This is a very special year for our country. Good fortune has ruled that in its course we shall mark four national anniversaries – Freedom Day’s 35th, EU accession’s 10th, Independence Day’s 50th and Republic Day’s 40th.
As we launch into the rich and diverse programme of events and initiatives celebrating them, I wish to make a heartfelt appeal. Let us turn this accident of history into a turning point in it. Let this be the year in which we consign to the history books that which should have been there many years ago.
Looking back with a dispassionate eye, we have a lot to be proud and thankful for. Neither our many colonial chapters nor the wars which changed our fate, nor our geographical position which exposed us to forces beyond our control have turned us into a divided nation. Unlike others, we have no ethnic, religious, cultural or social divisions which rip our national soul asunder.
True, politics still creates more division than it should. But it does so much less today than in the past and, certainly, with even less reason. It is precisely on the latter point that we should all be reflecting with the dawning of these anniversaries. It is no accident that we adopted the tagline ‘Jien, Int, Aħna Maltin’ (‘We Are All Maltese’).
This year we need to have the courage, serenity and self-confidence to realise that these are not four stand-alone days. None of them wrote our history on its own. They are intertwined and each rested on the foundations laid down by the preceding ones to come to be, to come to life.
Arguably, one or more of these days might be more significant than the others. But each of them defines a part of us, a part of who we are.
History is made by women and men who stand out from the crowd, who see beyond the horizon. George Borg Olivier, Dom Mintoff and Eddie Fenech Adami did and it is because they did that we are celebrating these anniversaries this year. They could not have been more different from each other, in the vision each embraced, in their plentiful virtues and their few flaws. Yet they shared something which is at the heart of true statesmanship – a deep love of country. I am humbled by the responsibility of paying tribute to them throughout this year.
Our Maltese and European democracy is stronger today than ever before precisely because it celebrates different values, life choices and opinions
Celebrating together as one people is also the perfect opportunity for embracing a fuller and more meaningful sense of nationhood. These four milestones should no longer belong to the political parties which originally breathed life into them and continued to make them theirs. They now belong to the nation and to us.
Calling for a deeper sense of nationhood is not tantamount to downplaying difference. Quite the contrary, in fact. The very essence of democracy is premised on a single, deep insight which marks our continent and our culture. Solidarity, liberty and prosperity flourish best when divergent and conflicting opinions face each other as equals in stable institutions.
Our Maltese and European democracy is stronger today than ever before precisely because it celebrates different values, life choices and opinions. It comes at a time when Malta wants to affirm itself at a global level.
As we edge closer to the first of these four national anniversaries, I call on all women and men of goodwill to join me in a quest for more unity in diversity, more respect for one another, for more thinking outside the political box, and more pride in who we are and what we have achieved together.
Only two flags fly over this beautiful country of ours. One is red and white and the other is blue with yellow stars. Under my watch I will do everything in my power to make them flutter more proudly than ever before.
It is the only way that our past will not be our future.
Joseph Muscat is Prime Minister.