As the weather beats on in its wintry shades we celebrate yet once more our day of freedom.
Long live our freedom, won back in 1979 on the momentous day our masters, those British grabbers, were thrown out, once and for all.
We, or the ones who lived through that day, cried with relief as we saw the back of the navy and climbed up Vittoriosa Hill to lower the Union Jack and hoist the Maltese flag.
It is apt and totally tear-jerking to think of that day when, like the Lone Ranger, Muammar Gaddafi came on his metaphorical steed and helped us chuck out the horrid Brits.
The Libyan leader waved his green flag, we responded with our white and red one. We hid the George Cross in case he—and our beloved Dom—mistakenly thought we were still shackled to Britain. Both our great leaders embraced and called out to us, the onlookers, the ones hankering after their smiles and benediction.
Someone next to us, while we sat and gaped in awe, mentioned the word integration. At first we were furious, thinking he was ridiculing our Dom the brave for his old dreams of conjoining us to Britain.
Anger then turned to adulation as this man said he was actually referring to the integration of our new, free nation with Gaddafi. Tears of contentment flowed on.
We sighed and we cheered as Dom ran up with a lit torch—oh how unifying that torch has always been—to the monument at the foot of Vittoriosa. How apt to have such a beautiful, modern, monument at Vittoriosa, the victorious city.
We, the whole nation, young old and unstable, all rejoice that the 31st March is our greatest day in our history and well deserving to be a national day. A few more minutes and it would have been April Fools’ day.
Oh what a difference a day makes.