Malta’s Letters to the Editor Ignite Island-Wide Debate Over Rabbit Prices, Water Parks and Lost Ironmongers

Letters to the Editor – September 8, 2025: Valletta’s Living Room Debates Spill Onto the Page

By 7 a.m. on Monday, the first bundle of Monday Times of Malta had barely landed on the doorstep of Café Cordina when the letters page was already being dissected over frothy cappuccinos. Between the clink of teaspoons and the rustle of ħobż biż-żejt, the debate that began last week in the living rooms of Sliema farmhouses, Gozo farmhouses and Marsaxlokk townhouses had found its second wind. Today’s Letters to the Editor section—nine tightly-argued pieces ranging from the price of rabbit to the future of Manoel Island—reads like a handwritten WhatsApp group chat between neighbours who still believe ink carries more weight than a blue tick.

Frontrunner for most-forwarded letter is 82-year-old Pawlu Zahra’s lyrical defence of the traditional Maltese fenkata, sparked by a restaurateur in St Julian’s who last week began pricing rabbit at €32 a plate. “My nanna used to feed nine children on one scrawny fenek and a sprig of wild fennel,” Zahra writes. “If prosperity means we now serve bunny wrapped in gold leaf, then prosperity has lost the plot.” Within minutes the letter is screenshot and shared across Facebook groups from Mellieħa to Marsaskala. By noon, a pop-up “People’s Fenkata” is announced for next Sunday in the Upper Barrakka Gardens, promising plates at 1970s prices and live guitar by none other than Pawlu himself—turning the printed page into a community event before the ink is dry.

Equally fiery is the contribution by 24-year-old climate activist Martina Camilleri, who takes Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo to task over the new floating water park anchored just off Għadira Bay. “We turned our seabed into an inflatable obstacle course,” she writes, “and then wonder why Posidonia oceanica looks like overcooked spaghetti.” Her letter lands the same morning the Malta Tourism Authority issues a press release celebrating record August arrivals. The juxtaposition fuels a lunchtime TVM phone-in where callers alternate between praising her pluck and accusing her of biting the hand that feeds the island’s golden goose.

Between the rabbit wars and the buoy battles, quieter but no less poignant notes emerge. A Gozitan mother thanks the anonymous nurse at Mater Dei who sang “Għanja Lil Marija” to her premature twins at 3 a.m.; a Valletta shopkeeper laments the disappearance of the old ironmongers on Strait Street, replaced by yet another bubble-tea franchise; and a Birżebbuġa parish priest reminds readers that the festa is not an excuse for 48-hour pyrotechnic warfare. Each letter, no longer than 200 words, carries the cadence of spoken Maltese—English peppered with “jekk jogħġbok,” “mela,” and the occasional “u ejja!”—reminding us that the page still listens when the village bar runs out of time and patience.

The cultural significance is hard to overstate. In a country where village gossip once travelled by church-hall whispers and festa confetti, the letters page has become the national noticeboard. It is where Gozitans challenge Valletta’s decisions, where teenagers rebuke pensioners and vice versa, and where politicians still fear a two-paragraph takedown more than a ten-minute sound-bite. “It’s the last place where we argue with our whole name attached,” says University of Malta linguist Prof. Anna Vella. “That signature at the bottom—inked, not typed—still carries the weight of a handshake.”

By evening, the paper’s online edition clocks 28,000 comments, a record for 2025. A Marsaxlokk fisherman livestreams himself reading Pawlu’s rabbit letter aloud while mending nets; teenagers on TikTok duet Martina’s lines over clips of them diving into Għadira’s turquoise water. The editors, sipping Kinnie in their cramped Valletta office, admit they no longer control the conversation—they merely host it. And perhaps that is the greatest community impact of all: in an age of disappearing attention spans, nine short letters have managed to make an island of 520,000 souls pause, argue and occasionally agree, proving that the Maltese art of passionate disagreement is alive, well and still best served on recycled newsprint.