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Shine a light

17/6/2017

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Blinking lights on floors high up.  Baby thrown to safety.  Goodbyes said on facebook.  A survivor expressing a sad regret that he made any effort to alert residents  – What was the point of waking them up? he asked.

This was not an unavoidable tragedy.  On the contrary, this was a long time coming.  Foretold in a blog by the Grenfell Action Group on November 20, 2016:

"It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the  KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders. We believe that the KCTMO are an evil, unprincipled, mini-mafia who have no business to be charged with the responsibility of  looking after the every day management of large scale social housing estates and that their sordid collusion with the RBKC Council is a recipe for a future major disaster."

But the long time coming was not November 2016.  It’s been coming for decades.  Neoliberalism.  A perverted twisting of all that we once held unalienable and sacrosanct.  Now we have turkeys voting for Christmas.  A cheering on of the dismantling of the welfare state by the people most likely to suffer from its absence.  A derision of Old Labour.  Although Jeremy Corbyn is putting paid to that. 

Somewhere along the way we have lost some of our humanity, our moral compass. 

We now live in a world where we privatise even the safety net of roofs over people’s heads.  Where people are allowed to make a profit for providing  a fundamental need, a human right.  Where people are allowed to continue cutting corners and breaking health and safety regulation, in order to make the profit margins greater. Where tower blocks are clad in flammable material to make the millionaire neighbours mind less about their presence.  Even if this means that people will be trapped in a building 24 storeys high with only one smoke filled staircase as an exit.

Sita Fofana, a Malian plasterer living in Msida in a flat with eight other men, died in March 2017, when he used a barbecue as a heater to warm up his bedroom. 

His death was soon forgotten.  I would like to know the outcome of the magisterial inquiry.  Why isn’t this in the press? 

What struck me most at the time was the complete lack of interest into the circumstances surrounding this death.  Questions like:  Was this flat large enough to house 9 men?  Why was Mr Fofana using a barbecue instead of a heater?  How much money did he earn as a plasterer?  Was it not enough to buy a heater?  What rent did he pay?  Presumably he shared the rent with the 8 other men – So why was this not enough?  What Arms tariff was he on? 

Instead social media commentators decided that his death was his own fault.  Definitely not the landlord’s for not providing him with a heater.  Definitely not the state’s for not regulating the rental market, for not insisting on health and safety. His fault.  Leave alone that Mali has a literacy rate of about 35%.  No, Mr Fofana was stupid.  And the suitable punishment for stupidity is death, of course. 

There are thousands upon thousands of Grenfells and deaths like Mr Fofana’s all over the world.   People have become blase and immune to the obscene waste of it all.  They walk on by, not seeing the despair; not hearing the cries for help. 

This is another excerpt from the Grenfell Action Group blog:

"Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation. "

Please everyone - shine a light on the malignity.

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Minority Report

12/6/2017

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​​Two general elections in two different countries that I feel attached to are over.  The two of them were called for similar reasons - as an endorsement of leadership - and yet the outcome of each was very different.  Teresa May spectacularly failed in her mission to increase her mandate before the Brexit negotiations.  On the other hand, Joseph Muscat and PL surprised everyone - not by the victory, but by the size of the majority. 

I am so very glad that Teresa May has been stopped in her increasingly authoritarian stance towards Brexit, but not only.  There is a glimmer of hope in consistent Jeremy Corbyn, who has held the same democratic socialist principles for decades.  I see it as a victory of Jeremy Corbyn’s willingness to serve over Teresa May’s ruthless determination to be in power, no matter the cost to the common good. 

The common good.  Where does PL’s resounding election victory leave the common good of Malta? 

Lately I’ve been asking myself this question:

Why are certain minorities feted and looked after by the PL administration, whilst others are not? 

​Now please note that I am not in any way resentful of any group getting what’s fair and just.  Not at all.  I’m just asking why a distinction is made with how different minority groups are treated. 

The current administration has focused on advancing the cause of civil liberties, notwithstanding the conservative stance of much of the electorate. 

These further examples are what I would call the opposite of fair and just:  Prior to the recent general election, hunters were told that sanctions for illegal hunting will be reduced.  Also law breaking drivers will not have to pay fines for traffic contraventions.  Developers can build in ODZ.  High rise buildings are given the go ahead without as much as a by your leave.

So with all this grandesse, all this generosity with most minority groups, how is it that tenants paying 70% of their income on rent; living in substandard, third world accommodation; overpaying by 43% to 103% on their Arms bills; walking on eggshells in case they upset their landlords, who are only too keen to evict their tenants in favour of those who are able to pay more; on contracts of 1 year, at the end of which the rent goes up by 200 euro per month or you’re out on your ear, no matter that you have children who you would like to live stable, secure lives; who have no chance in hell of ever seeing their deposit back... – how is it that tenants are ignored?

Deep down, I’ve known the answer to this question for years.  And yet, I have grasped on to straw after straw, refusing to believe that my government could be so cynical and cruel.

It hurts when my friends, my family get upset with me for speaking up about tenant rights.  This, right here, is the answer to my question.  PL (and PN) knows that there are many landlords out there.  If helping the minority group of tenants in Malta did not mean stepping on the toes of the many Maltese landlords, the lot of tenants would have been improved long ago, in my opinion.  People aspire to let a property or two.  They like not having to bother about regulation and standards and their tenants’ well being.  People want the status quo to continue. 

After all tenants have a bad press.  You know, they all pay 200 euro a year. They live the life of Riley.  At our expense.  Yes.  Let’s punish all tenants.  Because all tenants have it this good. 

Let’s punish all tenants.  It’s the tenants’ fault.  Not the fault of successive administrations which have allowed the pre 1995 renting situation to continue, notwithstanding ECHR judgements against them.
 
Also, let’s ignore anyone who points out that tenants stopped having it so good in 1995, when the rental market was completely liberalised.  After all what’s the point of no longer  having as good a grudge as this to nurse?  Leave us be – we don’t want to listen to facts.

From September 2010 to April 2016, I lived the life of a tenant with my family.  It was awful.  Now, we were relatively well off compared to many tenants.  And we left the Maltese rental market just as rents spiked incredibly high.  But it wasn’t just the amount of rent we paid that was a problem.  It was the fact that we were regarded as second class citizens by everyone.  These are some of the issues we experienced:


  • Not being able to have our own account with Arms.  Overpaying on our Arms bill.  Hardly ever seeing an Arms bill.
  • Paying 600 euro in cash every month – I cannot begin to describe how sordid I felt every month having to pay this amount in cash. 
  • Not having our deposit returned. 
  • Finding out that an Arms bill for a family of 5 doesn’t cost 1200 euro per year – It costs 800 euro per year.  And that’s for a large 4 bedroom, three storey house – not a tiny 3 bedroom flat. 
  • Ancient plumbing and electrics. 
  • Badly insulated walls. 
  • Mould. 
  • Furniture out of a sixties ex holiday let. 

And throughout your stay, you daren’t criticise or ask for anything.  Because the landlord might not extend the contract.  And then you’d have to find somewhere else.  Somewhere else, of worse standard, more expensive...

Tenants’ only hope, it would seem, is that non Maltese tenants will leave Malta in droves as more and more of their disposable income is swallowed up in rent. 

It’s a huge pity that the Maltese tenant, unable to work because of ill health; the separated person having to rent; the single parent; the pensioner – all these have to continue their lives of despair, waiting for the rental market to crash so that our ‘socialist’ government will finally look out for them.

​Will Malta's version of Jeremy Corbyn please stand up?  We need you.  

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    Author

    Johanna MacRae

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