Next year, we will be celebrating 60 years since we became an independent sovereign state, 50 years since we became a republic with our own head of state for the first time and 45 years since we closed down foreign military, naval and air bases in Malta, committing ourselves to refrain from joining military alliances and not letting our country be used to attack others.
All these historical achievements have been indispensable to make us a viable state and, since independence, to gradually become a highly developed country according to the United Nations Human Development Index. We are ranked among the top countries in the world because our people live a long and healthy life, are educated and have a decent standard of living.
We have been able to develop our country since we started making our own decisions. When we were a colony for centuries and our foreign rulers used Malta only in their own interests, most of our people suffered hardship and a low standard of living.
Today, we can lose control of our destiny without being invaded militarily by any of those powers that still consider us to be in their sphere of influence and expect us to obey their orders, even if they go against our national interest.
British/New Zealand development economist Dudley Seers (1920-1983) was actively engaged with many newly independent countries, including Malta, and observed that the quality of their political leadership is more important for them than for bigger and richer countries.
He came across national political elites who were still culturally and intellectually dependent, “their minds stuffed with foreign values and theories… unable to understand even the need for national development, let alone frame a development strategy in the national interest”.
From his direct practical experience of former colonies, Seers observed “that the capacity of a government to adopt an independent strategy might lie not so much in its productive structure, technology, natural resources or military capability, important though these were, as in the strength and homogeneity of its culture which can help it and its leadership avoid cultural dependence” on an imported way of perceiving the nation’s own needs.
Trinidadian/British writer VS Naipaul used to call such political elites “mimic men”.
One of the permanent threats faced by small countries like ours, that were governed for centuries by others in their own interests, is to find it difficult to think with our own mind, feel with our own heart and see through our own eyes what our true interests are. We import almost all we need but, surely, we shouldn’t also import how we think, how we feel and how we see ourselves and the world.
The post-colonial generations can easily allow their countries to degenerate into fake sovereign states that ritually celebrate national independence, the birth of the republic and the freedom from foreign bases and military alliances but then take decisions that make their countries colonies again.
Against mimicry
Lowering the flag of your former coloniser and hoisting your own is not enough. Playing your national anthem instead of your old ruler’s is not enough. Replacing a foreign head of state with your own is not enough. Real independence is much more than that. It requires cultural and intellectual independence to be able to take decisions in the national interest and not as dictated by other countries.
Cultural and intellectual independence are not transmitted genetically from one generation to the next- Evarist Bartolo
In this age of global interdependence and shared sovereignty with the European Union, and adherence to international treaties and conventions and membership of organisations like the United Nations and the Council of Europe, we need an alert, smart and self-confident national political leadership to promote our national interest.
This definitely does not mean we should retreat into shells like limpets clinging to the rocks with our backs to the world. Independence today requires a prudent and sensible management of our interdependence with the rest of the world. No island and no country can cut itself off from the world. We thrive in direct proportion to how well we develop our links with the rest of the world.
We can love our country without hating other countries. We can have the kind of national sentiment and love of our country that is inclusive, that doesn’t turn in on itself and feel besieged by the rest of the world.
Seers considered poor national leadership as the main obstacle to a country’s development, either because they were not able to stand up for their country or because of their bad governance and administrative failures.
In her unpublished intellectual biography of Seers, Margaret Mary Lipscomb concludes that for him “political leadership could prove of vital significance particularly for a country limited in its policy options by size. Exploiting what room to manoeuvre there was, he argued, 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”.
Cultural and intellectual independence are not transmitted genetically from one generation to the next. Postcolonial leaders do not stand automatically on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them and led their people out of colonialism. Nobody pours intellectual and cultural independence into your brain. They are qualities you have to work hard at acquiring them for yourself. If we are to stand up for ourselves and not allow others to decide for us, we must not be mimics.
The nationalism of a big country so easily crushes the nationalism of small ones. The true nationalism of a small country tries not to let bigger countries crush it.
Evarist Bartolo is a former PL foreign and education minister.