One cannot speak of Maltese identity without reflecting upon the process of post-colonialism. In my opinion, Maltese identity is still dominated by a colonial mentality that appears to be receding at a very, perhaps unwittingly, slow pace.
A succinct definition of this mentality would certainly help: colonial mentality is the internalised attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by a community as a result of colonisation. It ties in with the belief that the cultural values of the coloniser were inherently superior to one’s own.
What makes one Maltese? When a community undergoes sociological change, there is always the lurking fear that it will lose its identity. But what is Maltese identity? Is it the prevalence of ħobż biż-żejt, pastizzi, Twistees or Kinnie, the eight-pointed Maltese Cross, the moral controversies, the Maltese passport, the Mediterranean environment, folklore, the distorted collective memory, the colonially-tainted flag or the pervasive partisan media? What may threaten the Maltese identity, assuming we do have a distinguished one in particular? Inferiority towards anything Maltese, including the language, cronyism, hate social media, excessive tourism and ruination of the environment, cosmopolitanism or global coloniality?
The island appears to be on a wave of changes that seem to be upending the rudiments of traditional values. Following a history of colonial and confessional repression, Malta Cattolicisima, magħruf ġmielek kullimkien appears to be in tatters. Was the 40-year period between Independence and Brussels adherence long enough to allow for the emergence of a new identity or Marc Ferro’s adage – dependence does not stop at independence – still reigns supreme?
Quite a long list of pertinent questions that would take volumes to debate let alone answer. Today I would prefer to dwell on identity as a result of the collective national memory of this community.
Public interest in the past is never constant. It comes and goes in pulses. Most of us have selective memories of what we learnt about the past, and in time may realise that part of the past could have been mobilised to serve partisan, ecclesiastical or other purposes. In recollecting, we do not retrieve images of the past as they were originally perceived but rather as they fit into present conceptions.
When Malta was still under British rule one could comprehend an amount of lethargy induced by servility towards one’s national memory of all its past and identity but, after independence, society was expected to promote a vigorous liberated memory. Post-independent authoritative decisions do not always indicate this is happening.
In the evolution of one’s identity, Anthony Smith insists that nations are historical phenomena embedded in particular collective pasts and emerge through specific historical processes. Collective cultural identity refers to a sense of shared continuity by successive generations of the same population, who also share memories of periods, events and personages from their common historical past. These two patterns complete the picture when generations ultimately share a collective belief in a common destiny of their population and culture.
In a new world of multiculturalism and pluriversality, will the Maltese seek to construct their identity through an updated reflective consciousness?
As a colony, the majority of the colonised usually accept to appease their masters without much reflection, as long as it helps them survive. However, Smith warns that, in the post-colonial period, if there is no national (undistorted, one may add) memory, there is no identity and, if there is no identity, there is no nation.
Before Independence, Malta experienced an almost total absence of secular, national traditions. With the exception of the 1565 Victory Day on September 8, it only celebrated liturgical feasts and imperialist events that served British loyalty and hegemony. This particular past of remembrance might be the reason why today, after it ceased to be a British colony and after showing signs of slowly slipping out of the Church’s religious grip, Maltese society still grapples with five recently invented national days.
It appears that after Independence, relieved of British impositions, Maltese politicians seem to have adopted a presentist (i.e. to interpret past events in terms of current values and concepts) approach by elevating four socio-political occasions to national feasts. Freedom Day (end of British military base), Sette Giugno (a public bloody demonstration against the British in 1919) and Independence and Republic days all commemorate some aspect of the island’s severance with British rule. This exaggerated reaction to the end of British colonialism could possibly represent the release of frustrated political steam, accumulated since the beginning of the 19th century.
Under the British there was one particular event that seems to have brought almost all sections of the population united against colonial imposition. This seems to have occurred in 1919 when on June 7, the masses rebelled against unemployment and the cost of living, after losing substantial economic benefits Malta had enjoyed during World War I while nursing thousands of foreign troops in the Mediterranean and maintaining war vessels afloat.
Supported by the rousing efforts of a united political class in its fight for representative government, whose supporters were also on the streets, the 1919 popular rebellion produced six Maltese victims felled by British military gunfire in Valletta. At the time, four of the heroes were immediately recognised by the workers, the intelligentsia – most of it Italianate in culture – and political groups, as symbols of nationalism.
Almost all sectors united, with many of them gradually grouping themselves into better organised political parties to force London to award Malta its first responsible government in 1921.
The 1919 dead could only be remembered out of the public sphere, a memory block type of colonial practice. In 1925 a monument was erected on the victims’ grave at the Maria Addolorata Cemetery, not a dominant public place. Society had to wait another 61 years to erect a proper national monument to its past heroes in the main square of Valletta.
While several secular masses in Europe cultivated common dress codes and activities, such as organised support for their own national and regional football teams, in the same vein, Malta seems to have fared best at inventing two major unusual activities: a set of two opposing loose forces of Maltese football supporters, one for England – the ex-coloniser – and the other for Italy, the island’s old terra madre, remnants of the ‘language question’. More collegial is the annual support for a local singer participating in the Eurovision song festival.
Unfortunately, Malta’s small size in all spheres limits opportunities wherein the island could be invited to rise to national sentiments of pride and unity: the cinema and TV very rarely, if ever, depict the island’s historical landmarks on international networks, Maltese participants rarely excel in any world contest and remembered Maltese historical victories have all been achieved – with bravery – in the shadow of much greater forces.
To make things worse, Valletta – even during its current European Capital of Culture title – appears to refuse to re-contextualise ubiquitous colonial symbols and monuments, at the cost of dismissing its own national self-importance, accentuating inferiority.
In a new world of multiculturalism and pluriversality, will the Maltese seek to construct their identity through an updated reflective consciousness?
Charles Xuereb, journalist and historicist, will be discussing identity on Radio Malta today at 3.30pm.