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FR JOE MIFSUD, Bormla parish priest, says the people of the inner harbour town are prevented from developing because they are burdened by everyone else’s problems
The free cartons of rice and pasta donated by the European Union raised a few eyebrows and were the butt of a couple of jokes. Did the EU technocrats think that the Maltese were unable to take care of their own and whose pay-packet was so meagre that they would not afford rice or pasta? Well, plenty according to Fr Joe Mifsud, Bormla’s parish priest. “Up to yesterday we were giving out free milk, rice and pasta,” he sighs. “Today I filled three Community Chest Fund applications and this is not a one-off occurrence but a continuous phenomenon.”
 The soft-spoken priest has just spent his afternoon in his office receiving members of the Bormla community. Mifsud hails from the other side of the island, Mellieha, a village he says he will never go back to. “I have been here for ten years and I have a good relation with the people here. They are a spontaneous and genuine people. Not at all two-faced, they are very transparent in their dealings and tell it how it is.”
Mifsud lives in a community besieged by social problems, amongst them poverty and illiteracy. Here he represents a focal point. In fact, I doubt people would be willing to expose their unappetizing facets of life with a priest. “You would be surprised,” he responds. “I remember the first year I was here and I went round blessing houses and without asking them, they would immediately inform me of their status. A couple would tell me that they were not married or the woman would clarify that her daughter was the result of a previous affair. They also don’t mind telling me that they don’t usually go to church.”
This is the reality in Bormla, one of the island’s most afflicted localities. So what does he, as a representative of the Holy Roman Catholic church, make of this rather “unholy” behaviour? “They tend to think more with their hearts than minds – they are impulsive and quite frankly they have no thinking skills.”
But is he really surprised? The church’s track record as regards to family protection, even in AIDS-ridden Africa, is not one to write home about. Maltese medical students are still banned from distributing HIV prevention flyers in church Sixth Form colleges, reason being that besides advocating abstinence from sex, they also declare the benefits of using contraceptives to prevent sexually transmitted infections. “I might defend the church a lot but I get irritated when the church gets accused of not doing enough,” he replies. “Of course I would advise some people to think twice before having children. A severely-depressed woman who is unable to take care of her children has no obligation to give birth to children. A man without work has no business bringing to life a lot of children. The church is not perfect but she was a pioneer in family planning and there are cases when the church allows for contraception. The church teaches responsible parenthood. The church is misinterpreted – she never said that we should have kids like rabbits but she teaches that we should be responsible. If there is an alcoholic or drug addict who has no sense of control and there is the risk that he is going to impregnate a woman at any time possible, then the woman would be responsible to use contraception.
“Even if there is a penniless family, packed like sardines in a house with nine or eight children. I know of cases were they should have been careful but there was absolutely no thought put into the matter and now their children don’t have a decent standard of living. Going back to the issue of single mothers, you find some who are already living in awful conditions and yet they would have the first and then the second if not the third as well. That’s why I am not sure that the relief benefits and children’s allowance are helping.”
Surely, dismantling the welfare state and making them sink further in the vicious cycle of poverty is not the key to alleviating their distress. “Obviously they should be given financial assistance but relief is not enough.”
Throughout the decade that he has spent in Bormla, Mifsud has observed that besides the absence of what he calls “thinking skills or common sense”, there is also a complacent attitude of being content to live on social assistance. “It’s incredible how they manage to survive. They live frugally through the relief, begging from the Community Chest Fund, and through a few odd jobs here and there. I still feel sorry for them though when they come here for help because they wouldn’t have money to buy milk for the kids, money for medicine or for the school lunch.”
The priest is adamant that they need to be taught how to be responsible. Fr Mifsud doesn’t give the impression of being a man with a mission.. That is, until we broach upon the subject of education. Surprisingly raising his voice a notch or two, he maintains that there needs to be a development programme. “Illiteracy is alarming especially in this area. They have no opportunities, they are going to remain like that, with no escape route out of their situation. We have Form Five students learning how to write their names and addresses.”
Illiteracy rates in Bormla schools are alarming, junior lyceum results are very poor and even the schools are in need of urgent refurbishing. The parish priest is visceral about this theme as it pains him that only a handful of youths make it to university. His pet subjects are education and housing. And this has made him a bête noire with some of the politicians of the district. Every year he dedicates a hard-hitting homily to the specific problems of the time and the powers that be are never keen on it. “They told me not to go shouting these things from the pulpit, that I could go to them instead.”
Notwithstanding, not much has changed and the government isn’t giving the impression of implementing any projects to regenerate this area. Again, what about the Church’s commitment to the citizens of this area? “I always wanted the church schools in this area to be accessible for the people here. An option would be for the church schools here to have a specific class for children coming from here. This could be complemented with an education programme for the parents as well.”
Thinking about the non-governmental schools in the area, schools that are nevertheless subsidised from people’s taxes, he states: “St Edwards give nothing to the community, De La Salle keeps it to a minimum and St Francis, a little.”
His greatest regret is the decline of the standards of the Cottonera community. “A hundred years ago these schools had excellent students coming from this area. The choices that they have here now are not the same as they were before. Cottonera was once the cradle of civilisation in Malta. Bormla was once the hub of businessmen, ecclesiastical people emerged from l-Isla and Birgu had a tradition of craftsmen. The war plays an important factor in the socio-economic problems. Due to the extensive evacuation people left but most never came back.”
Undeniably the area in which his beautifully done-up townhouse is situated is wholly a middle-class area “packed with professionals.” The street is lined up with grand abodes restored to reflect their glorious station in history. “Perit Dom Mintoff and Ugo Mifsud Bonnici came from here. Ugo is still very popular as was his father il-Gross. It’s a pity that most of the people never returned. Whichever village you visit in Malta you will find people whose origins can be located in Cottonera, and the abandonment of the place is what created the housing problem.”
According to Mifsud, the majority of “hard” social cases in Cottonera are of people who are not originally from either of the Three Cities but have been dumped here because of the cheap housing. “The extreme social cases have made the Cottonera standards plunge. Some squat as well and it’s made worse by a policy that dictates that social cases take priority here. Again this has manifested itself in our education standards and our schools.”
It upsets him that Bormla in particular is having to deal with a disproportionate amount of problem families. “It’s only natural that we have to share some of the burden, but why do we have to take all of them when they could be spread all over Malta. As an inner harbour area, it is a reality that these problems tend to be more concentrated. But building a ghetto out of all of the disenfranchised families in Malta is only aggravating the situation.”
Apparently the people of Cottonera, the ones actually born and bred here, are immensely proud of this fact. They believe that they are of a certain status and that “they have a special relationship with the Church.” The Bormlizi often complain with their priest. They are fed up of having to put up with drug rackets and prostitution. Old people are sometimes terrorized by their new neighbours. When the inhabitant of one of the apartments dies and a social case moves in, the environment changes immediately. Doors are left open 24 hours a day with the consequence that all sorts of people walk in and out, fights become the order of the day and music blasts all night.
The future does not augur well for Bormla. “The people here have a certain pride and the negative picture that the rest of Malta has of Bormla is not the real one. We don’t have the worst drug problem here and the majority of people in jail are not from Bormla either. We are being prevented from developing because we keep on being burdened by everyone else’s problems. People are getting married and moving out of here, everyone is leaving. Last week a huge beautiful house was given to a very hard social case from outside Bormla. People were outraged and I have voiced my opinion about the matter, but what really can you do?
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