Five national holidays

While lauding the leader (‘Patriotism or convenience’, October 8) as it highlights some commendable principles and reflections, I find some references and comments hard to share.

Immortalising Rużar Briffa’s poetic verses to qualify Malteseness while the leader misses any reference to the Maltese national flag being the only one in the world that still carries a colonial war medal baffles me. When we are united in our post-colonial vocation of neutrality and peace, isn’t the George Cross on the flag bizarre?

The main thrust of the leader, however, seems to address the fact that Malta marks five national days.

Quoting the president of Malta heeding us to unite as otherwise “…we would be making a mockery of our five national holidays” (original in Maltese: “Jekk dan ma jseħħx, inkunu qed niżżufjettaw bil-ħames festi nazzjonali li għandna”) must have suffered some twist in translation. To me, the president was rather seeing national holidays – whatever the number – as an opportunity to unite the nation.

Is the George Cross on the flag bizarre? PHOTO: MATTHEW MIRABELLI

I fail to see where the president was endorsing the idea to choose one national holiday, whichever one.

When, in 1989, members of the Maltese parliament, on the silver anniversary of Independence, found a clever way to unite the nation in marking Malta’s separation from the British coloniser five times during the year appears to me a pragmatic decision.

All members had then agreed on these five national days, each memorialising the severance with the coloniser.

Victory Day of the 1565 Great Siege – together with the eight-pointed cross – was chosen to honour the chivalric identity, in order to resist British hegemony at the start of the 19th century.

Sette Giugno commemorates when, in 1919, six unarmed protesting civilians were felled by British soldiers.

Independence Day marks the birth of the nation and the cessation of colonial control.

On Republic Day, a Maltese president replaced the British monarch.

Freedom Day hails the island closing down the two-centuries old British military base in 1979.

Malta is not the only country that marks more than one national day. Italy, our neighbour, enjoys and celebrates several with better aplomb than us.

CHARLES XUEREB – Sliema