Pax Britannica

For those of you who, like myself, are rapidly approaching the half century mark and older, the words Pax Britannica will inevitably trigger off memories of the days when most of the countries on our school atlas were painted red. The British Empire, a historical phenomenon that reached its apogee during the reign of the present Queen's great-great-grandmother, Victoria RI of joyful memory, was, besides being the largest empire the world has ever seen, the most far flung. The Queen Empress, withdrawn, unamused and brooding in her state apartments at Windsor and Osborne, the epitome of what is today called gemuchtlich, was, besides being Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, Empress of India, and ruler of Australia and Canada. She also ruled over many African states and so many islands, including little Malta, dotted about the globe that it does not bear counting.

As the British Empire began to collapse and dismember itself after World War II, this strange fellowship of nations called The Commonwealth was invented. What they actually do is anybody's guess as there are far more powerful political end economic organisations like the UN and the EU to see that the US, the first nation to break away from Great Britain, does not get too out of hand, however it is heart warming to know that some vestige of Pax Britannica does still exist and every so often a Durbar is held in which the Queen is photographed once more for posterity with all the heads of government that once made up the empire. What fun!

This year it is the turn of little Malta to play host. As I write a press conference was held outlining the Queen's itinerary. Poor woman; what a bore!

In various shades of pastel, Elizabeth II will, as she vowed she always would, do her duty and wave at the appropriate time, smile at the appropriate time, chat at the appropriate time and, finally, read out her carefully, government-approved speech without one spark of spontaneity; all this to épater tous les bourgeois who still view the head of one of the most dysfunctional families in the world as some sort of demi-goddess.

There is still something about the British monarchy that casts some sort of spell on the world. Through thick and thin, with just one notable blip when Diana died, loyalty and love for this conscientious woman with the outmoded hats has been consistent and unflagging and obviously Her Majesty's government takes full advantage of it. Whether the same loyalty and love will still flow when Charles becomes king, if he ever does, remains to be seen, however at present the Queen is still primus inter pares among the monarchs of the world; what's left of them.

Times have changed. Victoria's empire was held together by one of the smoothest and most efficient bureaucracies the world has ever seen and gelled by trade and driven by one goal; the greater glory of Great Britain. In all this, the empire builders firmly believed they were bringing "civilisation" and "democracy" to the countries they ruled; Malta included. So powerful was this ideological belief that in this little island republic of ours, English still reigns supreme no matter how much we massacre it as we speak and sometimes even write that weird concoction that I call Minglish.

Apart from the legacy of language, the British Empire was not all that great in as far as leaving us great buildings or monuments. Unlike the previous rulers of Malta, the governors and the entire hierarchy of government were of the "here today and gone tomorrow" type that behaves ruthlessly most of the time to achieve as much as it can while on call of duty knowing full well that should their results be outstanding they would be on to bigger and better things with a knighthood or peerage dangling like a carrot before a donkey.

For us Maltese an order of chivalry was invented that honoured the colonials called the Order of St Michael and St George. KCMGs or Kindly Call Me Gods, as we called them with a few variations on the theme, abounded in Malta, India and Hong Kong. Our own Sir Anthony Mamo is the only Maltese KCMG left and I wonder how many more are left in the Commonwealth itself. The KCMGs were awarded in much the same way as the George Cross was given to us in 1942; very nice to have and all but as some wisecrack, possibly Pike, quoted, it was quite inedible!

However, British we aspired to be and, boy oh boy did we aspire, colonials we were and colonials we remained. No matter how the upper crust tried to integrate with and make themselves indistinguishable from the Brits who came out to Malta, they were still Malts or Maltesers and, at worst, wogs too!

Having read the Bonham-Carter Diaries I have not quite decided whether the gubernorial habit of referring to everyone by their surname alone was derogatory or a habit that General Sir Charles Bonham-Carter had not shaken off from public school.

I have lived for many years in the shadow of the would-be Brits, some of whom, like relics of a bygone age, still exist, however my younger formative years were the two decades under the rule of the maverick Dom Mintoff. The backlash of anti-British sentiment that was unleashed in revenge for when the integration bid went belly-up saw to it that any tendency towards Anglophilia was regarded with suspicion.

The Nationalists, who had fought tooth and nail to block integration and win our independence, were not too enamoured of Great Britain either. Many of their leaders had been interned during WWII and many spoke Italian at home and dreamt of terra irredenta. I sometimes cannot help wondering what Malta would have been like should we have become an integral part of Great Britain. The mind boggles.

The wheel has turned full circle. Malta today is a full member of the EU and a respected if minuscule republic trying its best to survive the economic tsunamis that are happening in the world at present.

So here we are, hosting the great and the good that make up this strange anachronism that is CHOGM a full 41 years after Giorgio Borg Olivier brought us independence. Some of us still live in a world wherein Bertie Wooster would be thoroughly at home; a dying breed that is totally bewildered by the sausage and mash brigades and fish and chip hordes that invade us every year. Like it or hate it English may not be used in Parliament and on the telly but it is the language of academia and will indeed survive and thrive despite the public tacit disavowal of it. This is probably why we are such a mixed up and idiosyncratic race in search of an ever elusive national identity.

Britain is still our largest tourist market but a very small proportion of British tourists actually fit in with the popular idea of God being an Englishman. And, yet, as the Queen arrives for her fourth state visit all the sentimentality of what we imagine were the good and wholesome days when Malta was a crown colony, will, like the proverbial phoenix, rise briefly from the ashes and we may even shed a tear or two as, for the umpteenth time, the God Save The Queen is played again... and again.

kzt@onvol.net