Yet another candidate for national day choice

I'm afraid I fail to find any argument appearing in the correspondence pages in support of a national day other than Independence Day convincingly satisfying. Malta's insular society, it would appear, is vigorously and inimitably delighted in discreetly boasting five such major moments of national glory, a distinct peculiarity perhaps too firmly ingrained in its psyche, in its own marvellous identity. If this attitude or mindset, which I wouldn't ever dare dismiss as narrow or naïve, appeals to the appetites of the Maltese or "flatters their vanities", why deny them this eloquent sense of elation? After all, they have never been offered a direct say in the choice. Why shouldn't they be allowed to feel different, to create and sustain an innocent image of themselves that innocuously distinguished them from any other sovereign State in the civilised world?

Indeed, may I go a step further and propose a sixth moment of grandeur, which on hard historical evidence ranks much higher, in my scale of values, than at least three of the current ones? I'm referring to the glorious revolution of September 2, 1798, when the Maltese rose up against the French in protest against the more vexatious aspects of General Vaubois's government and succeeded in driving the invaders safely out of the island.

It was a splendid achievement, no doubt, but one which I cannot recall to have ever been celebrated or commemorated. In all modesty, the present proposal deserves serious reflection not only by historians, sociologists and anthropologists in a multidisciplinary exercise, but even by our representatives in any future parliamentary debate on the issue.

In his France 1848-1945: Ambition and Love, Theodore Zeldin defines history as "an essential part of the constant process of re-assessment that every generation makes of itself, and of the constant debate about what is worth keeping of the past and what is not". Can't we really "do differently" from what our "ancestors have done" in the past and "learn from their mistakes"? There is nothing extraordinary in this; or is there?