The Malta Independent Tuesday 15th May 2001
One month later, at Mnajdra
Noel Grima
One month after the outrage at Mnajdra, the place is still as idyllic as it has always been. Filfla shimmers in the heat and the sun, the sea is placid, with only a single boat to be seen in all that vastness.
Three tourist coaches unload a few tourists, who all march to the single gate open at Hagar Qim. There they find a notice which states that entrance to Mnajdra is banned following the vandalic outrage, but people can wander around the site as long as they stay outside the wire netting.
There is a special kind of quiet down there, unbroken by sounds of nearby machinery, and workers unloading something near the old Knights’ fort some distance away do not realise that the stillness carries their voices so far.
In the Hagar Qim compound, new iron or steel rails lie on the ground, while three workers –, possibly there to fix them in place – sunbathe without any concern for the tourists milling around them.
A month has passed since the outrage.
Down at Mnajdra, some changes have been made. The gate is closed and the same notice can be read. There is a new wooden cabin with just one attendant. That is new.
A few paces away, the sentry box for police or soldiers is empty. A similar sentry box, on the other side of the fence, lies face downwards on the rocks. The much-touted 24-hour soldier presence is nowhere to be seen.
Inside the compound, a man and a woman can be seen taking measurements of the damaged stones. Parts of the walls have been covered with plastic.
Just behind the wooden box with the single attendant, there is a portable generator. Wires snake down to a single stand with two floodlights. But there are no wires to be seen going to the other end of the compound, and one surmises that this part is left in the dark.
The biggest surprise comes when one wanders towards the side and follows the wire-netting perimeter.
The perimeter around Hagar Qim is ludicrous too, but at least it is made of steel mesh with three strands of barbed wire on top. Even that can be circumvented with a jacket, an old carpet or a piece of plastic.
The perimeter around Mnajdra is, however, far worse: it is made of plastic mesh and not more than six feet in height. It is not topped by any barbed wire and can probably be tugged away from the bottom. Any pair of scissors can slice through the plastic mesh.
Worse – right at the corner on the farthest side, where it seems the intruders made their way in, the gaping hole in the plastic mesh has not been repaired. It has been linked back together with the simple expedient of joining together the cut strands. Had it been surrounding a chicken coop, the chickens would undoubtedly have made quick work of it, let alone people – and people determined to enter at that.
In all the surrounding area, only a couple of determined tourists could be seen ready to undertake the hot and relatively hard task of walking down to Mnajdra from Hagar Qim.
Perhaps that is not a bad thing, one realises. Like that, nobody would notice that just one month after the outrage, we have all forgotten about Mnajdra.
© Standard Publications 2001
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