Is Malta a 'nationless state'?

I have long shared (and written about) some of the concerns about the weaknesses of a Maltese nationality and its often perplexing expressions of nationalism, which my friend and colleague Professor Godfrey Baldacchino (The Sunday Times, December 8, 15...

I certainly can appreciate his exercise as a raising of awareness of existing deficiencies in constituent elements of the Maltese lifestyle and psyche, socially and politically, if one can assume that some ideal national prototype exists, or has ever existed in reality.

However, I fail to see how you can predicate an apparently dismissive posture - Malta being a "nationless state" - on statements such as: "politically this nation does not disclose or manifest itself, whether to the inside or to the outside world".

I have described the advent of independence as a beginning, not as an end, and seen it positively in a context of a slow but sure emergence from colonialism, domination and repression, which was also a convoluted process of modernisation in other ways.

In one of my books (1989) I sought to trace the history of freedom or the lack of it in Malta across the centuries: this was often suppressed but it was always latent, with repeated manifestations, bold ones at times, of the yearning for it.

Young and small

I hold no propagandistic or xenophobic brief whatsoever when I state, empirically enough, that Malta is a very young and a very small nation-state, less than 40 years old. It is also one of the smallest independent states in the world, which have pulled through the travails of times past and present. It is a country about which I have my own grave reservations but one where, nonetheless, alternating succession in governance by party on the elective principle has somehow survived; and a pluralism of sorts continues to thrive - perhaps to a fault, given admittedly certain curiously "tribal" traits, which baffle the thinking mind.

There are some historical, sociologiocal and anthropological explanations for the problems of smallness, closeness and insularity, which evidently show in the political dimension of affairs, public and indeed private, although less so now than before, one would hope.

Such données may very well determine the sense of nationality and the genre or genres of nationalism, but they need not deny either one or the other. There may be a twist in the tail, certainly; but what distinguishes a nationality is after all its peculiarity.

There is no doubt that political parties became "totalising", as the Catholic Church had been before them and beyond them. It is meaningful to draw attention to these not unknown aspects of Maltese society, which can hinder self-expression and self-realisation in such a dense human environment, lacking in space, both physical and social.

An invisible political nation?

But to go from there and state that "politically this nation does not disclose or manifest itself, whether to the inside or to the outside world" is as disconcerting as it is doubtful, even if one were to disregard the tortuous anti-colonialist struggles and start simply with the advent of independence in 1964.

As a political nation, Malta may disclose or manifest itself in strange ways, as in Mr Mintoff's best-forgotten "Cain and Abel" speech to the Council of Europe. But it has also disclosed itself, internally as well as externally, in more creative ways, be that through such Maltese as is spoken by "the locals", or in other languages used by these in regional and world fora, where there has been sometimes a positively defined Maltese presence in certain domains, diplomatic and political as well as artistic and cultural. And that in spite of many 'natural' limitations.

Equally, language has been a persisting problem in the growth of a Maltese nationhood, but not simply because of its in-group quality (see, for example, my comparative study on Language and Nationhood, 1992).

So too, no doubt, have size and isolation been, probably aiding absolutist, totalising, obscurantist, arrogant and hegemonic tendencies, internecine litigiousness, envy and spite, convenient for those seeking to wield power by position from the top down, in a continuum across the ages.

Such a problematic assumes different forms and can be exposed through many examples from everyday practice even today; but essentially it is not one limited to Malta as a small new state; it does not thereby render it nationless.

Post-colonial phenomena

At least some of the idiosyncracies and constraints highlighted by Professor Baldacchino, and seemingly identified with a want of nationhood - such as our ridiculous collection of national feasts, or the nauseating party-owned broadcasting stations - owe their origin, directly or indirectly, to the all too recent post-colonial past, especially the turbulent 1970s and 1980s, and to a compromising post-1987 aftermath, with its groping for reconciliation, reassertion and a manageable, parcelled out freedom, alias "democratisation" or "normalisation". It is hardly a reflection on Maltese nationality or nationhood as such, in spite of the adage that people get the government they deserve.

If it is a passing cloud, one cannot generalise from the particular. On the other hand, political will does seem to be in a quandary when practice is set to match the theory or norm from a 'national' standpoint, in spite of what comes across as a fast-growing secularisation among rising generations.

Concluding a chapter on 'National Identity' in Malta: Culture and Identity (1994; eds. H. Frendo and O. Friggieri), I compared ours to Luxembourg's, defining it by elimination on the lines adopted by the leading Luxembourgese historian Gilbert Trausch in his voluminous history of Luxembourg. Ni Francais, ni Allemands, ni Belges! (said Trausch). Ni Italiens, ni Anglais, ni Arabes! (said I).

A lost cause?

Perhaps what we should be focusing on is how a sensitised nationality can best translate into a workable nationhood, if there is an acceptable model for that, and how modern statehood itself should relate to and best express this meaningfully and pro-actively, as social and job mobility increases.

This debate therefore raises serious issues, including the relevance of history as a sharing of inherited experience and a moulding of consciousness, both national and personal. Without that, as I warned editorially in the latest edition of Storja, Malta would risk being swamped in its membership of a larger entity where exponents of national groupings were more informed, rational, alert, critical and confident in their ways.

Such considerations raise further questions about institutions - educational, civil, political, ecclesiastical - the plight of meritocracy and, if one dare mention it, the pursuit of excellence. Individuals also matter, not only in politics.

It is a lost cause?

Henry Frendo has taught in various universities and written several books, the most recent being The Origins of Maltese Statehood: A Case Study of Decolonisation in the Mediterranean (1999, 2nd. ed. 2000), and Censu Tabone: The Man and His Century (2000, 2nd. ed. 2001). Since 1992 he has been Professor of History at the University of Malta.