At 50, the nation has finally reached political maturity. We are at that point when we can celebrate our independence together with a big party which is neither blue nor red. We may on occasion disagree on small things, but never again will our faith in ourselves and our nation be shaken. It’s all so, so wonderful.

Except it isn’t, for me at least. I find myself wanting to throw up every time someone tells me to wear a neutral colour and celebrate the greatness of my country. For one, I don’t think there’s anything special about Malta and the Maltese. The first is just there, an accident of history like so many others. The second are people who happen to have been plonked here rather than there.

Nor do I think it’s particularly mature (whatever that means) to forget our differences and celebrate together. It certainly isn’t mature to go on and on about it. Quite apart from the old adage on those who protest too much, I find it oppressive and totalitarian.

I especially dislike the schmaltzy industry of latter-day patriotism. Is it Ivan Grech of Winter Moods who sings the Song of National Unity and Greatness as commissioned by the Foundation for National Unity and Greatness? Does this man not realise that he is acting like the dinosaurs who gave the world things like the altare della patria and the lyrics to Ġensna?

I would suggest rather that we immature beautifully and spend our time bursting some bubbles.

One country I happen to be familiar with which serves up some delicious examples is Switzerland. To the casual visitor armed with notions of ‘ein Volk, ein Reich’ (‘one people, one nation’), the place may appear as a non-country, an unlikely conviviality of sorts between disparate groups who speak different languages and pay tax at different rates.

Be that as it may, Switzerland takes to nationalism like a duck to a mountain lake. Two landmarks are particularly important. The first is the story of William Tell, the hero of popular resistance whose penchant for putting arrows in apples put paid to the ambitions of a Hapsburg wannabe overlord.

The second is the idea of an Alpine bellicosity rooted in a universal citizen army (a militia, effectively). “Gli svizzeri sono armatissimi e liberissimi” (“the Swiss are well-armed and very free”), the saying goes. In short, the Swiss are proud of their Tell and their army.

That was until a certain Max Frisch, a talented local by all accounts, wrote a book called William Tell for Schoolchildren. It made a complete mockery of the story as people knew and worshipped it, and caused no end of trouble. Then, in 1989, 36 per cent of voters said ‘Yes’ to a referendum question that asked whether the army should be abolished outright.

That a famous Swiss author should question Tell was painful enough; that so many Swiss should put into question the very existence of the army was excruciating. I wonder what the Foundation for National Unity and Greatness would make of it.

This new patriotism and għaqda nazzjonali business is being touted as the end of partisan politics and the beginning of a new transcendental phase. Only one would be exceptionally myopic not to figure that it’s just another political tale. It’s also a partisan one and has Tagħna Lkoll written all over it, just as the rikonċiljazzjoni nazzjonali (national reconciliation) tag line of the 1980s was PN through and through.

What we’re looking at here is not the transcendence of party politics, but rather the replacement of one partisan-political tale by another. It reminds me of people I know who tell me they’ve moved on from the old-fashioned Christian God to a superior belief in a cosmic force that has dolphins as its spokesmammals on earth.

To which one might retort that all’s fine then, a tale by any other name. Thing is, there’s a problem. The other day I drew up a list of the sort of things we can expect given this new drift. It’s not encouraging and goes as follows: myth-mongering, history-laundering, hagiographies, and monuments.

First, the myths. They will be insufferably narcissistic and tell us how great and splendid we are – a masterclass of how to get our heads up a dark place, shall we say. As expected, the Prime Minister leads the charge. He told us last week that it was marvellous that a country that lacked natural resources had managed to remain independent for 50 years, a republic for 40, and a country without a military base for 35. We’d bow our heads if they weren’t lodged elsewhere.

Self-flattery almost always involves self-deceit. The second thing we can expect a lot of is history-laundering, the mechanism by which we will be encouraged to forget the hitches. Of which there were quite a few.

I don’t think there’s anything special about Malta and the Maltese

In 1964, even as the British flag was being lowered at the xagħra tal-Furjana, a bunch of Labourites gathered across the road jeering and booing. I’m not aware of an equivalent crowd for 1979 (the weather was bad) but I’ve heard Nationalists pass some pretty nasty comments about Freedom Day. Not that I personally mind either, it’s just that I doubt the history books and speechwriters will get the memo.

Great history is made by great men, irregularly by great women. What that means is that we can expect a third thing to go with the first two: hagiography. Of which the newfangled tale of our growing maturity will spawn a whole industry. I can already hear the cries of statista kbir (a great statesman) and the heroic voice on a new series of TVM’s Bijografiji. Brown noses all round I suppose, but then the dark places our heads are up needn’t be our own.

Finally, there will be shrines. I predict a bronze age of monuments to go with the hagiographies and the tales of greatness. They will for the most part be hideous. Sorry to say, but the Guido de Marco monument unveiled last week is a terrible object to behold, an experience made more terrible by the prospect of two more (Dom Mintoff and Ċensu Tabone) in the offing. At this rate, Valletta will soon look like a Neapolitan crib, without the art.

But perhaps the real tragedy about this latter-day patriotism is that it is so totalitarian and oppressive under its saccharine skin. That means that few will dare question it. They will not include the Nationalist Party, who finds itself having to dance to the tune. Out of step, too, because if there is one thing that the PN has been miserable at for the past couple of decades, it’s nationalism.

Great thing this national maturity. A Prime Minister who plays the fiddle, an Opposition that misses the steps, and Ivan Grech who warbles away about the glory of it all. Perhaps someone should commission a comedy sketch.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.