Charles Xuereb’s latest socio-historical volume Decolonising the Maltese Mind: In Search of Identity has recently been launched at San Anton Palace.

A number of academics attended the launch, among them professor of sociology Godfrey Baldacchino, who commended the author on stimulating a national debate.

Baldacchino believed that Xuereb’s treatise was ‘monumental’, with an intended pun on the researcher’s criticism of colonial monuments in Valletta.

Two other academics, Charmaine Bonello – author of Boys, Early Literacy and Children’s Rights in a Postcolonial Context – and director of culture in the Ministry for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government Aleks Farrugia, a journalist and a historian addressed the audience. The launch was presided over by the university rector.

A colonial perspective

Farrugia said that many Maltese learnt their history through a colonial perspective. For older citizens, colonialism was a tangible experience; present-day generations absorb colonialism in a subliminal manner.  Does colonialism still exert a perpetuating effect?

Farrugia compared Xuereb’s approach to that of Giordano Bruno Guerri who contends that colonial domination and the influential Catholic Church made Italians, who disregard absolutist values such as freedom and heroism and prioritise personal well-being and the family’s needs.

A parallel with the Maltese character is quite evident. The Maltese were accustomed to serve. They continuously strived to survive with the least of sacrifices. The speaker felt that this servant mind-set is still prevalent.

From left, Godfrey Baldacchino, the author Charles Xuereb, Charmaine Bonello and Aleks Farrugia at San Anton Palace.

Farrugia believed that after independence the Maltese remained ‘servants’. They did not embrace the aristocratic legacy of past rulers. Instead, they focused on the acquisition of material wealth and status, dismissing spirituality, principles and morality.

Formal education at age five

Bonello compared colonialism to a double-edged sword: some advantages were gained but disadvantages linger even after independence.

Bonello noted that 12 per cent of countries in the world – all former colonies – start formal children’s education at five. In Europe, three countries, including Malta, the UK and the Netherlands do the same. Research shows that since the 19th century, five-year-olds were not provoked into critical thinking.

In Malta, neo-colonial and neo-liberal systems persist in most of the privatised 200 childcare centres, running their own schemes. In many aspects, the whole education system is still examination-driven, faithful to an old English model. Local educators hardly resist, question or discuss such systems.

History is a construction process of a narrative. At times particular narratives, depending on the power of the source, emerge as the strongest, as is the case with local voices lauding the British legacy

Bonello agreed with Xuereb that colonial mentality increases inequity. In her research, she realised that several teachers follow expired schemes resulting in discrimination, inequity. Children are regularly obliged to learn and repeat letters and phrases by heart instead of being creative. Scientific data shows that a person’s formation years are the first seven years. 

While consenting that a lot of good teaching takes place, she remarked that books at primary level emanate from the UK. Teachers are forced to teach what is in these books, otherwise they are judged badly.

Soft power permeates Malta’s education. Bonello laments that such ideas are only found in academic research. When are we to produce a Maltese philosophy of education?

Malta, tenth smallest in the world

Baldacchino stated that countries have more than one narrative, evolving and taking different shades – social, economic and political.

History is a construction process of a narrative. At times particular narratives, depending on the power of the source, emerge as the strongest, as is the case with local voices lauding the British legacy.

Analysing colonialism in Malta, the tenth smallest country in the world, one finds that the British did not come to exploit the island or the islanders.

They surmised that the archipelago could serve as a fortress base. They forged an alliance with the Catholic Church and induced the people to be loyal to the Crown. The closer they get to the colonialist – though never equal – the more they make progress.  

Baldacchino spoke of reactions to powerlessness, like loyalty and resistance. In Malta’s colonial history, resistance is quite rare: violent protests in 1919 and in 1958. The Maltese preferred to just grumble.

A quarter of today’s population were not born here; they brought in their own language. Italian is resurging. Thousands of Asian foreign workers speak Tagalog, Punjabi and Bengali. Baldacchino sees the need for a linguistic policy that respects Maltese, which unfortunately is accommodating foreigners by speaking English.  

Decolonising the Maltese Mind: In Search of Identity is available from all leading bookshops and midseabooks.com.