Lately I’ve been very much engaged reading Antistoria degli Italiani, a mammoth of a book written by Italian intellectual Giordano Bruno Guerri.
Taking a rather hermeneutic approach, Guerri tries to understand the character of the Italians by going through their history to trace how certain dominant characteristics were formed. In a nutshell, according to Guerri, foreign domination and the Church played the most significant role in shaping the Italians into who they are, how they view the world and the values they hold sacred.
Reading through I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to us Maltese. Which is perfectly understandable. With the Italians, especially those from the South, we share a large portion of history. Like them, foreign domination and the predominance of the Catholic Church in all spheres of life – from the public to the most intimate – have had a determining influence in shaping our character.
Guerri considers that Italians are intrinsically individualistic. Even the Renaissance, perhaps Italy’s cultural apogee, was but a celebration of that individualism. “A nation of poets, of artists, of heroes, of saints, of thinkers, of scientists, of navigators, of migrators” reads the inscription on the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the monumental building raised during the fascist ‘ventennio’, celebrating individual achievement. Guerri contrasts this to the entrenched distrust Italians have of the state and their lack of civic duty.
Italians prefer to live peacefully rather than fight, even if this requires submission, but this often entails a certain degree of craftiness and deceit, as well as a necessary dose of cynicism.
When it isn’t granted peace has to be bought, and corruption is a fact of life, a small compromise according to the philosophy of making-do, ‘l’arte di arrangiarsi’. As Maltese, we might not think of ourselves as a “nation of poets, artists, heroes, saints, thinkers, scientists or navigators” but certainly most of the qualities Guerri finds so peculiar to Italians we can equally call them Maltese.
Those of an older generation will certainly remember the dominance of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) in post-war Italian politics for almost a whole half century. Guerri argues, convincingly in my opinion, that the success of the DC was because “rather than trying to change the Italians, it was modelled on them.” Unlike Mazzini, who wanted to invent the ideal Italian, or Mussolini, who was often frustrated by ‘this nation of sheep’, the DC made no demands on the Italians. It didn’t threaten to rock their existence. “It gave little and asked for little in return.” Like them it extolled mediocrity, cherished the status quo, was crafty and deceitful, believed that everything and everyone had a price and accepted corruption as a fact of life, and made an ideology of the philosophy of making-do.
When the first republic eventually came down crashing, dragging down the political milieu upon which it was founded, the longest-serving premier of the second republic was Silvio Berlusconi, who like the DC of old built his own party to mirror the Italian society he governed.
The Vitals-Steward case won’t bring Labour down, despite its ugliness- Aleks Farrugia
Coming back to us, perhaps in this too we resemble the Italians. That would partially explain the success first of the Eddie Fenech Adami administration through the 1980s and the 1990s and then of the Joseph Muscat administration, both of which seemed to have held the DC as a political model of sorts. They both moulded a party that, rather than seeking to transform the Maltese, guaranteed that, aside from some superficial adjustments, wouldn’t rock their core.
It would take more than this article to delve deeply into the matter, but here it would suffice to say that some parallelisms can be drawn out: both prioritised economic well-being, prizing individual enterprise and extolling consumption; both kept a weak non-intrusive state, avoiding to tackle seriously issues such as tax evasion and the black economy; both maintained the status quo in Maltese society, cosying up to the Church, big business and the professional classes; and finally, both turned a blind eye to the daily little corruptions of the common people, in the hope that bigger corruptions of the political class would go unpunished by the electorate.
Up to a point they were even successful. It didn’t take Alfred Sant long to lose popular support when he proved true to his word that he wouldn’t tolerate any corruption. He was too ambitious wanting to mould the Maltese rather than be modelled on them, and the electorate was unforgiving towards him. Muscat, having learnt from Sant’s repeated frustrations, made sure not to replicate the mistake.
Being more of a Fenech Adami, despite all the accusations of corruption thrown at him, Muscat crushed the Nationalist campaign of 2017 with a greater electoral victory than the one that propelled him to power in 2013.
Having locked away the redness of the Labour Party that many Maltese found threatening to their way of life, Muscat gave them instead the peace of mind that rhetorical earthquakes wouldn’t shake the earth under their feet. Since then, the Nationalist Party has failed to find any intuition useful to beat that formula.
One could argue that this is a very bleak picture of who we are and of our politics. Perhaps. And certainly there is more to it than can be described here. However, it is a fact that 16 years of alleged corruption and maladministration during the construction of Mater Dei did not bring the Nationalists down. What brought them down was their failure to respond to the shifting needs and aspirations of the Maltese people.
Similarly, the Vitals-Steward case won’t bring Labour down and, despite its ugliness, if the Nationalists hope to use it as the cornerstone for their next electoral campaign then they’re bound for yet another disappointment.
They might hate the electorate for it, but in democracy the people are king, whichever way their vote goes. Perhaps some might hate themselves for being born Maltese, but then only if they think other nations are any better.