Malta’s postcolonial social order

Before reminiscing about Malta’s ‘British colonial period’ on an emotive nostalgic journey, Martin Scicluna (August 4), declared that “it is clear where I am coming from. I am an admirer of Britain and all things British”.

Nostalgia – the essence of his text – has been in vogue since the 18th century. It is defined as “morbid longing to return to one’s home or native country, severe homesickness considered as a disease”, having been coined in 1688 by Basel scholar Johannes Hofer (1669-1752) from the Greek words algos, ‘pain, grief, distress’ and nostos, ‘homecoming’.

Colombia academic and post-colonial savant Patricia Lorcin explains that “the concept of nostalgia in relation to the (British) Empire is usually ana­lysed as a longing for former imperial and colonial glory” where colonial nostalgia is associated with the loss of sociocultural standing.

It is known that the memory of empire is powerful enough to create new configurations that transcend the original coloniser – hence Brexit – and the colonised – hence the surviving Maltese apologists.

Vincenzo Cuoco, Italian historian, wisely reflecting upon his own insurgent Naples in 1800, warned that “the obsession for foreign nations first denigrates, then impoverishes, finally ruins a nation, extinguishing in it all love for its own things”.

Colonial dominant manoeuvres

The colonised are made to feel inferior through various dominant manoeuvres that render them loyal to their masters more than to their own country. According to Denis Austin (1971), this is the way the Maltese were perceived by British colonialists as late as the mid-20th century: “The Maltese are ‘Europeans’ – yes: but almost certainly of Semitic origin. While many of them spoke English it was not their mother tongue. They do not belong to British history in the way that Australians and New Zealanders or (many) Canadians and South Africans can be said to derive their culture… from Britain.”

Perhaps that is why, nearly a century earlier, in The Claims of the Maltese; Founded on the Principles of Justice, the largely forgotten Maltese pioneer politician George Mitrovich lamented to the British parliament in 1835 that the Maltese were “deprived of their liberty, their rights and privileges, disregarded or suspended, without any representatives of their own to whom they could apply for redress, reduced to the lowest state of destitution and misery, a general discontent prevails amongst them, though they are patient, submissive and quiet.”

Albert Memmi, author of The Coloniser and the Colonised, enlightens us that “the distance between the master and the servant is never that big, even if the colonised themselves, yearning for assimilation, are refused any sense of equality by the coloniser”.

In the rest of the world – Malta is a bizarre exception – “postcolonialism is about a changing world, a world that has been changed by struggle and which its practitioners intend to change further”. Robert Young (2003) further elucidates that “most people do not like the term ‘postcolonial’ because it disturbs the order of the world, threatens privilege and power”. Postcolonialism has a radical agenda that demands equality and well-being for humanity on earth.

Counter literature on coloniality

No wonder local counter literature on coloniality has been almost non-existent, most probably because “colonialism produces deficient beings, victims of democratic starvation” (Memmi). Many learn how to turn a blind eye and forget their identities in order to survive. Others tend to become ambivalent, condemning their inferior social status yet adapting to the new social order.

The colonised are made to feel inferior- Charles Xuereb

With most of its colonised citi­zens suffering from what Paul Ricoeur calls la maladie historique, the Maltese preferred (some still do) to persist with perceiving British colonialism as having been some form of blessing (l-Ingliżi għamluna nies) and meekly still choose to represent themselves to the world as having been colonised with media spaces occupied by an excessive number of repeated propaganda memorials, a British medal on their national colours and state policies that imitate or follow ‘the superior race’ that had ruled over them in the past.

The persistent brainwashing of the nation came as a result of several strategies that induced the nation into British hegemonising during most of the 20th century. They included the installation of cable radio by the British company Rediffusion in 1935 (and MTV in 1962), which happens to be the same year as the founding of the pro-British daily Times of Malta by Gerald Strickland. In 1943, George VI imposed the George Cross medal on the flag, which was retained for vote-catching tactics after the attainment of Independence and the Republic.

In the 1940s, school text-books, including Outlines of Maltese History, and the creation of a school broadcasting unit to disseminate English through British rhymes and other colonial paraphernalia, further inculcated loyalty to the Crown in the minds of the young.

The cherry on the cake, of course, goes to newly independent Malta in 1964, adopting as its new head of state its former colonialist Queen Elizabeth II (of Malta). French historian Marc Ferro was accurate when he uttered “dependence starts at independence”.

The correspondent credits the Maltese islands’ postcolonial progress to British cultural heritage and extolls Malta as “the beacon of light of the Mediterranean littoral”. Others, however, might judge this observation with some divergence.

The construction magnates and accommodating authorities’ ruining of the island’s Mediterranean character could also be seen as following in the unfortunate steps of former British colonies on other continents, an heirloom of colonial arrogance and overindulgence.

The Maltese moguls’ current behaviour in raping the environment certainly do not augur towards a sense of belonging to one’s own native land, quite like colonialists did yesteryear.

Charles Xuereb is the author of Decolonising the Maltese Mind, in Search of Identity (2022).