We joked about it in the promo video for our R/Evoluzzjoni25 documentary: 2019 was Moviment Graffitti’s 25th year of rock’n’roll. Little did we know that we’d be plugging away at full volume until the very end of what was a tumultuous year not only for the country, but also for its citizens.
Twenty-nineteen is also our busiest, hardest, most satisfying year of activity. We’ve seen our share of joys, disappointments, could-be-betters, meltdowns, stress, irregular eating patterns. We’ve had days starting at 5am, and days ending at 3am; we’ve sat at tables, dangled from iron gates, banged the drums or marched in silence. It’s been the year of protests, consultations, late-night marathon meetings.
All this takes a toll on us.
But giving up has never been on the cards. Not when there’s so much at stake, and especially not when hundreds, maybe thousands of you have given us their support or asked us to help with their cause. From Pembroke to Cottonera, St Julians, Qala, Zejtun, Marsaskala, Zebbug, and countless others, we thank you for trusting us, for walking with us in a straight non-partisan line in our continuous fight against the powers from behind the throne who want to stamp out our quality of life.
We thank all those who tell us “we don’t agree with you on everything, but we appreciate your work.” We are encouraged by those of you who come up to us to thank us during protests, PA hearings or raves (yeah we, too, like a good beat). We thank those who have donated, offered their time, knowledge and/or resources to our cause.
We stand by those who lost their own homes to the tsunami of greed that has engulfed us all, as we stand with the migrants whose very life is threatened by sickening flashes of fascism. We stand by those who have been discriminated, abused, driven out of their homes by greedy landlords, flushed out into the street by a system that now more than ever, needs to be changed. We stand by those who are sick of the endemic corruption that makes headlines, and with those who are frustrated when it doesn’t. We stand by thousands of silent, honest taxpaying workers who can only wonder helplessly why the select few can do as they please.
We thank the media who have taken notice of our actions and proposals throughout the year, and we wish them all the best in their search for the honest, unbiased truth.
Our fight will go on in 2020, in line with our leftist ideals which have made this group what it is today: a thorn in the side of power.
Before we wish you a Happy New Year, we’ve taken it in turns to choose our favourite photos from this year (see here). Some we took ourselves, the others are your work (you’re free to tag yourselves if you took the photo).
It’s just a tiny photo album of a year of pure rock’n’roll. Next year, we’ll be here to pump up the volume once more.