Extreme terrorist movements like Islamic State represent a contemporary “incarnation of the historical enemy” for the Maltese and the unfolding news saga is viewed as “a re-enactment of the Great Siege”.

Anthropologist David Zammit.Anthropologist David Zammit.

Anthropologist David Zammit believes the palpable fear of the IS (also known as Isis) threat could be the result of the island’s historical past and geographic location.

Over the last month, social media has been rife with posts on World War III, the Apocalypse, maps with arrows showing missiles pointing towards Malta and pleas for prayers.

Comments such as “I cannot bear to read anymore”, “Are we at risk? I’m panicking”, “We need to pray”, “I prepared my children’s passport just in case we have to up and leave at a short notice” are the norm.

Dr Zammit, who touched on this topic during the discussion programme Times Talk on TVM last night, does not find this surprising.

“We live in an island-fortress, which has been involved in every major conflict to hit the region for millennia,” he said. “It is not surprising that we should forever be expecting a major war between east and west, or between north and south, to come and wreak havoc with our lives.

“Our state of mind, historically, ‘oscillates’ between thinking we are too small and insignificant to the world to suddenly realising the outside world is impinging on us.

“That is when we tend to panic and go for a defensive response which may be disproportionate and totally unrelated to the threat we are actually facing,” Dr Zammit said.

Our state of mind historically oscillates between thinking we are too small and insignificant... to suddenly realising the outside world is impinging on us

A study by medical historian Paul Cassar on the psychological state of the Maltese population when facing the Great Siege of 1565 documents similar psychological attitudes at the time: a mixture of fear, denial and aggression.

The late philosopher, Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, had also noticed a psychological tendency to fuse World War II’s Santa Marija relief convoy with the victory over the Ottomans during the Great Siege.

“Many Maltese have responded to the emergence of extreme Muslim fundamentalist movements, like IS and al-Qaeda, as if they represented a kind of contemporary re-enactment of the Great Siege,” he said. “They seem to be viewed as the contemporary incarnation of the historical enemy.”

Dr Zammit said that although this led to anachronistic and quite irrational reactions, the sense of fear and insecurity should neither be “exaggerated” nor “trivialised”.

“Fear itself is a powerful social force which can be dangerously destabilising and tends to breed aggression,” he said, arguing that it was not a purely Maltese phenomenon but was widespread throughout the region. He warned that violence could be a way of communicating a message, which could not be easily transmitted through the usual communication channels.

“The recent beheading of the Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya... was clearly meant to instil fear in people like us that we are also not exempt from being targeted.

“After all, terrorising people is the modus operandi of terrorist groups, to the extent that we allow ourselves to be terrorised and, in turn, they achieve their goals,” he said.

Jesuit Refugee Service director Katrine Camilleri said although the fear was widespread, and people were talking about it, there had been no change in people’s behaviour towards immigrants and refugees.

“Maltese have always looked at them with suspicion and still do,” she said.

She described as “cynical” threats making the rounds on social media that IS terrorists would be coming by boat with irregular migrants. People who embark on the perilous journey are those with no home, who are willing to risk their lives to change it for the better.

Dr Camilleri said: “What we can say for sure is that, so far, history has shown us that terrorists... do not usually turn up in a boatload of migrants.”

Historian Henry Frendo acknowledged that “Malta has been traditionally insecure”.

The IS terrorist attacks are “too close for comfort”, he warned and although he was sure the Maltese would rally to defend the country, there were not many resources to do so.

What is IS?

IS was set up in April 2013 and grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq. They are often known as the group “too extreme for al-Qaeda”.

Their goal is to establish an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In the areas under their control, they have instituted their own interpretation of Sharia law: music is forbidden, schools must be sex-segregated, women are forced to cover their faces in public and those who break the rules face capital punishment or detention in brutal Isis prisons.

What is the psychology behind the Maltese fear of IS?

Anton Grech, head of psychiatry at Mount Carmel Hospital, said that the spiralling fear of Isis showed clearly how powerful social media was within the Maltese society.

“You can tell from the way people voice their concerns and arguments that they have been getting their information not from the mainstream media but from hearsay on Facebook. It is the first time I’ve seen it happening to such an extent – it has become our main source of communicating.”

There was genuine fear out there, he said, for various reasons. “There is the fact that most people in general lead a relatively unexciting life. Issues like this [imminent threat] spice up their lives,” said Dr Grech.

Also, as a nation we don’t feel protected. “The fact that we are a small country makes us feel vulnerable and, to boot, we are surrounded by symbols – such as the bastions – that remind us constantly that we were a colony. These are always in our collective unconscious,” he said.

He also points out that the IS fear rides a wave that already exists: the fear of irregular immigrants. “IS terrorism has taken our fear of being taken over by foreigners a notch higher.”

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