Godfrey Baldacchino: Why the Maltese are yet to emancipate themselves from mental slavery

Historian John Chircop writes: “Colonialism in Malta, as in other imperial domains, evolved as a complex of experiences. These frequently included rejections or downright resistance, but also acknowledgement, acceptance and measures of consent, given by different ‘native’ social groups all through the 160 years or so of British rule and beyond independence into post-colonial times.”

What may remain surprising in the case of certain, current or former, British colonies, is the surprising excess of expressions of allegiance rather than resistance by these native groups and individuals. Malta falls squarely in this camp, and examples come thick and fast. Would the Minister of Tourism of any country wear the jacket of the foreign (English) team when that team is in their country to play a friendly with a local one?

While enjoying an imperial pose since 1891 in the hub of Valletta Queen Victoria, who never visited Malta, sits with the British royal insignia in the front of her pedestal while hiding under her bum the only public Maltese blazon that is found in Valletta. It is quite odd how Maltese society is not distressed with such a humiliating historical statement more so since the statue remains in the square named after the Republic.

A culture of submission

Charles Xuereb has long been a critical voice of Malta’s representations of its own history. It can be expected that a colonial power would undertake initiatives in favour of drilling a culture of submission and inferiority among its colonial subjects, whereby its Imperial grandeur – personified in its sovereign – becomes then the object of the love of the colonised. As Edward Zammit explains in his book A Colonial Inheritance (1984), loyalty was bought by opportunities for employment in the civil service and by an overall benign and paternalist administration, though with dramatic exceptions. But such overtures and manipulative strategies have been strongly resisted across empires by the colonised, with counter-narratives of exploitation, subjugation and injustice.

For some 40 years after the end of the Second World War, a wave of decolonisation led colonial subjects to canvas aggressively for and secure independence, often involving armed insurrection. Thus was the once planet-straddling British Empire consigned to history, as were other empires (notably, the French, Spanish and Portuguese). Malta would seem to fit the picture, having obtained its own independence in 1964.

But: was Malta’s independence secured after a bout of armed struggle (like that other British island colony in the Mediterranean, Cyprus)? None seems to have been forthcoming, other than the 1919 Sette Giugno and the 28th April 1958 riots. Otherwise, the response of choice seems to have been gemgem (quiet gossip). The independence option was only triggered after an ‘Integration with Britain’ proposal had failed (although the 1956 referendum called in this regard had garnered the necessary majority of votes cast).

Were we not foolish enough to think that Britain would welcome Malta like a second Sussex into its fold? Malta then negotiated an extension of the lease of the British military base to 1979, suggesting that we were in no particular hurry to ditch the Brits. As Mario Vella has argued, even avowedly socialist governments have sought to make Malta attractive to foreign investment. It is tempting to think that Malta fits best within that cluster of small island jurisdictions whose citizens have even rejected independence and/or preferred to remain British subjects (think Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman, Falklands, Montserrat).

Malta University – largest and oldest outside British Isles

Not so: unlike these remaining confetti of empire, Malta has a long history spanning over millennia; it has the largest and oldest national university outside the British Isles. Colonised intellectuals, as Xuereb aptly calls them, would agitate for increased autonomy, only to be met by execution (Giuseppe Callus, 1561) or exile (Manwel Dimech, 1918-1921).

Admittedly, we dropped the British monarch as head of state in 1974. Kingsgate in Valletta was renamed Republic Street. And yet, even almost 60 years after independence, Bob Marley’s Redemption Song lyrics ring true: the Maltese are yet to emancipate themselves from mental slavery; a task that only they can properly accomplish. Their/our capital city is replete with exemplars of British hegemony – from the statute of Queen Victoria to the British Royal Insignia on the Main Guard across St George’s Square from the Palace. Ironic, is it not, that the main square of the nation’s capital is not named after Malta’s patron saint, but Britain’s?

I have reflected on similar points made so amply and authoritatively by Xuereb in this timely book. I asked myself two decades ago whether Malta was indeed a ‘nationless state’, fully respected as a member of the family of sovereign countries – now again with a seat in the UN Security Council – but still lacking in unifying symbols of nationhood. No wonder we cannot agree to have one national day.

English hegemony

Of course, the matter is highly complex. As Xuereb himself admits, his book is written in the English language; and here am I critiquing his book in the same language. These facts echo and reflect the hegemony of English as the written word in Malta (and elsewhere). They remind us that at our national public university, rebranded as L-Università ta’ Malta, the main language of instruction and assessment is overwhelmingly English. At least the guidelines of the university’s first-ever Language Policy, approved in 2021, uphold the significance of Maltese as the national language and the university’s responsibility towards its broad and correct use.

The issue of identity is also vexed. The author is keen to raise it as a subject of debate, and would have us, for example, sing the national anthem at school. I am wary of such overtures, since identity politics can be manipulated by political elites, and give sway to exclusionary practices and right-wing ideologues which have mercifully not been significant so far, other than as a dark underbelly of racism (think Lassana Cisse’s murder in 2019).

But these ruminations are exactly what one hopes for from a book like this. Xuereb weaves the Malta story using a Braudelian longue durée approach, and enriches it with almost one thousand citations and footnotes. I must say, the author used the Covid-19 period and its forced lockdowns to good effect, crafting this insightful book.

Malta continues daily to exhibit episodes of ‘banal non-nationalism’, highlighting the routine and often unnoticed ways that our disrespect for things Maltese are reproduced, and thus strengthened, as social facts. While talking in Maltese, do you say COVID-nineteen or COVID-dsatax?

Charles Xuereb (2022) Decolonising the Maltese Mind: In Search of Identity (Midsea Books)