Broadcaster and journalist Charles Xuereb, left, receiving his doctorate.

Graduating Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Malta’s Institute for Maltese Studies and sponsored by its head, historian Henry Frendo, broadcaster and journalist Charles Xuereb presented an investigative thesis on ‘France in the Maltese collective memory’, how transgenerational memory could have influenced today’s Maltese national identity.

At the end of the 18th century, under the Order of St John, and again at the beginning of the 19th century, under the new British rulers, the Maltese population of less than 100,000 was not politically in charge of its own destiny.

The short, revolutionary interlude, ushered in vigorously by Napoleon Bonaparte on his way to Egypt in 1798, plotted to change all that. Equality with the French, Maltese majority in all government civil posts and secularism could have been the answer to what local literati and many city-dwellers – numbering thousands – were yearning for when facilitating the French Armée’s take-over.

But destiny was not to be in the hands of this minority; instead, the countryside, the old aristocracy and a querulous, privileged class of Catholic clergy preferred the security of protectionism and denied the Maltese a chance to put the development of self-sufficiency on a fast track.

The eventful period of the rising of the peasants in 1798 against the French-installed government has produced a history narrative creating manipulated perceptions and interpretations perpetuated by the media to modern times.

Xuereb’s thesis challenges this narrative, which is often filled with myth, false facts and bias. It revisits the Maltese lieux de mémoires – Vassalli, il-Kavallieri, Napuljun, the uprising, Dun Mikiel Xerri, żmien il-Franċiżi (the French period), ix-xabla ta’ La Valette (La Valette’s Sword), il-fidda li serqulna (the pillaging of churches), l-Ingliżi, the national flag – in the hope of finding ‘truths’ that have been distorted in such a way that the good deeds of the French interlude and Maltese victims on both sides would be ‘forgotten’.

Of particular interest in this researched study is the new literature on Maltese citizenship. While examining anti-French media, public space and the community, Xuereb argues that colonial memorials in meaningful places of citizenry, especially those impinging on Maltese identity, are blocking today’s Maltese memory.

This academic investigation compels the author to believe that contemporary Maltese citizens could now be suffering from what Paul Ricoeur calls a ‘historical malady’ threatening the development of essential memory links between past experience and future expectation.

With the publication of this study next year, Xuereb plans to provoke a healthy debate – hopefully without traditional prejudices – that will lead us to accurately remember the past so as to enable us to acknowledge an authentic history and responsibly face the future as ‘truer’ Maltese citizens.