“Constitution Day,” wrote Kevin Aquilina, “is the day when a Second Republic comes into being,” (The Times, March 15). Prof. Aquilina’s ‘national day’ to commemorate the would-be Second Republic (sic) “should establish a ‘new’ State of Malta”.
A national day requires a historical legitimacy in time and context
According to Aquilina, “all Maltese” would “identify themselves with this new historical event”. Furthermore, that day “should be the day the Second Republic is established, the day when Malta is given a new Constitution tailor-made to suit the requirements of Malta, written by Maltese, voted for by Maltese MPs and Maltese people.”
This may be a well-intended dream, but it implies so many presumptions and variables. The last thing Malta needs is for every new Prime Minister to assume he can create (yet another) national day – to be accepted by all people for ever – because of some constitutional amendment. This airy-fairy ideal belies the fact that a Constitution is a basic law which provides given modalities for any changes to it as times change.
I have argued for years that what our country needs is to find a political equilibrium predicated, so far as possible, on a consensual ethic. This does not mean discarding our past, which is largely unknown or misconstrued – a tendency manifest in the writings of many columnists, and which is likely to grow with the downgrading of history teaching in the new curriculum.
A national day requires a historical legitimacy in time and context. It cannot be an artifact, or an egocentric whim. Part of the appeal of Joseph Muscat’s ‘movement’ that won him the March 9 election lay in his overtures to consensus, including his commitment to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Malta’s independence.
President George Abela’s proposal that Malta should celebrate two national days, instead of five, was motivated by the same reasoning, with the choice falling on Independence Day and Republic Day.
In the wake of the 1987 election, when I was teaching European politics at La Trobe University in Melbourne, an ex-minister and friend had asked me if I could indicate historical justifications for selecting a national day to reconcile the confusion that had characterised Dom Mintoff’s era. In the commissioned report, I had selected five possibilities, giving the pros and cons for each. When all five were selected, I was surprised; but I put it down to a temporary reconciliatory gesture until the waters calmed down and better counsels prevailed.
In fact, this has been a carry-on, far too infused with partisan, populist rhetoric which very often has not been historically justified at all.
The idea that independence was solely a Nationalist feat, or that it is the Nationalist Party which should commemorate it, is wrong. Without the unanimous parliamentary resolution to ‘Break with Britain’, proposed by Mintoff and seconded by George Borg Olivier on December 30, 1957, there would have been no independence in 1964.
Unfortunately for him and his supporters, Mintoff, having failed to obtain integration, by force of circumstance also failed to obtain independence. But a careful reading of the British Government’s reasoning in the decision-making process, particularly after the successful May 1964 referendum on the draft Constitution, was that Malta should be granted independence as both the main parties were in favour of it. Three smaller parties, and initially Archbishop Michael Gonzi, were opposed, but certain clauses bordering on theocratic pretensions were toned down sufficiently for the British Parliament to pass the Malta Independence Bill. That constitution, drafted by a Maltese jurist Prof. J. J. Cremona, made provision for changes to it.
The historic importance of Republic Day lies in the fact that comparatively secondary points of principle on which there was disagreement in 1963-1964, were ironed out, constitutionally, by a two-thirds majority in 1974.
Understandably, Mintoff was disappointed that he had not obtained independence himself according to his own agenda, but it was short-sighted and rash of him to remove it from being Malta’s national day and, worse still, to make its yearly commemoration a PN prerogative, however risky that became, disgracefully so. Charismatic, energetic and innovative, Mintoff was a cult figure who had his merits but let us not forget it was he who brought down his own party from office twice, and who, when in power, disruptively and confusingly changed one national day after another .
By the standards of most ex-colonies, Malta’s transition from colonialism to statehood was smooth. In retrospect, the 1964-1974 decade may even be seen as a continuum. Most ex-colonies celebrate their Independence Day as their national day; but there are a few that commemorate two days.
On September 22, 1964, Christopher Eastwood (who as Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Colonial Office had visited Malta in March 1963) minuted as follows: “This file is not concerned with anything that may happen after midnight on September 20, and may now be closed. At once.”
We cannot have another ‘national day’ whenever the basic law is modified by its own modalities.