In ‘L’Italia e la questione Maltese nel Mediterraneo della Guerra Fredda (1943-1972)’, Gaetano La Nave narrates the story of Malta after World War II, showing that Malta’s history could have taken a very different route. The protagonists involved, within Malta itself, in Italy, Libya and in NATO had diverse interests, goals and strategies pulling in different, sometimes complementary but often opposite directions.
The Catholic Church wanted to retain its dominant position and insulate Malta from social changes happening in Europe and through decolonisation. The Nationalist Party (PN) wanted Malta to remain in the western sphere of influence through the granting of Dominion status within the Commonwealth and, eventually, national independence while allowing NATO on the island.
Both the Catholic Church and the PN used the spectre of the Soviet Union and communism to scare voters away from the Malta Labour Party (MLP)’s vision. The latter’s very pragmatic policies focused on improving the life of the working class. It initially proposed integration with Britain as long as this meant the same standard of living for the Maltese as the British. When this did not work out, the MLP opted for an independent and neutral Malta, committed to steering clear of any military alliance of any bloc or state.
The UK was bent on prolonging the use of Malta as part of its vital logistical corridor made up of Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It wanted the newly independent island to continue to be a NATO operation centre, ensuring - in collaboration with the US - that the island would not migrate to the Soviet and/or Libyan sphere of influence. Italy wanted a friendly Malta that would not be a security risk.
La Nave weaves a rich tapestry of how all these interests played out, giving a lot of attention to detail while never losing sight of the general historical process bringing together local, regional and global realities.
Through exemplary thoroughness - studying archives in Italy, the Vatican, the UK, the US, France, Malta and the NATO HQ in Belgium (but not the Kremlin and Tripoli) and referring to an impressive amount of books - La Nave has produced a detailed analysis of 30 years of history. His book is a very valid contribution to small state studies and Cold War history which throws new light on Maltese, Italian and Mediterranean realities after World War II.
La Nave argues that the Maltese as a colony hardly had any room for manoeuvre. Every aspect of their life was subordinated to the geopolitical interests of the United Kingdom and NATO.
The quality of leadership
315,000 Maltese lived densely in an area of 316 sq km. The British government estimated that, with a birth rate higher than the mortality rate and with hardly any resources, the small islands could only support 250,000 people. This was true because the best areas in Malta, together with the harbour, shipyard and the airports, existed exclusively to serve the military. No space was created for the manufacturing, commerce and tourism sectors.
In the circumstances, the only option was mass emigration. After 1946, especially in the 1960s, over 140,000 people left Malta on the assisted passage scheme, mostly to Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
Italy and the Vatican helped Dom Mintoff get a better deal from the UK and NATO to ensure that Malta would become neutral- Evarist Bartolo
La Nave’s account echoes a report on this period by economists Dudley Seers and Tom Balogh, describing Malta’s excessive economic dependence on the British and NATO military forces. They were the main source of employment. The island imported more than it exported. The civilian economy had “atrophied” and become “an economic fossil”, living standards depended “wholly on Imperial expenditure”. Malta was “excluded from the control over its own economic destiny”.
La Nave reserves a special role for Dom Mintoff and his ability to create margins for manoeuvre, exerting as much leverage as he could over the US, the UK, Italy and NATO by keeping them guessing what his real intentions were regarding relations with the Soviet Union and Libya.
La Nave’s factual account challenges the conventional superpower paradigm of all the states being at the mercy of one of the two blocs without the freedom to act in their own national interests. For example, Italy and the Vatican helped Mintoff get a better deal from the UK and NATO to ensure that Malta would become neutral but not fall within the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union and Libya.
La Nave’s description of Mintoff as a resourceful leader is very similar to what Seers recounts in ‘The political economy of nationalism’. Mintoff had once told Seers that the government of a small country had to decide what trump cards it held and then play them for all they were worth.
Like Seers, La Nave shows how Mintoff had “brilliantly exploited the military advantages of the Valletta harbour and his political base among the dockyard workers, as well as the sympathies of Britons such as Lord Mountbatten, to extract payment not only from Britain and NATO in support of the public finances of Malta... but also (for a time) from Libya”. La Nave shows how Mintoff caught them unawares by establishing good relations with China.
Seers argued that exploiting what room to manoeuvre there was required “a high level of leadership”, which, for a small country, was “a more important factor than in a large country”. It required “rare skills” not only to frame an optimal set of policies but “to mobilise an adequate coalition of diverse political forces to support it; to present it persuasively to the world outside; and, of course, to implement it - while retaining continuing domestic support”.
There is a great deal to learn from Mintoff’s high level of leadership if we are to successfully navigate Malta’s geopolitical future in the years ahead. We must always pursue our national interest, not simply do the bidding of the West that still considers us in its sphere of influence, although it puts no pressure on us to join NATO.
Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour foreign and education minister.