Fighting development tooth and nail

Huge apartment blocks spring up like Japanese knotweed all over the world.  Shopping malls have become entrenched in cities like pernicious weeds.  They have even developed their own subcultures.  Studies show how young people claim such places as their own personal playgrounds.  We will gradually unearth how such shared spaces have changed city cultures for more than just the youth.  

Already, the elderly have migrated to such malls in search of warmth and company.  When you are truly alone even being in the vicinity of others becomes a vicarious pleasure.  You get to watch changing real life interactions instead of the TV.  In northern climes the cost of heating becomes too expensive for those on limited pensions.  Shopping malls become a cheaper alternative.  A place to stretch their legs protected from the elements.  In some cities these serve as social hubs.  Where you can check out the latest hospitalisation, death, opinion, experience and news.  In our cities the elderly, the disabled or ill can feel city streets are far too unpredictable.  Traffic, uneven pavements, gangs of youth can restrict their routines.  To have a place with some level of security can be a welcome blessing.  

Next time you are in a shopping centre have a good look around at the people who inhabit such places.  Some malls, target the vulnerable (not spenders) and have become proactive in driving what they see as ‘spongers’ out of their patch.  Security guards harass gangs of youth to move them on.  The elderly are more easily displaced by a lack of seating in such centres.  

Women with pre-school children linger near colourful displays and toyshops.  Their offspring are free to explore these shiny corridors unburdened with coats etc.  In amongst the motley throng are the real shoppers that the whole centre is designed for.  They emerge from doors laden down with bags advertising their purchases.  They don’t dawdle but walk purposefully from one hunting area to the next.  The big hunters know all of this is aimed at them.  They prowl their kingdom expecting bargains and good service.  Astute shopping assistants can spot the big cats with a glance. They know these watering holes have an attraction but must be careful in how they engage these lions.  Too much attention is seen as harassment, too little as bad service.  A good assistant should be able to read a client.  Is this a predator in good nick?  Ready to spend?  Or are they one of the subcultures killing time in the shopping paradise?  Judging this right will mean they adopt either a subservient attitude or a haughty dismissive turn of the head.  These places are not social centres after all.  They are designed to make money, that is their sole reason for being.  

If you have the time enter the nearest shopping mall to you.  Spend an hour but not one penny.  Observe the sub cultures that you find.  Actually, see those that share your space.  What is their age range?  Do they look happy and content?  Will you find that the majority are there, not out of choice but, as a refuge from something.  The young shop assistant opposite me has been manning her jewellery display for almost an hour.  No one has bought anything or even looked at her products.  She periodically combs out her long hair flicking is over her shoulder.  Then, she checks out her appearance in the mirror beside her cash register.  She fiddles with trays of rings.  Taking them out and putting them in again.  Occasionally, she presses buttons on her till to look busy.  Afterwards, she rearranges some necklaces as if they have been fingered out of position.  Now, she’s examining the jewellery as if she is a customer hoping to get someone to emulate her.  No joy, she’s reverted to combing her hair again and walking sideways in front of the mirror checking the waistline.  Tip toeing to see if her blouse is tucked in smoothly.  It’s disheartening to see the repetitive displacement activity in a human.  Mindlessly repeating useless activity because they have no other choice.  

Am I any different?  I walk along the front to a different café/venue each day and then write what comes to mind.  It’s being creative I tell myself but how much of it just marking time?  I may be on a longer more scenic circuit but is there any difference?  My activity is in many ways less worthy than hers.  She earns a wage, while I churn out my writing.  Everyone in this mall has his or her reasons for being here.  Security, warmth, company, work, shopping or people watching.  The escalators move in ceaseless circles moving us up and down.  The giant hamster wheels that transport us to shop entrances.  Wall to wall window displays all around, do our thinking for us.  The swish of notes and change out of cash registers mark the passing of our lives.  Busy, busy bees going nowhere together.

There are those who have fought all this development tooth and nail.  In fact in China they are called ‘Nail Houses’.  Refusing to sell up, they hang on long after the rest have cashed in.  They anchor themselves to the spot when there is no longer anything much left to protect.  The photos of their stubbornness are as brutal as any war.  One is not sure to either admire their steadfastness or bemoan their wasted endeavours.  I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Malta's Inquisition - the good the bad and the ugly

Visited the palace of the Inquisitor in Birgu this week.  Getting there by bus is a bit of a hassle.  First I waited for half an hour to get a bus to Valetta from Sliema.  Four full buses passed the stop unable to let any more on board.  From Valetta I caught a bus to Birgu and it takes a remarkably long time to get a few kilometres from where I started.  I feel sure the bus system is designed to make Malta seem much bigger.  After an hour on a bus somewhere you find yourself scratching your head in disbelief, after all the whole island is only 27 kilometres long and 15 kilometres across.  It may be small but it is jam packed with delights and the Palace of the Inquisitor was my goal.  Birgu has a mighty fine entrance.

As I approach the main entrance of Birgu I keep reminding myself how impressive it is now but how much more so it must have seemed in the 16th century.

On the left as you enter there is a fascinating museum which leads down to the underground shelters built deep beneath ground during World War II.  Down narrow corridors and steps there are dormitories and even a birthing room.  Each stone has a tale to tell in this place.

Certainly these walls were designed to keep out invaders and there is a majesty about them.  Walled defences that have layers of protection.

The side streets are pretty and distinctively Maltese. The Inquisitor's palace is not far from the main gate and is one of very few that have survived in the world still open to the public.

Inside the ground floor is a pleasant garden, obviously a pleasant place to retreat to after a tiring day investigating and torturing victims.  The kitchen is large and spacious with an oven down one side.

The staircase is spectacular and grand, this was the way to impress guests and to state ones importance.

Looking back down the stairs gives another perspective.  Note the chair which would be used to carry the really important around the city from venue to venue.

Two of the Inquisitors here in Malta went on to become popes.  Fabia Chigi became Pope Alexander VII in 1655.   There is a photo of him on the wall.  

When inquisitor he would have worn this costume below, a rather terrifying outfit to be confronted with.  I think the outfit was designed with confession in mind.

Pope Alexander VII did not get good press by some.  Here is an account, by a contemporary that knew him, that starts out well but ends badly.

"In the first months of his elevation to the Popedom, he had so taken upon him the profession of an evangelical life that he was wont to season his meat with ashes, to sleep upon a hard couch, to hate riches, glory, and pomp, taking a great pleasure to give audience to ambassadors in a chamber full of dead men's sculls, and in the sight of his coffin, which stood there to put him in mind of his death. [His] extraordinary devotion and sanctity of life I found was so much esteemed that the noise of it spread far and near. But so soon as he had called his relations about him he changed his nature. Instead of humility succeeded vanity; his mortification vanished, his hard couch was turned into a soft featherbed, his dead men's sculls into jewels, and his thoughts of death into ambition — filling his empty coffin with money as if he would corrupt death, and purchase life with riches."

I suspect piety is a hard act to maintain, but some of the faces of the Inquisitors look like rather evil characters indeed.  I keep wondering is it just me or do some of them look seriously disturbed?

I am one to talk, I take a bad photo myself but seriously, these guys were painted so surely with artistic skill they could have made them look more human.

All I can say is I would not like to be questioned by these characters while implements of torture were lying around conveniently placed.  Being found in possession of books on their index of forbidden texts would have been enough to get you into serious trouble.  Kepler's scientific treaty on the movement of the planets etc would have certainly got you strapped to something painful. Galileo's championing of the planets moving around the sun resulted in him being tried and suffering house imprisonment for the rest of his life.  But there were a whole range of things that could get you into trouble.  (see below)

It's quite a list and the last one could include informing the inquisition of the sins of others.  By not doing so you could get into real trouble.  In Malta the major sins seem to centre around witchcraft/evil eye etc. Mostly it appeared the use of love potions was common.  This activity was hard to stamp out despite the intensity of their best endeavours.  Pope Alexander VII, when inquisitor ,so filled the cells with people to investigate they ran out of room to put their suspects.  The longest serving Inquisitor in Malta was Paolo Passionei  (1743-1754). Unfortunately, he had several nasty secrets of his own which caused some difficulties.

"He was guilty of 'Loose living' including fornication. Inquisitor Passionei secretly had a mistress, and he became the father of two females .... When in 1749 the Pope requested him to go to Switzerland as an Apostolic Nuntio he refused, being afraid that his scandalous life would become public! He left Malta on 1754 and was unfrocked. " 

It's a tricky business this judging of others, not perhaps a healthy spiritual exercise.  "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone..." applies surely?

The inquisitors lived in some comfort.

The room in which they interrogated suspects had a rather unpleasant feel to it.  The torture implements in the dungeon down below must have helped loosen tongues.

There is a special staircase to the prison cells below which meant they could be taken secretly to and fro without being seen by others.  The cells themselves had tiny low doors and small high windows.

The contrast between the prison cells with their cramped quarters down below to the luxury above is stark.

Strange to find in one building such marked differences only a staircase away.  Below all dark and tortured while above all light and comfort.

"A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence."

John Foxe

When you think about the inquisition it is hard to find positive things to say about this period.  Lessons have to be learnt from history and until we do it seems society will never progress.  I liked this piece by― Alfred Whitney Griswold in Essays on Education,

“Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.”