What independence has meant

On August 20, 1962, just over 50 years ago, Prime Minister George Borg Olivier demanded independence from Britain as a matter of urgency. Somewhat startled by this firm and formal request, the colonial minister Duncan Sandys had little option but to agree to the start of negotiations.

The advent of independence was still the turning point for Malta- Henry Frendo

It was as historic a moment as it was a difficult one for both countries. Given that the Cold War was at its height and the Mediterranean scenario very fragile, Britain wished to be assured of some continuing presence and say in its one-time “fortress colony”. Not only did thousands of Maltese still work for the British services, three parties (Pellegrini’s, Ganado’s and Mabel Strickland’s) were opposed to the proposal.

Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party insisted on its own version of a neutrality-driven and more secularist independence. Archbishop Michael Gonzi was vehemently opposed to a recognition in the independence constitution of Labour’s proposed ‘six points’ (a separation between Church and State, with the last point endorsing the recourse to violence in certain circumstances).

Borg Olivier thus had to steer between opposing factions.

The Nationalist leader opted for as smooth a transition as possible, with defence and finance treaties for 10 years, that is up to September 21, 1974.

These treaties had to facilitate economic diversification from an economy dependent on British spending to one that would gradually be more self-reliant on tourism (including British tourists and settlers), industry and agriculture.

When in 1967 Britain unilaterally sought to hasten the run-down, in a first litmus test of sovereignty vis-a-vis the former colonial power, Borg Olivier was ready fully to stand his ground unless and until a compromise arrangement was eventually reached.

Due to their young age, or partisan propaganda and the prevalent ignorance of our own history, people today may not realise what independence meant to a small strategically located country like Malta, which had been dominated by one foreign ruler after another for centuries.

It is so unhistoric to continue to see certain misreadings of this prime event, such as mistaken beliefs that freedom came to Malta in 1979 (one of its worst ever years for false news mongering and political violence); or that it was Mr Mintoff’s latter-day ‘republicanism’ that had actually turned Malta around, in 1974.

In spite of its deficiencies and teething troubles, and a leadership demagogically portrayed (by a better organised party) as weak and incompetent, in fact it still was the advent of independence that was the turning point. More importantly, unlike most other ex-colonies, Malta experienced freedom after independence.

This is not an achievement to be sneezed at. Unlike what the anti-independence parties had feared, independence did not lead to starvation or chaos; on the contrary there was trust, investment, development and a marked rise in prosperity. Emigration practically ground to a halt by 1969. Malta found an international identity through its proactive membership of the UN and the Council of Europe, which were rather more befitting partners to her than the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation might have been.

And it managed to take off economically through infrastructural breaks such as the Malta Development Corporation and the Central Bank of Malta. The market economy flourished, in some respects to a fault.

Parliamentary democracy and regularly held elections were not in any doubt. By 1966 the Mintoff-Gonzi ‘mortal sin’ confrontation had subsided and by 1969 it was officially over. Foreign affairs and defence effectively ceased to be reserved matters in 1964, as proven by the radical departures in both spheres undertaken by a successive administration.

The Independence Constitution was a democratic one, so much so that it could be modified, as it was, by a two-thirds majority in 1974, although without a referendum as in May 1964.

Without being in any way disrespectful to the shift from a constitutional monarchy to a republic in 1974, or to the termination, finally, of an extended defence agreement in 1979, neither one nor the other would have been imaginable, let alone possible, had Malta not become an independent and sovereign state in 1964. So seminal had Dr Borg Olivier’s stroke of 50 years ago been.

Prof. Frendo’s latest work is Europe and Empire: Culture, Politics and Identity in Malta and the Mediterranean.