Over the course of the last three decades – the period, roughly, during which neutrality has been enshrined in the Maltese Constitution – we have changed the way we discuss the neutrality provisions three times. The discussions showed only fitful insight into the international world around us. But they said a lot about us.
Originally, in the years leading up to constitutional amendments, the principle of neutrality and the policy of non-alignment arose in the context of existential threat. While Cold War disarmament talks were conducted with reference to mainland Europe, the arms race was escalating in the Mediterranean. Even those who disagreed with neutrality, favouring Nato membership instead, agreed that the debate was about an existential threat.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sense of threat subsided. It was evident that the wording of the provisions was, in places, anachronistic. It referred to two superpowers when one no longer existed.
The discussion shifted. The provisions appeared irrelevant to what was being called ‘the new world order’ - a unipolar world dominated by the US. Irrelevance meant that there was no urgent drive for change. And it was not lost on most politicians that, while keeping neutrality would probably have no effect on us, removing it might have consequences. Muammar Gaddafi might misinterpret the action and Malta’s economic relations with Libya would suffer.
Indeed, in this period, on the two occasions when a debate did flare up, it was framed by economic interest.
In 2001, dockyard workers at first refused to repair a US warship, claiming it would go against the constitutional provisions that deny dockyard facilities to the warships of the two superpowers. The dockyard workers lost the battle for public opinion. Many people thought a dead letter was being invoked to spurn much-needed income for the docks.
The second time was during the EU membership debate. The pro-EU Nationalist government went out of its way to assure the public that Malta’s neutrality as a member State was guaranteed. The prime motive was to assure Maltese families whose income depended on trade and work in Libya.
Gaddafi also featured the next time we changed the way we discussed neutrality. During the Libyan revolution of 2011, questions were raised about whether our neutrality provisions were impeding our humanitarian duty to intervene to help the victims of Gaddafi’s violent repression of protests.
There was no such problem. The Constitution permits Maltese participation in any alliance that is authorised by a UN Security Council resolution. But it is significant that the debate should have arisen. It demonstrated just how unfamiliar the actual provisions are: the result, probably, of the many years of not discussing something that had seemed anachronistic.
There is a constructive, valuable place for Maltese neutrality, carefully conceived
The last twist in the debate occurred this summer. The emergence of Islamic State (Isis) in Syria and Iraq, together with its connections to hardline Islamists in Libya, suddenly began to be framed as an existential threat to Malta. Unlike the Cold War scenario, however, this time round neutrality was said to be exacerbating the threat, rather than reducing it.
Once more, ignorance of the actual provisions played its role. Our neutrality is between States. Despite its name, ‘Islamic State’ is not a State but a terrorist group. Malta has never been neutral about terrorism. If we were, we would be breaking the neutrality provisions themselves, which commit Malta to actively seeking peace and social progress among nations: something we manifestly cannot do by being neutral about terror.
Moreover, neutrality does not prevent us from entering a defence agreement with another country and certainly not from having foreign armed forces on our territory if necessary for defence.
As an EU member, we already belong to a union in which an attack on one member is seen as an attack on all.
A lot of fuss was made when the Foreign Minister, George Vella, said that neutrality would not defend us against terrorism. But he was simply stating the obvious: terrorists are outlaws; they do not respect the legal status of neutrality just like they do not respect legal borders. Expecting Isis to respect our neutrality is like expecting it to respect our human rights – though no one is suggesting we should scrap the human rights charter just because Isis wantonly violates it.
The pity about the latest turn in our neutrality debate is not the ignorance displayed. It is, rather, the opportunity that is being missed to discuss the real ways in which the world has changed.
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the consequence for our neutrality was that some of its provisions were rendered meaningless. But the world in 2014 is challenging the most meaningful part of the provisions.
The proactive commitment to pursuing peace and social progress among nations is still vivid and relevant. But the world is throwing up situations in which those commitments – at least sometimes – appear to clash with neutrality.
First, our neutrality assumes the existence of the Westphalia system: that we are acting in a world of states.
To a great extent we still are. But how operative does our neutrality remain in the case of a failed State?
Take a State that has failed, or is failing fast, and is engulfed in violence. Does our neutrality then still preclude us from participating in military actions designed to restore peace? If we remain aloof, is it on principle or as a practical matter to avoid getting mired in mess?
Second, in 2014, the media exposure of atrocities taking place in a State raises the issue of the humanitarian right to protect, which often calls for some military intervention. Would staying aloof on neutrality grounds conflict with our commitment to actively pursuing social progress?
None of these cases are merely theoretical. Libya, today like in 2011, raises both those questions.
Our sheer proximity means that we may easily be asked to participate logistically in military interventions (even though that scenario seems remote now).
It’s not just Libya. The Mediterranean has seen the Cold War off, only to see itself a theatre of several conflicts: between Shiites and Sunnis; ‘Westphalian’ Muslim regimes (to use a phrase by Henry Kissinger) and jihadists; democrats and dictatorships. There are failed or half-imaginary states in Libya, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria – and, impinging on them, Iraq.
Myself, I am convinced that, even in this world disorder, there is a constructive, valuable place for Maltese neutrality, carefully conceived. However, we need a new turn in the discussion.
ranierfsadni@europe.com