Rebellious and peaceful public remonstrations in several American states following the violent death of George Floyd in May at the hands of malign policing in Minneapolis have certainly set in motion a phenomenon that spilled all over the world like a powder trail.
Occurring in the midst of a treacherous pandemic that decimated thousands of innocent lives, the fearful frustration of weeks under lockdown appears to have provoked protesters in many countries to vent their collected and accumulated anger towards issues of memory and identity, condemning racism, slavery and colonisation as overtly recorded by historical monuments in many urban public spaces.
Except for social media and one Valletta demonstration against racism by the indefatigable Graffitti militants, little else was publicly chronicled in this former colony of almost two centuries.
Slavery in Malta
Though modern Maltese society encountered racism in recent decades, a centuries-long history of slavery does not appear to linger in our national consciousness, possibly because it was officially sanctioned by the Order of the Knights.
Even though Malta was perhaps the first country to briefly put a legal end to slavery in 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte freed hundreds of Muslim slaves and returned scores of Maltese Christians from Ottoman Mediterranean port cities, little else was done to publicly remember an iniquitous trade that terrified numerous coastal habitations.
Exception was the late historian Godfrey Wettinger (Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo ca. 1000-1812, PEG, 2002), whom I supported in The Sunday Times of Malta, proposing to erect a monument to their memory with a possible coordinated public apology from the Order in Rome and from Turkey on behalf of the Ottoman Empire.
Signs of nationhood
During the recent months of precarious living, like other countries, Malta came to wither its fear by summoning signs of nationhood such as the flag, religion and artistic patriotic expressions.
Neighbouring Italy abundantly resorted to its national colours – ubiquitous even on medical face masks – while in the US racial outrage resuscitated the slave ghost of 401 years ago.
It was in the then British colony of Virginia that the first 20 African slaves were landed in 1619; and it was in the same state that Governor Ralph Northam recently announced the removal of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the state capital, declaring that “in Virginia, we no longer preach a false version of history”.
Monuments in Britain
London, metropole of former colonies, and indeed the whole of the UK, was not spared.
The vociferous British media reported and commented on no less than 78 monuments which were on the target list of protesters.
Since independence, most Maltese citizens and institutions have been holding on to a colonial mentality- Charles Xuereb
Several of these memorials, ranging from World War II hero Winston Churchill to Scouting movement’s founder Baden Powell – the latter accused of being a Nazi sympathiser and a racist – were placed under 24-hour protection after they were threatened by activists.
Bristol’s slave trader Edward Colston was dumped in the harbour. Many others were vandalised with graffiti or red paint.
Guardian columnist Afua Hirsch traces today’s US racist problems to British colonies in America, how Britain industrialised black enslavement in the Caribbean and initiated systems of apartheid all over Africa. She also gave advice about the empire: Britain must confront the inconvenient facts of its history rather than glorious versions of an imperial past.
Cultural hybridity
As a former British colony, Malta has inherited a legacy of various imperial propaganda memorials in Valletta besides many funerary statues and plaques. Some contend they are part of history and should remain where they are.
Others, including myself, strongly believe that excessive colonial effigies could easily be recontextualised to better balance the cultural hybridity reflecting the Island’s chequered history.
Alas, since independence, most Maltese citizens and institutions have been holding on to a colonial mentality, believing any public memento of British superiority in Valletta – including several royal insignias around the President’s palace – strengthens the republic.
Philosopher Paul Ricoeur warns against a maladie d’histoire, where a disproportionate number of foreign monuments block one’s own.
Let us hope one day Malta will wake up from the debris of history and regain the faculties which colonialism had obliterated, that is stop believing colonial markers enhance its place in the eyes of the world.
Charles Xuereb is a broadcaster and historiographer.