Banal national-days cycle ends

A question which always comes to mind on this day is whether it makes sense to keep celebrating December 13, Republic Day, as a national day. The question is not really fair. The basic question to ask, ask, and ask again is whether it makes sense to continue with the comedy of having five national days.

If push came to shove again and the finalists for one National Day were Republic Day and Independence Day, my vote would fall for the latter. Independence Day remains politically controversial. Labourites who give a hoot, which probably are no longer that many since there are more pressing issues to care about, will still insist that we did not really become independent on September 21, 1964.

We achieved an Independence constitution, yes, and its drafter, the hugely respected J.J. Cremona, is still around to tell the tale if he wanted to. He obviously does not, preferring instead to concentrate his twilight years on brushing up old and producing new magnificent poetry. But the former colonialists still retained too much power here in 1964, including a military base which continued to distort the economy.

The Malta Labour Party, as it then was, made a big issue out of that. And not without some reason. Nevertheless, it was through the provisions of the Independence constitution that Labour, in office from 1971, could take action for Parliament to declare Malta a republic. Thereby the Head of State was no longer the monarch of the United Kingdom but a Maltese national appointed by the Maltese House of Representatives. That was as it should be.

Political affairs are never simple, and no more so in our blessed Malta which some people still call fior del mondo. For at the end of the parliamentary day, the Nationalist Party (then in government) and the Malta Labour Party (in opposition) did not stick to a choice between Independence Day and Republic Day as our proud and prized National Day.

They embarked on a charade, of which I am ashamed to say I was a part as a sitting MP at the time. Push and shove, and shove and push produced five nominations for National Day status, the last day of which was thrown in for cynical good measure by a Labour MP who did not take the practice of politics as seriously as that essential component of democracy should be taken.

As a result we have been laughing stocks with five national days, notwithstanding occasional declarations by the high and the mighty that we should revisit this buffoonery and settle on one mutually agreed and respected National Day. I am long enough in tooth to accept defeat on this point. It is hugely unlikely that there will be agreement on this stupid issue in my lifetime. That being so, it makes as much sense to celebrate Republic Day as it does the other four legally classified national days.

Higher in my priorities than striving uselessly for one National Day I now put a desire that, whichever day we refer to or prefer, we look upon it as part of the mechanics of a truly democratic Malta. Is it really the case that we practise democracy to the full? We no longer have mortal sin for voting for a particular party in play in our elections. Police detainees are no longer beaten up on occasion, or killed, as happened on one brutal night, though the odd detainee still alleges ungentle treatment now and then.

But does that make us a meticulously practising democracy? Is the government open enough in its transactions? Are the political parties adequately transparent about the way they raise big finance to meet their rising bills? Does fairness prevail throughout the public sector, in appointment to boards, granting of contracts and such like? Are waste and corruption extinct beasts, or do they beaver away disgustingly and quietly, and sometimes not so quietly?

Is our citizenry primed enough to recognise its rights? Are citizens duly active in demanding those rights? Allowing for a few dozen columnists, letter writers and bloggers, how many are aware enough of what is going on, brazenly or discreetly, to feel impelled to make their voice heard, to say enough, no more! whoever the perpetrators might be?

The banality of another annual cycle of national days ends today. There should and can never be a day that records an end to more committed pursuit of a truly democratic way of governing, doing politics, and living.