In memory of an ending era

Charles Mangion, the opposition deputy leader, has rightly pointed out that the annual March 31 festivities have whittled down to a mere token. He therefore urged the National Festivities Committee to give March 31 the same importance like Independence Day.

There should be no discrimination between the two days, he said.

One of the reasons why March 31 has been downplayed is that the day is an aberration. A mistake and a miscalculation. March 31 was supposed to free us from the military warships. But it didn't.

Deservedly, a country that seeks to fool itself awakes the next day to April's Fools Day.

As I pen this contribution from the United States, American assault ships loaded with weapons of mass destruction regularly dock in the Grand Harbour making a mockery of the monument of the tooting horn in Vittoriosa.

Even the Malta Drydocks, the paramilitary wing of the Labour Party, opened its arms to the La Salle for repairs.

Money talks. Capitalism has won the day.

Our forefathers did not build and man the drydocks for the Knights of St John and the British Navy because they loved war. It's money they loved. And they were smart enough to know that the drydocks needed big sponsors, warships.

It was only in the 1970s that a man by the name of Dom Mintoff turned economics upside down and misled a naïve people into thinking that the drydocks could stand on its own feet without rich clients.

Barely had the National Festivities Committee dismantled the flags, light bulbs, potted plants and other paraphernalia that marked the beginning of "freedom" in 1979, that Labour Minister Alex Sceberras Trigona donned a sailor's flat hat to welcome a warship back into Malta's Grand Harbour.

Drunkards can live in denial only for so long. The habit may persist but the wake up call comes much earlier.

As both political parties promise to reform their policies for the new Malta, they need to be honest and truthful. As Saint John wrote: "Know the truth and the truth will set you free".

The first truth is that March 31 is a hoax past its due date. The people may keep the holiday if they want.

Holidays never hurt anyone; they are the perfect antidote to occupational fatalities. But don't try to fool the people about this holiday's insignificance.

The opposition deputy leader held Independence Day as a role model for what March 31 festivities should look like.

Herein lies the second truth. Independence Day has also become meaningless. There was a time when Malta was independent. But as we join the EU in a few weeks, we kiss independence goodbye.

We are now citizens of the European Union.

When we voted for integration with the EU, we gave a vote of no-confidence to our independence. If life in independent Malta was so great, we would have voted otherwise.

In Malta the two parties sit at the opposing ends of the seesaw and we dread and fear the inevitable. Certain political factions are a threat to our peace of mind and weakening and diluting their power is the best way to strengthen Johnny Citizen.

Not everyone who voted for integration shares my view. At Nationalist mass meetings, thousands of voters decked in star-spangled flags, like sausages in blue casings, believed that the skies would open and millions of euros would rain from above if they sacrificed the nation's independence.

The EU promised certain exceptions for Malta, leading many Maltese to believe that the country would retain its autonomy in the EU just like my little children think they are autonomous because they have their own little drawers in their own bedroom.

But the truth remains that in the new configuration Malta's independence is an antiquity with relevance only for the historians.

As from 2004, Malta's most powerful, ranging from Richard Cachia Caruana to John Attard Montalto and Joe Borg, kiss their brothers and sisters goodbye and flutter their wings to mainland Europe.

These politicians did not make a name by mushrooming out of the ground. But by following power. As the centre of power shifts away from Malta to mainland Europe, the moths follow the moving lamppost.

In the new Europe, only one per cent of the citizens will uproot themselves to another country. But in Malta's parliamentary circles more than one per cent will leave our shores to take advantage of the personal opportunities that await them in the European bureaucracy.

The new realities may not be adaptable to coffee-, pizza- and tombola-mornings, praise-the-feudal-lord doggerels, musketterija (fireworks) and other puerile acts that surround the March 31 and Independence festivities. The MLP's Notary Mangion wants more of these for his March 31.

Yes, the MLP gave us March 31 and the Nationalists gave us Independence Day.

But that was then and this is now.

In 2004, these days have no more meaning even if our ageing politicians find it hard to let go of the past that served them so well. Since the independence days of 1964, Maltese politicians have been desperately clinging on to the national psyche, busily littering the environment with large marble plaques bearing their names.

Peeling political posters are increasingly replaced by embossed marble rectangles permanently cemented to the walls.

In the heart of the Citadel in Gozo, where history drenched in blood and suffering oozes from the cracks in the bastion walls, stand two plaques. One says Minister Sceberras Trigona inaugurated this water fountain (it's not a fountain, it has no plumbing, it's just an open-air stone balcony jutting from the wall - at street level).

The other, about eight metres away from it, says Minister Sceberras Trigona sat in this square to watch the ballad of Santa Maria, a theatrical production about the American convoy's glorious entry into Grand Harbour.

Tourists visiting our islands would be forgiven if they conclude nothing noteworthy happened to the islands before the era of the plaques.

As Malta gears up for integration in May, it should - in memory of an ending era - plaster one last plaque, left blank for the EU's perusal.