Letters to the editor – June 13, 2026

El Adem air crash

Paul Shave, son of the late major John S. R. Shave MC, RE, a former O/C Malta Fortress Squadron, writes:

Holiday time in Malta reminds of the 1961 El Adem air crash.

As the 65th anniversary of the El Adem air crash approaches, I remember  the fine fellows of Malta Fortress Squadron who put on Christmas parties for us children.

The Handley Page HP67 Hastings aircraft that crashed just after take-off, killing 17 people. Photo: Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives

I was an 11-year-old at the time. My family left Malta a few months before the crash. My father used to go to Tripoli to train Maltese troops in the desert. Had he not been posted he could have been on that flight.

I add my voice to the memory of those who lost their lives.

Equality, rule of law

Peter P. Dingli, of San Diego, California, writes:

Mark M. Scerri’s illuminating analysis (‘Identitarianism is not a constitutional argument’, May 28) provides a masterclass in the legal literacy our national conversation so desperately lacks.

By neatly dismantling the lazy, selective readings of article 2 of our constitution, Scerri exposes an uncomfortable truth: the frantic effort to weaponise Roman Catholicism as an exclusionary barrier to minority rights is not a defence of Maltese heritage but a betrayal of our actual constitutional foundation – democracy, work and fundamental human rights.

Scerri’s breakdown of the constitution aligns precisely with the point I raised previously regarding Maria Pisani’s dispatch. For too long, our political and cultural commentary has treated the constitution as if it were a hereditary deed to an ethno-state or a theological text, rather than a secular document of law. 

To use the majority status declared in sub-article (1) to block initiatives like Qur’anic teaching for minority children in state schools is, as Scerri rightly notes, an exercise in “assertion” rather than constitutional reasoning. It collapses the vital distinction between describing a majority reality and prescribing the systemic exclusion of minorities.

One cannot help but note the profound theological irony Scerri surfaces via Fratelli tutti. When our self-appointed cultural guardians transform Catholicism into a political badge of “us versus them” they do not preserve the faith; they hollow it out. They exchange a universal spiritual message for a tribal security blanket. 

It is the exact same brittleness I noted previously: a culture that boasts loudly of its historic “hospitality” and “Pauline roots” yet turns remarkably defensive the moment it encounters a fellow citizen who prays differently.

However, as we follow Scerri’s necessary defence of pluralism, we must also heed the warning of where this transition takes us. If we are to successfully dismantle this selective, identity-driven politics we cannot replace it with a fluid vacuum. As I argued before, a healthy pluralistic society requires a rigid backbone. That backbone is a non-negotiable commitment to the absolute equality of the individual and the rule of law.

Scerri is entirely correct that a democracy worthy of its name does not confuse the defence of identity with the exclusion of others.

It is high time our political class stops hiding behind the skirts of the clergy and the instrumentalisation of faith to avoid the heavy lifting of modern governance. If we wish to transition from a collection of bickering, defensive clans into a true republic of citizens, we must stop using our identity as a shield against progress and start treating the constitution as the democratic road map it was intended to be.