In the last fortnight, two articles published in two greatly contrasting countries in size, history and heritage – Russia and Malta – have validated the truism that history and heritage matter. The former should not be airbrushed out of existence. The latter should not be vandalised.
Recently, Russia celebrated the victory over Nazism in World War II with a huge parade, originally planned for May 9 (Soviet VE Day). In the build-up to this, President Vladimir Putin published a 10,000-word essay in which the main thrust was that the West is hypocritically avoiding blame for its role in Hitler’s path to war.
Professional historians have excoriated Putin’s homework. Western countries have never tried to sweep under the carpet the Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler of 1938, in which Britain and France colluded, and endorsed, Hitler’s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. The folly and shame of appeasement are central features of the historical narrative in Britain and other Western countries.
The West’s criticism of the Soviet Union is based rightly on the misdeeds of Joseph Stalin before, during and after the 1939-1945 war. Putin’s treatment of this account of history is highly selective. His essay implies that the pre-war Soviet pact with the Nazi regime – the infamous German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939 – was an excusable necessity.
His essay makes no mention of the terrible fate of the slice of Poland that the Soviet Union gained when it invaded it a month later, just a fortnight after Hitler annexed the other part. This included Stalin’s mass deportations and the murder of 23,000 captured Polish officers at Katyn and elsewhere. Putin also claims that the Soviet Union was “pursuing its strategic military and defensive goals” in the annexation of the Baltic States in 1939-1940, but his essay ignores the brutal treatment of the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.
‘The Great Patriotic War’ (as it is known in Soviet, and Russian, history) is the critical measure of Russian national pride. Those of us who remember, and have studied, World War II know that the bulk of the fighting in Europe was on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union fought ferociously and heroically. But the way in which the Hitler-Stalin pact paved the way for the war – and the holocaust genocide – and the real nature of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, cannot be airbrushed from history.
This brings me to Malta and an article by my friend, Charles Xuereb. In ‘Condemning racism, slavery and colonisation’ (Times of Malta, June 19), he takes issue, again, with our “legacy of various imperial propaganda memorials in Valletta”. He wants these statues and memorials removed.
In his enthusiasm to rid this country of an imaginary “colonial mentality”, Xuereb forgets that Malta cannot escape its history or its geography, nor can it pretend to have had a different history.
It was a colony of the greatest imperial power of the 19th century, which left it with a great legacy. That past cannot now be edited or censored.
The great boom in British statuary took place between 1830 and 1918, the heyday of Empire, when erecting monuments to the great and good was an expression of patriotism. It was an age when a statue was often the only visual image available of a famous person.
Malta cannot escape its history or its geography, nor can it pretend to have had a different history- Martin Scicluna
Almost 60 years after Independence, Malta is able to look back on the century-and-a-half of British colonial rule with a measure of objectivity. It is a successful parliamentary democracy with a remarkably solid economy. As one looks both south and north along the Mediterranean littoral, it is indeed a democratic beacon of light. Much of that success can be attributed to the foundations laid by the British in Malta.
When we look around us, we find that Malta’s parliamentary system is almost unique. It is a system learnt from the British and modelled on their institutions. It gives Malta a priceless stability when compared to its neighbours.
The solid institutions established, painfully and sometimes in the face of British opposition, during the colonial period still survive and – despite human imperfections to which every democracy is prone – thrive to this day. Prime among these is our liberal parliamentary democracy. A vibrant House of Representatives, political parties, an embedded electoral system which regularly sees about 90 per cent of voters participating, all these have their roots 100 or more years ago.
The concept of the rule of law – even though we tend to be careless about it – is derived from an understanding, which is British, that it forms the bedrock of any democracy. The other important instruments of society – the judiciary, the armed forces and police, Malta’s education system, the civil service and the concept of freedom of speech and the media – also stem largely from institutional structures honed during the British period.
The foundations of Malta’s infrastructure – the airport, the seaport, road networks, aquifers, sewage system, water and electricity – were all laid down or expanded during the British period. Moreover, the English language has given Malta the means to conduct and attract business, commerce and visitors to these islands, to the considerable benefit of our economy and the enrichment of our culture.
The statues and memorials in Valletta were put up by different generations. They teach us about our proud history. We are all, in that sense, prisoners of our past. Tearing down or removing any of them simply drives history underground and vandalises our cultural heritage. Only a deep historical ignorance could foster such fantasies. History and heritage matter.
Follow #TimesTalk’s podcast tomorrow where Charles Xuereb and Simon Cusens debate over Malta’s most controversial statues.