Malta’s Letter-Writing Renaissance: How September’s Inbox Sparks Protests, Policy and Pride

Letters to the editor – September 26, 2025
By Hot Malta Staff

Valletta’s 17th-century printing press, now a hip wine-bar by night, still smells of ink at dawn. That scent drifted across the Grand Harbour this morning as editors at Times of Malta, Malta Today and The Shift unsealed the weekly postbag—an analog ritual that, even in 2025, sets the pulse of the islands. By 09:00, 43 letters had been shortlisted, three written in Maltese, two in Italian, the rest in that unmistakable English salted with Semitic cadence. Topics ranged from the price of ġbejniet to the geopolitics of a NATO drone base in Gozo, but every envelope carried the same unstated demand: “Listen, we still live here.”

The most forwarded piece came from 72-year-old Toni Briffa of Siġġiewi, who remembers when postage was 2d and the parish priest censored the village noticeboard. Toni’s letter skewers the new “silent” fireworks policy introduced after last year’s pet cemetery scandal. “We banned petards to spare shih-tzus,” he writes, “yet hunters can still blast skylarks out of the sky. Kif, raga’—how come?” Within minutes #ToniTellsTruth trended island-wide, forcing Environment Minister Miriam Dalli to promise a holistic review “before next Easter’s feast season.”

Equally viral was 19-year-old Dunja Camilleri’s open letter from the University of Malta quadrangle. Born in Gżira to a Serbian mother and Maltese father, Dunja describes queueing at Identity Malta for a new biometric ID that still labels her “Third-Country National.” Her closing line—“I speak Maltese in my dreams, but my passport wakes me up”—was screen-grabbed onto Instagram stories by local influencers, prompting a lunchtime protest where students taped their mouths with EU-blue masking tape. By sunset, the Home Affairs Ministry announced a six-month pilot to grant “cultural citizenship” certificates, a semantic sleight-of-hand that may yet mushroom into full voting rights.

Not every letter thundered with politics. Maria Farrugia of Żabbar thanked the unknown stranger who paid her 83-year-old neighbour’s €180 water bill after a leak went undetected for months. “Malta may be Europe’s densest country,” Maria writes, “but our balconies still touch.” Readers responded by mailing €5 notes to the newspaper offices, sparking the #BalconyBlessing campaign—an organic mutual-aid fund now administered by the Order of Malta’s volunteers.

Yet beneath the feel-good glow lurks a darker ink. Three anonymous letters, postmarked Mellieħa, warn that Russian-owned super-yachts are again mooring inside the old submarine pens, allegedly refuelling via unregistered bunkers. The claims echo a 2023 European Parliament report that was quietly shelved after Maltese MEPs abstained. This time, however, the letters arrived alongside high-resolution drone photos—time-stamped, GPS-tagged, undeniable. The Shift has referred the matter to the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit; Reuters has already requested satellite overlays. If substantiated, Malta could face a fourth round of FATF grey-listing just months after celebrating its removal.

Why do Maltese still write letters when Facebook rants are faster? Sociologist Dr. Sandra Scicluna points to the islands’ confessional past: “We’re conditioned to whisper sins through a grille; the newspaper is a secular grille, anonymity guaranteed but absolution public.” Print circulation may be down 7 % year-on-year, yet letter submissions are up 12 %, suggesting that the editor’s page functions as the nation’s collective diary—part complaint box, part parish notice, part therapy couch.

By teatime, the sub-editors had titled the spread “The Noise We Make When No One Listens.” It will hit doorsteps tomorrow, wrapped around supermarket flyers and festa firework schedules. Some letters will be debated in barber shops; others will reach Brussels translated into policy jargon. Most will line cat-litter trays by Sunday. But for a few hours, the islands pause to hear themselves think—an endangered pastime in a country that sells silence by the square metre to foreign investors.

As the press rollers finally stilled, night-watchman Ġorġ tapped the metal chassis and muttered the same benediction his father once used when the linotype machines fell quiet: “Nagħmlu ġid, inkunu ħodor.” May our words bear fruit, may they stay green. On a September night scented with sea salt and squid ink, it felt like the most Maltese prayer of all.