Malta is no stranger to savage cruelty, crucifixions, macabre public executions and ruthless mass decapitations. In the Great Siege of 1565, the Knights and the Maltese were engaged in mortal combat in one of the bloodiest conflicts in military history, with untold carnage on both sides.

Just visualise in your mind’s eye beheaded knights and Maltese patriots lashed to crude crosses floating in the middle of the Grand Harbour. Grand Master Jean de Valette’s ruthless reaction was fast and furious as he ordered the beheading of all Turkish prisoners which were then carted to Fort St Angelo to be fired on the Turkish battlements on the other side of the harbour. De Valette was not considered a war criminal... on the contrary, he became the protagonist of Christian Europe. German dramatist Frederick Schiller even presents him as a valiant hero of exceptional qualities and virtues.

The 20th century saw the decolonialisation of African countries from European domination.The 20th century saw the decolonialisation of African countries from European domination.

But that was 450 years ago when the spirit of humanism preached by the great Erasmus had not yet reached our shores. Today in this technological age, the age of reason and progress, the age of discovery, with man landing on the moon, we are witnessing man’s capacity to inflict and endure pain and violence.

Innocent people are being beheaded, crucified and left to rot on crude crosses by the ruthless Islamic fundamentalist caliphate in the middle of village squares in biblical Aleppo, at Dejr Hafer and other sites in Syria, Libya and Iraq, where savage cruelty is no crime.

Sadly this is the tip of the iceberg in a century, starting in 1915 with the carnage at the start of the Great War of 1914-1918 and ending with global bomb culture, the brutal abduction and killing of hundreds of schoolchildren in Nigeria and Pakistan and the beheading of innocent Christians.

The history of the last 100 years reads like an apocalyptic account, making it the most murderous on record. From 1914 to 1991, roughly 287 million people were killed or allowed to die by human decisions, more than ever before in history. This does not include death by starvation as in South Sudan and outbreaks of epidemics like AIDS and the Ebola virus which, in spite of medical advances, have spread like wildfire all over Africa and beyond.

Entrance to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp which operated gas chambers where over 6,000 people were put to death each day by the Nazi regime.Entrance to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp which operated gas chambers where over 6,000 people were put to death each day by the Nazi regime.

The period has been one of unparalleled catastrophe, marked by the most terrible planned genocide. After the holocaust of the World War I, liberal political idealists were in full retreat with the rise of the radical right and the spread of fascism, Nazism and communism. It was a time when famine flourished in the midst of fabulous wealth and the concept of unlimited warfare entered the human brain for the first time. The terrible nuclear massacre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 proves this.

The steep decline in traditional religion in the Christian world has left a gaping hole with a generation groping for other creeds, values and schisms

History was downhill all the way, and each period waded deeper in its own blood. Josef Stalin, a paranoid Georgian peasant, and Adolf Hitler, a ruthless Austrian painter, wiped out millions of their citizens at a time when utopian dreamers tended to be soulless dictators like Benito Mussolini in Italy and General Franco in Spain. They hated freedom of speech and had no respect for the dignity of man.

The steep decline in traditional religion in the Christian world has left a gaping hole with a generation groping for other creeds, values and schisms. At this moment in time we sadly witness the rise of the extreme Jihadist movement, which is a threat even to moderate Islamic states themselves.

Our continent is daily being swamped by the influx of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, the African continent and beyond as genocide, civil war, famine and disease sweep across these regions. We have to be on our guard lest this uncontrolled and unbridled migration becomes a potential threat to our culture and identity.

The dropping of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed over 200,000 people.The dropping of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed over 200,000 people.

Furthermore, just at the time when the human race seemed to have finally conquered nature, it has struck back with a vengeance in the shape of global warming and an escalating ecological crisis that have finally brought the US and China to their senses.

Paradoxically enough, the 20th century has been the era of emancipation, when women appeared on the public scene and the international sport arena. More people received education than ever before; university courses increased to such an extent that in many European countries, including Malta, there are far more graduates than farmers.

After the scramble by European states for Africa, the 20th century saw the great age of decolonialisation as countries in the British, French, Belgian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian empires achieved their independence. Up to 1912 only Ethopia and Liberia were free from European domination and influence.

Wilbur Wright’s machine airborne over the fields of Dayton, Ohio, US, in 1908.Wilbur Wright’s machine airborne over the fields of Dayton, Ohio, US, in 1908.

Within a few decades the world shrank to a shadow of its former size as the greatest communication revolution in the history of the world set about the forceful social media. The airwaves and the electronic waves have engulfed the modern world since the late Sir John Reith took the initial reins of the BBC under his wings in 1922.

The century opened with the first attempt at air travel with Wilbur Wright’s machine airborne above the fields of Deyton, Ohio, US, in 1908, and with the French celebrating the craze for air travel in an illustrated magazine Le Petit Journal of September 6, 1909.

The century offered some respite as it enjoyed a brief golden age, the 20-year period after War War I when human society changed more profoundly than in other comparable period. The belle epoque brought with it an extraordinary cultural, social and economic trans­formation, particularly in Europe, with Paris the focal centre of culture, music, drama, architecture, discovery and interminable joie-de-vivre.

The painful memory of the war in the inner harbour area’s inhuman conditions of death, destruction, famine, squalor and misery, still haunts me

This brief interlude was rudely shattered 76 years ago by a savage war, starting in September 1939. The painful memory of the war that I experienced in the inner harbour area’s inhuman conditions of death, destruction, famine, squalor and misery, still haunt me to the present day.

I do not mean to be alarmist or a Cassandra, a bearer of bad news, but I think this is the least safe time to be alive, with bomb culture lurking round the corner.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and other European leaders recently warned their nations to a possible threat from international terrorists, who are even threatening biological warfare.

French illustrated paper Le Petit Journal celebrates the craze for air travel in September 1909.French illustrated paper Le Petit Journal celebrates the craze for air travel in September 1909.

Security and vigilance have been raised to the highest level in Australia, Canada and many European countries. As I write the threat of another military conflict in north-western Europe is imminently looming on the horizon as the situation in Ukraine, the Crimea and the Balkan states is posing a great threat to democratic principles that the West still strongly upholds.

Political analysts believe that global terrorism is a potential threat to world peace, and just as Britain and its Allies teamed up militarily to oppose fascism and Nazism in the late 1930s, they should eradicate this modern scourge.

The reality is that we do not know where our historical journey is taking us; the last century closed in global disorder but with some semblance of world peace as nuclear power, like a conscience, made cowards of us all.

Fortunately the ‘impossible’ dream of a united Europe, nurtured by De Gasperi, Schumann and Adenauer, has given Europe 70 years of relative peace, the longest stretch ever. This was further solidified with the collapse of the Soviet block in the 1990s.

In this present apocalyptic world scenario, a united Europe in the shape of the European Union, of which Malta is an integral part, is a shining beacon of light that offers a safe and secure haven of peace and security. Although bereft of a military wing it can surely lean heavily on the capabilities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation when danger threatens.

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