Ihave heard it from the horse's mouth and I have read it in The Times. Yes, the PN government is starting a campaign attempting to convince Malta and his wife that our history as an island nation began in 1964 and that Independence Day should be declared as the one national holiday. This is the latest bright idea to come out of this year's independence celebrations and was announced by the Prime Minister earlier this week on the Granaries at a forum I attended.
I beg to differ and this is why.
It will, of course, be argued that other nations far greater and infinitely larger and more powerful than us commemorate their independence as their national day. Probably the PN apologists will indicate India and America. Circumstances for both these countries are radically different.
America was a colony founded by Britain and had no previous history to speak of while although the history of India harks back to ancient times it was always relatively fragmented and was merely a geographical expression for the subcontinent. These two independence days cannot in any way be compared to Malta's; historically they are chalk and cheese.
With that ill-conceived comparison out of the way I can expostulate about why September 8 should be unanimously and unequivocally chosen as our one and only National Day.
The first and most important consideration about September 8 is that it is apolitical. Neither the PN nor the PL can claim it as their own and it is indisputably symbolic of events that had repercussions on world history. Had Malta become Turkish in 1565 or fallen to nazism in 1942 the world we know today would probably never have existed.
Our history as Maltese is way older than a mere 45 years. Let us skip Ħaġar Qim, the Punic wars and the Byzantine and Arab periods to the Norman Conquest of 1090. Although an appanage of the Norman Crown of Sicily during the Middle Ages, as far as I am aware one of the king's titles was Count of Malta, thereby making Malta a separate entity.
Malta was given to the Order of St John as a fiefdom in 1530 by Charles V in his capacity of Count of Malta. I feel that our destiny as an island race was determined at the moment when, after the Great Siege of 1565, the Sovereign, Military and Hospitaller Order of St John decided to make Malta its permanent home. Malta was in shambles, the countryside laid waste and the island could easily have been abandoned by the Order. Instead a spanking new capital city rose like a phoenix from the ashes. The building of Valletta changed our history radically and when, in the early 18th century, Grand Master Perellos closed his crown and elevated himself to the rank of sovereign prince and fons honorum, the seeds of our nationhood were well and truly laid.
By the time Napoleon forced the Order to relinquish the island in 1798 there were enough influential leaders of the Maltese people to both welcome the French and, only a few months later, rise up against them and blockade the French in Valletta for well on to two years. Sadly, we were not considered ready to govern ourselves nor, I am sure, were these same leaders of the Maltese like Mannarino, Braret, Manduca and Caruana. We asked for British help to stop supplies from reaching Valletta and got it. The price was becoming a Crown Colony till 1964 when Giorgio Borg Olivier obtained independence but it was an incomplete independence as we still had QEII as our head of state represented by a governor general.
The lifting of the second siege of Malta in 1942 was a great turning point in our history for, had we Maltese not resisted the forces of nazism and fascism, the history of Europe could have been radically different, which is why we carry the George Cross with such pride upon our flag.
For too long have the dates of September 21, December 13 and March 31 been the cause of divisiveness among us. While there is no question about retaining all three as public holidays, I firmly believe that the one day that there can be no argument about and which encapsulates our very complex national history is September 8 as it commemorates indisputable determining points not only in our history but that of the world.