Tomas Alcoverro (Curator La Mediterranania del segle XX: realitats I mirades (The Mediterranean of the 20th century: realities and images), Institut Europeu de la Mediterrania.
La Mediterranania del segle XX: realitats I mirades portrays through photography the 20th-century history of the Mediterranean.
This century opened with a terrorist attack, the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914 and ended with a series of terrorist attacks and the war in Bosnia. In between, the Mediterranean went through the Second World War.
Malta features once in this catalogue of the exhibition put up by the Institut Europeu de la Mediterrania in Barcelona, on page 80. The entry shows the historic connection that existed between Malta and Tunisia in the past decades. The photo was taken at the height of WWII.
The photo is captioned: ‘A Maltese soldier with the British Army bids farewell to his wife in Tunis, c. 1942’. It is not clear when it was taken but it was probably shot after this country was recaptured by the allied forces following the victory of El Alamein. It is a particular photo insofar as photos of the war normally express a different genre and rarely portray images of love.
During WWII, Tunisia was on the Allies’ side as La France Libre continued its fight through its colonies but was occupied by the Axis powers until it was liberated in 1942.
Yet, this photo shows us a different angle of Tunisia featuring members of the Maltese community who kept their British citizenship in this French protectorate, despite the pressure exercised by the French in the previous decades to adopt French nationality.
The photo represents a Maltese who did not naturalise himself, departing from Tunisia, dressed in a British uniform to fight for the Allies. It is a photograph that captures the spirit of the belle epoch; the husband giving a farewell kiss on the lips to his charming young wife – quite provocative for its time.
This photo also sheds proof on the stand taken by the Maltese towards France after Tunisia became a French protectorate as well as how they reacted to the policy of Francophilisation. The Maltese community was divided: some accepted to be naturalised French while others preferred to resist and this was undertaken on two fronts. First, they supported the Maltese Roman Catholic traditions. Secondly, a strong Maltese contingent remained faithful to the British Crown.
The loyalty of the Maltese to their home country caused a stir not least within the Catholic Church in Tunisia. The Maltese practised their religion very differently to the way it was in France.
Of more interest is the fact that while in France, the Church opposed the Francophilisation of the region, in Tunisia, the Church took an opposite stand and supported French radical policies aimed at Francophiling the Maltese and the Italians.
The most important feast for the Maltese in Tunisia was of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It assumed great national importance, exceeding by far the importance this feast was given in Malta.
When one observes that, in the Church calendar, this feast is celebrated two days after the Quatorze Juillet, one can immediately understand why such a religious celebration achieved so much significance in Tunisia among this migrant community. It was a clear political message to the imposed francophilisation on this small ethnic minority. In the 1930s, the situation became even more complicated due to international politics.
This photo exposes the hidden tensions between the Maltese and the Italians due to the rise of fascism. Maltese politics influenced the relationship within the Maltese community: for those who refused to be naturalised, some favoured Britain while others sided with Italy.
It seems right to assume the Maltese soldier featured in this photo was on the British side.