Malta's defenders still stand even if aged over 90

William P Flynn

Apr 17th 2009, 10:41

@davidcalleja-urry

You believe British soldiers, protecting Maltese property, shot a few unarmed Maltese at the Main Guard 7June1919??
Do you remember the Main Guard? I do. Marines with fixed bayonets and hob-nailed boots stomping the ground "protecting Maltese property". Please...

Why can't you understand the distinction between accepting a medal and a defacement of a flag?It's not hard to understand.

I did live under British Colonialism; that is another story. This is about the GC medal and the Flag.

The "insult to the people" is the GC facsimile on the National Flag; it is immaterial where the flag came from, who gave it to us, or even how long we had it. It is our flag. It belongs to every Maltese alive and we should pass it down as it was handed to us.

@MrGrima

Guess which Maltese flag your father and every Maltese who earned and deserved the GC hoisted at that time? You should easily work that out.
Idiots and scholars have an equal right to vote which Flag is Maltese.
We especially owe it to the likes of your father to remove the GC from the Flag.

I hope people see that.

p.grima

Apr 17th 2009, 01:32

My late father is one of many who earned and deserved to be honoured and decorated by the Georde Cross. It would offend their memory, and myself if some idiot who never did anything to deserve that Cross should remove it from our flag. The Georde Cross reminds us Maltese and all others that though we are a small nation we are brave. One should also remember that General Charles Henri de Belgrand de Vaubois said that they were fighting against lions, when they fought the numerically inferior, unarmed, and untrained Maltese populace.

William P Flynn

Apr 17th 2009, 01:18

Mssrs Grima Borg & Gatt. I apologise to you for bringing this up again. I felt exactly the same way as you at first.
It isn't nice for someone to tell you a flag you have been brought up to respect is the wrong flag.

The fact of the matter is almost everyone Maltese alive today, has been brought up to believe in a defaced national flag. If you are content with that, that's your prerogative. I'm not and never shall be and consider it my duty to tell others.

MrGrima don't you see the irony of being given a medal and not the money to rebuild the Opera House? British "gratitude" officially locked us out of the post-war Marshall Aid Plan - the same money that rebuilt(for example)the Berlin, Munich, Hamburg opera houses.

Doesn't it strike you as odd putting a medal on a 900 year old national flag by a foreigner? Which country, which people would accept that? These things just aren't done.
Even if Maltese had properly voted for it, isn't it odd that we have a foreign KING represented on the flag of a REPUBLIC?

There are true believers who still fly the White and Red.

david calleja-urry

Apr 16th 2009, 21:50

Mr. Flynn again. I wonder what your problem with the British is sir? You are so obviously anti-British, that you must have a personal reason somewhere for that. Fine, that's your God-Given & Allied defended right - but for you to decide willy nilly for the rest of Malta is taking this too far. I've said this before - this is an insult to the people - Maltese AND British who died defending Malta & the free world from the NAZI & FACIST regimes. I also can never understand why the George cross rankles so much, but a ''flag'' supposedly given to Malta by a Norman Feudal lord is ok...final point, my grandmother was in the vicinity of the June 7th 1919 ''events'' - the correct word there should have been RIOTS... against Maltese property...Patriots?? Please....

wally vella-zarb

Apr 16th 2009, 19:59

@ Joe Borg

No wonder your view of our history is so distorted! Dun Karm Psaila, our National Poet, passed away on 13 October, 1961 and not 1903 as you would have us believe! He lived through both World Wars.

Joe Borg

Apr 16th 2009, 18:01

Mr. Flynn,

Everyone has his own opinion; "mitt bniedem mitt fhema". I respect that but that also gives me right to criticise it.

Displaying a National honour on the National Flag is one of the best things one could think of. If it simply lay in a museum probably not everyone would have it at heart so much. I can't bring myself to picture our flag without the George Cross represented on it.

As for your last comment (the quote from Dun Karm Psaila) "Bajda u hamra biss, irridek jiena"; I remind you that Dun Karm lived from 1871 - 1903. He did not live during that historical moment therefore you can't use that quote to enforce your point.

John M. Grima

Apr 16th 2009, 17:25

Hello Mr. Flynn. You again. I thought you had given up?

I was at Saqqajja square in Rabat when I first saw the George Cross medal for the first time.
Yes there was some controversy then about Bread being preferred to the GC award, probably by deserving refugees who unfortunately lost everything.
But MAN DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE. "An eaten loaf is soon forgotten", but an award is there for ever. This one reflects the bravery of a Maltese & Gozotan people during a horrible event in our lives.

AND WHAT BETTER PLACE TO DISPLAY SUCH AN HONOUR THAN ON THE NATIONAL FLAG OF RED AND WHITE FOR THE WORLD TO WITNESS?

And besides, What better record than this are we left with from world War ll? (The Royal Opera House?)

Once and for all. You as well as those who feel about the cross on the Flag as you do. Give the majority of us a break, give it up and be proud. Please!

Tony Gatt

Apr 16th 2009, 17:02

@William P.Flyn,
The people who got that award fought and died, like my father, in order that people could freely express their views, even if those views are a load of old tosh.
Perhaps Roger the Norman was Maltese, after all!

William P Flynn

Apr 16th 2009, 14:47

StevenCamilleri - They were saluted by the White and Red at the time. And I would too with that same flag.

DScerri - Who EARNED the presence of the George Cross on the national flag? Where does it say the GC was to go on the National Flag? Too right I WAS awarded it.

There was only EVER one flag that earned the GC on it by special royal warrant. And it was not the Maltese National flag.

D. Scerri

Apr 16th 2009, 13:15

@William P Flynn:

Those who earned the presence of the George Cross on the national flag are rightly proud of it.

You did not earn it, they did, they were awarded it. That's all that matters.

wally vella-zarb

Apr 16th 2009, 12:18

Never was so LITTLE given by so MANY for so MUCH!

Patrick Saliba

Apr 16th 2009, 12:07

The George Cross was given to our nation to honour the courage of its people. No shame in putting the GC on our flag! For me it is still red and white and flies high even though we were never consulted on whether the GC should or should not be there!

History is history.

Proud to be Maltese !!

STEVEN CAMILLERI

Apr 16th 2009, 12:07

As a proud son of a ex RAF sergant I salute the Heroes and Old People of my country who against all odds did the impossible , I also salute all the serviceman who even gave their lives so that we can have all this freedom . Thank God for that GOLDEN GENERATION , LEST WE FORGET.

BAJDA , HAMRA u bil George Cross fil genb please.

William P Flynn

Apr 16th 2009, 11:51

On that fateful day, 15 April 1942, our Flag was White and Red. It flew proudly on that day of recognition as it had done for nine centuries. Even when Maltese patriots faced off British Enfields, some falling dead and bleeding, on that very same spot on 7 June 1919.

A short time later, Lord Gort, foreigner and English governor representing an English King, unceremoniously and without consulting or having any discussion with any Maltese person, except possibly, Mabel Strickland, went ahead and painted the GC likeness on our flag.

That was it.

No one has the power to change a nation's flag except the people of that nation to whom that flag and the history that it written into its Sacred Cloth belong.

If there was one official Maltese flag showing the GC flying anywhere near this re-enactment yesterday, it would have constituted a historical mistake; like the scarilege of the writing of the travesty of the GC Flag into the Maltese Constitution.

"Bajda u hamra biss, irridek jiena", Dun Karm. (Just White and Red, for mine.)