The title ‘Inaccurate accounts of British Malta’ (Albert Cilia-Vincenti, July 16) is based on misinformation; one suspects the author may not have listened properly to the Campus 103.7 broadcast.
I was the host of that programme in the Isfar u Nnukklat series. My interviewee, cultural historian Carmel Cassar, deliberated on the plague in 16th-17th century Malta, based on his book Health, Plague, and Society in Early Modern Malta. The 1813 plague outbreak under the British was mentioned since the pestilence had been absent from Malta since 1675-76.
The author pretentiously advised “detractors” that the George Cross “is not going anywhere”. May I report upon another recent media product that might make readers think otherwise.
I am referring to the Il-Każin TV debate hosted by Jon Mallia (July 5, Tokis, GO TV). Two proposers and two opposers debated the question: Was British colonialism in Malta a positive or a negative phenomenon?
Defending the positive were academics Edward Warrington and Simon Cusens, while I was accompanied by another scholar, Immanuel Mifsud, arguing for its negative evaluation. A 60-strong independent live audience voted at the start of the debate thus: 59% positive, 15% negative and 29% undecided.
Warrington said that in 1936, the British Governor’s proclamation at the Palace, Valletta, announcing in English the rising to the throne of Edward, Prince of Wales, was for the first time repeated in Maltese. This represented “the shadows and the light” of Malta’s colonial experience, which had created social, economic, political and cultural conditions that eventually led to Malta becoming an independent state in 1964.
He contended that Malta remained the only independent island in the Mediterranean that subsisted a healthy democratic history. This he concluded was also due to the island having already formed a sophisticated society under the Knights.
Poet and author Mifsud cited a cultural facet of colonialism with a Maltese pupil who up to 1972 was still being impacted by Britishness, that “violated his cultural native aspect”. Exposed to the British environment, like slanted-roofed houses, to learn his own mother language, the child had to recite adulatory verses flattering the British monarchy.
Having the George Cross on the flag stifles Maltese identity
Mifsud summed up his first contribution by declaring that the colonialists’ most dominant strategy was to inculcate in Maltese minds that British culture was superior to the autochthone inferior one.
Historian Simon Cusens lauded the British for having, in 1934, made Maltese an official language. Owing to archaeological finds under the British, today Malta enjoys more tourists. He praised the dockyard school and paid homage to successful emigrants, thanks to having a knowledge of English and a British passport. He declared that the George Cross on the flag was a tribute to the war dead.
I complimented the producers for this debate, certainly inspired by my book on decolonisation. In defining colonialism, I quoted historian Robert J. C. Young and his 2011 five elements of colonialism, among which were cultural influence, in other words loyalty to a foreign Crown; exploitation of the autochthones; and servility to the foreigner.
After the 1565 Great Siege, Malta ceased to be considered an appendicle of Sicily, whereas under the British, the Maltese became servile to the colonialists’ needs in an outpost colony. In the period 1934-1967, when the population was 300,000, more than half had ‘exiled’ themselves, mostly to Australia.
Young also lists marginalisation, inferring to racism, which was introduced by the British Empire when it brutally enslaved millions from Africa. Inferiority through skin colour was evident in Malta with British Admiral Adolphus Slade in 1837 describing the Maltese as “natives of African or Moorish origin; since the dark man always obeyed his white fellow creature, the former has no intellect”.
Another element of colonialism was to deny all forms of self-rule; in fact, during the 19th century, the British instituted a series of impotent Government Councils. In 1812, the first Royal Commission to the island reported to the British Parliament that the Maltese were not capable of governing themselves.
Violence is the last of the characteristics that denote colonialism: in 1846, soldiers bayonetted Maltese carnival revellers in Valletta for wearing masks. In 1919, the British army fired on unarmed civilians protesting against the cost of living and for self-rule rights, killing six. Earlier British governors unjustly exiled two patriots, namely Mikiel Anton Vassalli in 1800 and Manwel Dimech in 1914.
Against having the George Cross on the flag, I argued that it is stifling Maltese identity as it denotes that the Maltese appear only to be a complete nation thanks to having been a British colony.
Midway through the debate, the vote read 41% positive, 39% negative and 20% undecided. After taking questions from the floor, the panel proceeded to a second engrossing round with the final vote recording a 39% swing towards the opposers at 54%, judging British colonialism in Malta to be negative, certainly signifying a shifting perception of Malta’s recent past under the British.
Charles XuerebCharles Xuereb is an author and historian.