I am glad Victor Aquilina (March 16) picked up my invitation for historical debate on the subject of Malta’s relationship with Winston Churchill.

While defending an interpretation of versions relating to World War II, he was responding to counter-memory while also providing some takes on other war incidents.

Michel Foucault defined counter-memory as an individual’s resistance to the official versions of historical continuity. Since history is an incomplete reconstruction of the past, because, very often, it is a selectively remembered past, it may carry political motivation and character. Remembering the glorious there is a risk of forgetting the victims. Such debates ensure citizens are confronted by multiple histories which they are then free to analyse and criticise before accepting.

For information’s sake, may I point out that the secret war diary mentioned in my previous correspondence referred to the unofficial journal of Lewis Harcourt, 1914-16, during then prime minister H.H. Asquith’s war cabinet. Asquith and Churchill had expressly forbidden the scribbled notes to be published before 100 years.