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A monument to the ‘internati’ would also be a monument to our national habit of sweeping things under the carpet, argues Raphael Vassallo
In the end, CHOGM did more for Malta than re-asphalt all the roads leading to Ghajn Tuffieha. It also helped re-ignite an unresolved national controversy that has lain dormant for nearly 70 years.
It all started with a letter in The Times in November 2005, in which PN president Victor Scerri called upon Queen Elizabeth II, then in Malta for the Commonwealth meeting, to apologise for the wartime deportation of several suspected Fascist or Nazi sympathisers.
These included a number of foreign nationals, but also several of the most prominent Maltese literati of the time: Nationalist leader Dr Enrico Mizzi, philanthropist Chevalier Vincenzo Bugeja, lawyer Vittorio Bonello and Lehen is-Sewwa editor Herbert Ganado, to name a few. Most were interned in Fort Salvatore in Rabat; eminent exceptions such as Chief Justice Sir Arturo Mercieca were kept under house arrest. On 9 February 1942, Governor Walter Dobbie issued a warrant for the deportation of 47 of the internees to Uganda, including all of the above. The decision enjoyed the support of the pro-British Constitutional party, but was hotly contested by the PN in opposition.
Much has now been written about the proposal, recently floated in parliament by PN deputy leader Tonio Borg, to erect a monument to the ‘internati’. But far from uniting a nation, this proposal has clearly stirred memories of wartime divisions that some would prefer to remain buried under the rubble of the Malta blitz.
For one thing, it was almost immediately shot down by numerous detractors – some old enough to remember the actual event – who counter that the internment order was a necessary wartime precaution, with equivalent decisions taken all over the Allied world. But others were quick to point out that while internment may have been justifiable in wartime, the deportation order itself was actually illegal.
Among these was European judge Giovanni Bonello – son of the exiled Vittorio – who described the deportation as a “crime against humanity”. But even Judge Bonello stopped short of demanding a monument, arguing that Enrico Mizzi’s subsequent apotheosis as Malta’s most lamented Prime Minister was recognition enough.
In truth, however, much has been omitted on either side of the debate. For instance, none of the war veterans have so far alluded to the acts of gross intimidation perpetrated upon the deportees, as they prepared to board the HMS Breconshire to the sound of gunfire aimed at frightening them out of the wits. Likewise, acts of great courage have gone unmentioned: not least, the resilience of Lady and Miss Lillian Mercieca, wife and daughter respectively of Sir Arturo Mercieca, who voluntarily chose to accompany him on what must have been a daunting sea voyage, at a time when Axis U-Boats scoured the Mediterranean.
Elsewhere, it is clear from the sometimes heated reactions that the ghost of the Nationalists’ pre-war links to Fascist Italy, real or perceived, has not been fully exorcised. Admittedly no evidence of sedition was ever forthcoming, despite concerted efforts by the British secret services to “pin something” on Mizzi and his confederates. But it remains a fact that the newspaper ‘Malta’, edited by Mizzi, served as a mouthpiece for Fascist propaganda before the war; and that Herbert Ganado’s classic headline to announce the General Franco’s victory in Spain – “Dhalna Madrid” – left no one in doubt as to Lehen is-Sewwa’s political credentials at the time.
But by and large, the current discussion has failed to rise above what has become a standard feature of local historical debate: a mad scramble for revisionism, dictated largely by personal interests in the context of an endlessly polarised environment. For what was the deportation order to begin with, but a thinly disguised pretext for the ruling political hegemony of the day to simply eliminate its opposition under the semblance of legality? (Not for the first time, either: Nationalists might not relish the analogy, but an almost identical excuse had been used to exile political maverick Manwel Dimech to Alexandria almost 30 years earlier.)
And what is the purpose of demanding apologies and monuments now, if not to invoke memories of a glorious past, and thus compensate for the PN’s less than glorious present?
Ultimately, the ‘internati’ episode is less a tale of wartime heroism than an example of inglorious political machinations aimed at settling old political scores. Perhaps out of courtesy to surviving family members of those involved, their latter-day avengers have so far desisted from naming any of the Maltese actors involved in that unpleasant mise-en-scene. For while the plot was undeniably hatched by British civil servants, the deportation itself would not have been possible without the active collusion of Maltese politicians, who steered the necessary legislation through the Council in defiance of numerous previous court rulings.
Transcripts of that distant parliamentary debate continue to make dramatic reading to this day. Ironically, it was not Dr Mizzi to perish as a result of his illegal deportation, but rather his temporary replacement, Sir Ugo Mifsud, who fought so vehemently against Major Roger Strickland’s motion that he was taken ill, and died two days later.
Besides, what happened in the long, dark winter of 1942 would repeat itself to varying degrees all the way to the 21st century. Malta proved on that occasion to be her own worst enemy, and the same pattern of Maltese interests undermined by fellow Maltese has continued unabated.
From this perspective, a monument to the ‘internati’ would not be just a monument to a 70-year-old injustice; it would also be a reminder that, for all our claims to have progressed since Independence in 1964, we have so far failed to heal any of our ancestral political divisions. On the contrary, we treated them in the same way we would later treat our country’s more pressing environmental problems. We swept them under the carpet, and left them there for future generations to grapple with as best they could.
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