Letters to the editor - March 19, 2025

Today's letters by Times of Malta readers

March 19, 2025| Times of Malta 3 min read
Image: Times of MaltaImage: Times of Malta

Churchill’s stand on Malta

For Churchill’s aficionados, like Trump, who, on January 21, 2025, returned Churchill’s bust to the Oval Office after previous US presidents had removed it and while, in the UK, Churchill’s portrait was removed from parliament last year after Labour’s electoral win, as did No. 11 in Downing Street earlier this year, may I list two recorded declarations by Churchill before WWI and before WWII concerning Malta? These seem to show opposite attitudes from the one mentioned by local aficionado Thomas Zerafa (March 14).

My research came across several instances that demonstrate Churchill’s policy towards ‘inferior’ colonies, including his relations with Malta. According to the cabinet journal of Lewis Harcourt, August 27, 1914 (also reported by Mike Webb, From Downing Street to the Trenches, Oxford, 2014, 48), Churchill tried to barter Malta with Italy during a war meeting, when he agreed to the suggestion “you can buy Italy by giving her Malta”. And, again, pre-WWII, the British statesman repeated his nonchalance strategy when expressing himself thus on the same theme: “if we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta…” This last stance was also recorded by popular historian Max Hastings, in his volume, The Finest Years, Churchill as Warlord 1940-45 (Harper Press, 2009/10, 28).

The statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in central London was vandalised in 2020. Photo: Isabel Infantes/AFPThe statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in central London was vandalised in 2020. Photo: Isabel Infantes/AFP

This “Churchill complex is both magnificent and a curse”, asserts Ian Buruma, author of The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit (Penguin, 2020). In fact, in the same year, some British journalists on the left believed that, in the Brexit issue, the mention of Churchill, especially on the right, was “an incantation to call up English exceptionalism”. Not to mention that, during the Black Lives Matter recent anti-slavery remonstrations, Chur­chill’s monument in front of London’s Houses of Parliament was daubed with an anti-imperialist slogan and had to be boarded up, with some going as far as proposing the statue could be moved to a museum.

Though this ‘complex man’ is considered a hero by millions, one would do well to complete the picture in order to get closer to the truth and form a proper perspective of colonialism. Unfortunately, Churchill’s prominent bust at the Barrakka Gardens with tens of colonialist monuments in Valletta underlines Malta’s attitude towards this kind of expired imperialism.

Allow me to recommend the reading of my research published in 2022, entitled Decolonising the Maltese Mind, in Search of Identity (Midsea Books) for an argumentative treatise on Malta’s post-colonialism.

Charles Xuereb – Sliema

Dormant accounts

Reference is made to the letter ‘BOV’s dormant accounts’ (March 18).

Bank of Valletta would like to clarify that the statements made in the letter, where it is being stated that dormant accounts  become the property of BOV if the account is not activated are incorrect.

An account is considered to be dormant after a period of inactivity, currently set at 24 months, where no financial withdrawals or deposits have been effected for the last two years. It does not apply to Young Savers accounts,  basic payment accounts and restricted accounts.

Accounts with the status ‘dormant’ do not become the property of BOV as is stated in the letter, but are subject to an account inactivity fee as per the bank’s tariff of charges.

All customers were informed of the terms and conditions governing the bank’s deposit account suite. If the account continues to remain inactive the charge will be debited to the account.

Karl Spiteri, head Corporate Communications, Bank of Valletta.

 

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