “sleepy Gozitan village of San Lawrenz” where our community is nothing but “alive and ticking”!
Noel Formosa
Mayor, San Lawrenz
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