Fr Peter Serracino Inglott's column (The Sunday Times, September 27) made interesting reading, since it contains a number of statements on a variety of areas of enquiry and theories, including post-colonial theory.
Fr Peter's discussion of religion's relationship (read: Christianity's relationship) with empire raises a number of issues. Nonetheless there are oversights concerning readings and interpretations of the scriptures emerging from the Third World, and specifically Latin America.
These interpretations are well captured by Emanuel De Kadt in his 1970 book, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, covering the radicalism of the 1950s and early 1960s. They are equally well captured in other works such as Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino's celebrated A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation (1971).
This goes to show that, contrary to Fr Peter's assertion, the religious confrontation with empire is certainly not limited to the "hundreds of books published in the 21st century".
It has much to do with the perennial tension between the 'prophetic' and what leading American intellectual Cornel West calls the 'Constantinian' Church. The latter is very much the Church of Empire, the Church which has historically accommodated structures of oppression.
The reader might gain the false impression that the 'anti-empire' struggle is one that owes much to the writings and inspiration of luminaries such as Michel Foucault and such exponents of post-colonial theory as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha ('Homi' not standing for 'Henry'!), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and, we would add Frantz Fanon, Ngugi wa Thion'go and Albert Memmi.
These struggles were forged in the actions and reflections of common women and men in such sites as Christian Base Communities (CEBs), pastoral centres, and social movements such as those of landless peasants, trade unions, peasant leagues and neighbourhood groups. Highbrow theology constitutes just one of a number of sites in which this struggle takes place. It was not the prime site in this regard, having drawn its inspiration from the grassroots movements themselves.
Given that Malta is the starting point of this column, one would have expected some discussion concerning the situation, with respect to empire, as experienced in this post-colonial archipelago, perhaps drawing on the notable efforts of a good number of Maltese thinkers at home and abroad who have been examining different aspects of life in these islands from an unmistakably post-colonial perspective.
The assertions found throughout could easily have led to some serious reflection on such recent issues as Malta's withdrawal from the non-aligned movement and the government's stand with regard to the plight of some of the victims of empire - African immigrants.
These victims would feature among the 'multitude' mentioned by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri who, for the record, was never the leader and neither a member of the Red Brigades, judging from what Italian courts had established. Fr Peter probably confused the BR with either Potere Operaio or Autonomia Operaia.