A divided nation still cannot agree on the importance of Freedom Day.
Kurt Sansone talks to an eyewitness about the events in Vittoriosa 30 years ago.
The inclement weather on the night of March 31, 1979 kept many people away from the dockside at Vittoriosa where the official ceremony to mark Freedom Day was to take place.
However, those who decided to stay at home did not lose out on the historic event because the national television station broadcast the whole ceremony live.
A 31-year-old Albert Marshall had directed the proceedings for TVM from an outside broadcasting unit stationed in the square. Mr Marshall was in charge of the black and white OB unit that had to transmit the happenings on the monument itself.
Ironically, at a time when people caught in possession of a colour television set were prosecuted in court and fined hundreds of liri, a colleague of his directed proceedings from another unit that had the capability of transmitting in colour.
"It was an important day for Malta and there was a massive build-up to it," Mr Marshall recalls.
As the person responsible for the live transmission of a historic national event, he recalls feeling butterflies in his stomach as the importance of the event weighed on him.
On the night, not even the Eurovision Song Contest, broadcast on RaiUno, would upstage TVM's transmission showing then Prime Minister Dom Mintoff and then General Workers' Union general secretary George Agius carrying flaming torches.
Of course, no Maltese singer contested that year: the country was in its fourth year of a 16-year-long Eurovision sabbatical that started in 1976.
The event represented the climax of Mr Mintoff's dream to turn Malta into a "small Switzerland at the heart of the Mediterranean" that did not depend on military spending for economic survival.
It was 20 years earlier, in 1959, that Mr Mintoff had spelt out his vision in an article he penned for the New Statesman: "As a nuclear-free zone, a free and stable society, we would be able to develop quickly into a small Switzerland at the heart of the Mediterranean - a haven of peace where tired tourists come to rest among us without armaments. In commerce, we will join up with the Common Market, while at the same time we will create commercial ties with our Arab neighbours".
It was his vision of how the country was to change over the next 20 years. It was a long political journey that started with Independence in 1964 and ended with the ceremony at the Freedom Monument on that cold wintry night.
Apart from the trepidations of a young television director responsible for delivering a good picture, Mr Marshall recalls how the occasion presented an "interesting mix of insecurity and excitement".
"The biggest question on everybody's mind was whether the country could survive economically and politically without the presence of the British forces. However, this feeling of insecurity was juxtaposed with the excitement of a new cultural and political re-awakening," Mr Marshall says. Despite the vivid recollections of that historic evening, Mr Marshall is not nostalgic about Freedom Day.
"The images of that event are stored somewhere at TVM, representing an iconic past, which means nothing to me as long as it remains a day that divides the nation. Freedom Day and Independence Day are meaningless if they continue to divide the people until this very day. There is little cause for celebration unless the other half of the nation celebrates with me the significance of the events," Mr Marshall says.
He echoes the sentiments expressed by many and which are embodied in the significant words of then President Anton Buttiġieġ.
The Times reporter covering the event on the evening of March 31, 1979 recorded that Dr Buttiġieġ was "visibly moved" as he addressed the nation in the early minutes of Sunday morning after the lowering of the British flag and the raising of the Maltese flag at the monument in Vittoriosa.
"We are gathered to rejoice together and celebrate the feast marking the end of the British Military Base in Malta. Above all, we are gathered to swear never again to have a foreign military base on our soil and that Malta remains forever more a free Republic run by the Maltese for the Maltese," Dr Buttiġieġ had said.
In the role of President he was speaking on behalf of all the Maltese but whether Freedom Day, or for that matter, Independence Day, will ever be national events celebrated by all will require mental emancipation from the chains of partisan politics.
Events in the world and in Malta in March 1979
• The Israeli entry, Hallelujah, wins the Eurovision Song Contest held in Jerusalem.
• Kinnie is available in an elegantly-designed glass bottle with a green, red and white label.
• Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini declares Iran an Islamic Republic.
• Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem sign a historic peace treaty in Washington.
• Jesus of Nazareth, starring Robert Powell, is showing in two parts at the Embassy and the Alhambra cinemas, while The Sound of Music runs at the Majestic.
• The Maltese lira exchange rate with the sterling is 1.3375.
• The National Lottery prize jackpot is Lm50,000 and tickets cost Lm1.
• A baby is found dead in a plastic bag in a field next to the San Ġwann industrial estate.
• The Times costs 4c.
• The first lotto number to be drawn on the day is 55.
• HMS London, a 6,000-ton destroyer, is the last British ship to sail out of Grand Harbour ending the 180-year-old connexion between Malta and Britain.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com