There are, in my view, two considerations to be made about the George Cross featuring on Malta’s modern flag.
One consideration is aesthetic. I am not sure whether the George Cross appearing on the top left hand corner is visually aesthetic. Our present red and white flag lacks an artistic centre piece. The chief merit of the George Cross on our flag is that it appears on a white backgrouund, which affords a welcome contrast. If it were to figure in the centre of our flag, or on the red stripe, this constrast would be missing. This consideration is what swayed the Administration of 1943 to place the grey George Cross on the top left hand corner of our flag.
The second consideration is political and historic.
There is not a shadow of a doubt that Malta had played a crucial and far reaching role in the hard conflict of 1940-1942 between freedom and democracy, on the one hand, championed by Britain and the United States, and totalitarian Fascism and Nazism, on the other, that were advocated by the warmongers of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.
Malta’s survival was pivotal. This entailed brave, long suffering and persistent despatch of aircraft, submarines and countless and costly sea convoys to Malta from Gibraltar and Alexandria, at the price of thousands of lives of young and not so young Britons and others from allied countries.
This also entailed faith, hope and charity on the part of the Maltese people themselves, with immense suffering, shortages, disease and deaths.
The defences of Malta, reinforced garrison and rubble walls prevented a German and Italian sea, air and paratroop invasion, scheduled as Operation Hercules, for June 1942 after this tiny island had been neutralised and bombed into submission.
Maybe the Blessed Virgin had something to do with Malta’s survival and ability to fight back. In general, our people were magnificent as was most of Churchill’s vision and military and strategic prowess, with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s timely assistance, in the shape of aircraft carriers, convoy transports and the two tankers, Kentucky and Ohio.
The George Cross stands for all this. It symbolises the people’s resistance to tyranny and faith in a better future.
In this sense, its retention on Malta’s flag makes a lot of sense.