Malta, growing up

Forty years is the largest part of the quality time in the life of a human being, seeing one's sun reach its zenith and start moving inexorably towards sunset. Forty years in the life of a nation is relatively nothing, unless they are part of a new era, and thereby very defining in themselves.

Malta has been around for millennia as an existence quite bigger than its size, as our megalithic temples testify. The year 1964 was indelibly significant for marking its birth, on September 21, as an independent nation.

It was a paradoxical period. Across the spectrum of Maltese society and the earliest political groupings, there had been building up for many decades a determination to break away from the colonial status imposed opportunistically by Britain in the early 19th century. Yet, when the day of formal constitutional independence arrived, the country was deeply divided over it.

It was not a division between those for and against a new political status. There were many who were unsure about what darkness might lie in the future at the time. The Curia was far less than certain that independence was a move good for it and for the souls of the Maltese. But in the political arena, I recall, only Herbert Ganado had rationalised his apprehension of what might lie ahead.

Even without today's benefit of hindsight, one could tell that at the time the political class was still weighing how best to move forward. The Malta Labour Party, mobilised by its strong leader, Dom Mintoff, had a platform of integration or self-determination.

I recall Anton Buttigieg, the party's deputy leader, stressing to me, a young buck with an early tendency towards bluntness, the distinction between self-determination and independence, which might or might not follow from the exercise of the former.

I never had any doubt, nor do I now from this distance in one man's turbulent life, that Mr Mintoff wanted integration as a stepping stone, in the context of an understanding of the need to diversify and build the island's economy, at the time heavily reliant on British military activities and expenditure.

For analytical historians fresh evidence of that intention was provided in a letter written by Mr Mintoff from London when he was 22, dug up by Alfred Zahra de Domenico and carried in this newspaper a fortnight ago. A man's plans and zeal take years to fructify, if they ever do, and then only by persuading and carrying a key influential core with him.

The Nationalist Party, led by George Borg Olivier who, in his way, had as strong a grip on his side as Dom Mintoff on the Labour Party, spoke about not independence but Dominion status for Malta. Thereby I do not believe it had lost the fire put in its belly by its former leader, Nerik Mizzi, an implacable opponent to British colonialism, out of a conviction that had priority over his burning desire for a very close relationship with Italy.

Again, I believe that Dominion status was only a stepping stone in Dr Borg Olivier's mind.

When the road to independence opened up, it was in part a reaction to the strong feeling against the way the British government was bossing Malta for its own ends. That was reflected on a bi-party basis in the famous Break-with-Britain resolution passed by the House of Representatives on December 30, 1957. The feeling deepened after Britain suspended the Constitution and imposed direct rule early in 1958.

In essence, however, the British government agreed to let Malta become independent after Prime Minister Borg Olivier could not make headway on his demands when representative government was restored in 1962, only because it had revised and downgraded its assessment of Malta's strategic use to it.

Before that the foundations of British colonialism had been shaken by the hard opposition to it in various African countries. Leading to Harold McMillan, the wily Conservative prime minister, to make his Wind of Change policy-shift speech.

With regard to Malta, the British authorities, despite their lowered assessment of the island's strategic value, structured the independence package, such that they could retain a military base on the islands for a further ten years, although they have already been preparing the economically very destabilising rundown plans brought to light in 1967.

All of that, and more, was at the root of the paradox of political independence, on which there was a broad consensus, arriving in a context of deep division. The involvement of the Malta Curia in politics, triggered by the personality clash between Dom Mintoff and Archbishop Michael Gonzi, and particularly the latter's genuine but unjustified fear that Labour would fellow-travel with Communism, aggravated matters.

Forty years on, what has been Malta's experience with political independence? (The qualification imposes itself, for there can never be economic independence.) It has, among other things, yielded another paradox.

Malta's right to govern itself, to elect its own representatives to act on her behalf within the family of nations as well, has allowed successive governments to take positions on domestic and foreign policy that would or may not have been possible had Malta remained a colony.

The island, through much brokering by Mr Mintoff and Guido de Marco, and despite the opposition of Dr Borg Olivier, became a Republic, with successive Maltese heads of state who have typified what is good in life beyond and above politics. It declared itself neutral, and entrenched that position in its Constitution. It reached agreements with various countries, most importantly Italy, but perhaps more significantly with Libya and China.

And it could decide for itself whether or not to join the European Union. That major decision yields the paradox that, had Malta been integrated with Britain in the Fifties, as Mr Mintoff wanted, it would have become part of the EU when the United Kingdom joined over 21 years ago.

In economic terms the arrival of independence unleashed forces that had been far less than sufficiently mobilised in the years before that. Britain's early running down of its military facilities and spending in Malta converted the spectre of high unemployment into a terrible reality.

In the early years that led to massive emigration, with a tenth of the population seeking a less threatening life in Australia and elsewhere. It also led to vigorous initiatives to develop the private sector, shifting economic activity onto a freshly fashioned base laid on manufacturing and tourism.

The arrival of a Labour government in 1971 led to the strongest foreign direct investment surge ever experienced by the Maltese Islands. Manufacturing became a mainstay of the economy, with rare exceptions like that of Sunny Borg of Bortex, through the establishment of quite large plants by foreign entrepreneurs.

The role of the state in the economy, driven less by ideology than real or perceived economic necessity, grew to an unhealthy level. Yet in parallel, private initiative blossomed, particularly in the tourist sector, where the big new names were Maltese, like Mose Fenech and Tumas Fenech.

In the commercial sector, which had always been strong, talent and enterprise diversified and expanded into productive areas. Albert Mizzi remains a prime example, with his thrusts in the hotel and other sectors, even as his family's commercial interests multiplied.

Of the generation that grew up in Malta's formative years as an independent nation, individuals like Louis Farrugia, Joe Gasan and George Fenech, now close to their early fifties, the younger Borg and Mizzi siblings, and various others, brought a new and increased dynamism to the initiatives born through the strength of their forbears, and at times progressed beyond them.

In all sectors too, in manufacturing, tourism and financial services, in the professions, in the courts, the very capable presence of the female gender became far more marked.

Out of the necessities and new demands of being independent, then, much success was born. Maltese individuals, in contrast to the pre-independence days, man the highest positions in the public sector.

Education has burgeoned. Second and third generation business families proliferate and hundreds, even thousands of young people with drive and ideas are going about with an earnestness and drive that are little short of amazing. So why does so much seem to be going wrong, now?

The economic base has grown shaky. The foreign direct investment inflow of the Seventies has not been repeated, not even on a much lower scale. Manufacturing is aging, despite efforts to upgrade existing plants.

Resources continue to be ploughed into the tourist sector, where the death knell sounds for many of the smaller, lower-starred hotels, but the spending power of the tourist flow is weak relative to the expenses of the industry, and the operating profit required by the new, costlier hotels.

The social security network is creaking under its own weight. The public finances are written in perennial red. The public debt charges on.

Why? It seems as if the first 40 years of independence can be divided in two. The fewer resources available in the first period exploited the scarcer opportunities they identified far more fruitfully. Early success led to a high dose of carelessness.

Consumption, instead of investment, became the objective and mainstay. Despite the fact that, as anyone must surely know, growth and prosperity depend on productive investment.

At the root of it all, I feel there lies also a more fundamental flaw. We became independent as a nation, but as a people we have not shaken off our culture of dependency. The hard early years after September 21, 1964, restrained that cultural inclination.

The success of the first period of political freedom breathed fresh new unhealthy life into it.

Happy 40th birthday, Malta. Celebrate, and enjoy. When the partying is over, try to take a closer look at yourself and to see how best to grow up.