Ironic defence of Mark Camilleri’s The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail

Sorry, I meant A Materialist Revision of Maltese History 870-1919. Point is, I simply love irony.

Oh boy how I loved Professor Yosanne Vella’s ironic “defense” (TMIS, 18 September) of Mark Camilleri’s disastrous book! For she surely has written it either in jest or… in jest. How otherwise to understand her two sets of contradictory statements? On the one hand she writes that her “knee jerk reaction on reading that ‘the evidence we have of the mistreatment of women is so overwhelming’ was a negative one” and that Mr Camilleri’s book has a “lack of in-depth rigour”. Then on the other hand, “it is a brave and valid contribution nonetheless”. The blatant non-sequitur is vintage irony!

Professor Vella implicitly referred to my not-so-docile criticism of Mr Camilleri’s book which she considered to be in a “possibly undemocratic fashion”. I do not know what that might mean, but whereas I am aware of the Republic of Ideas, I am not aware of the Democratic Republic of Ideas (as in the erstwhile Democratic Republic of Germany?). Would the Democratic Republic of Ideas mean that everybody and his dog can write without “in-depth rigour” and still their contribution be taken as “brave and valid” because of … (intellectual?) democracy?

Of course the Professor’s comment was ironic. Otherwise, one would have to say that it simply does not add up.

There is no democracy in historical research: either what you write is somehow related to historical facts or else you’re just proposing historical fiction (E.H. Carr). You can of course propose overarching interpretations, but they have to be related to facts. Facts, you know those events from the past which (i) we have enough evidence to claim that they have taken place and (ii) are invested with historical relevance. Facts.

Mr Camilleri proposes a Marxian approach to Maltese history. My criticism of Mr Camilleri’s approach is two-pronged: (i) he cites no supporting historical evidence and (ii) he (therefore) simply assumes that Marx’s theories apply to Maltese history. Let me quote Marx himself. In November 1877, Karl Marx wrote a letter to the Editor of the Otecestvenniye Zapisky, in reply to a critic. Marx clearly states that his “historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe [is not] an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself”. Further down in the same letter, Marx clarifies that “events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical.” ( www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/ 11/russia.htm)

Even Marx insists on “historic circumstances”, “events”, “historic surroundings”. This is also what I meant by historical facts. Which are, unfortunately, missing in Mr Camilleri’s book. Marx also warns against “the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory”, which is exactly what Mr Camilleri’s book boils down to. In sum, Mr Camilleri’s book fails even on Marx’s own terms. So what do we have so far? On the one hand, 1. Fr Mark Montebello’s charitable assessment that Mr Camilleri “seems to have wanted to draw a few examples from various periods of Maltese history in support of his proposed revisionist theory. He may or may not have succeeded.”

2. Dr Paul Caruana Galizia’s LSE-published paper in which he argues that Maltese late-19th

early-20th-century wages were similar to the European average (a fact-based contradiction of Mr Camilleri’s claim).

3. Professor Yosanne Vella who, in her “defense” of Mr Camilleri, debunks Mr Camilleri’s claim that women were mistreated (at least in the 18th century).

And on the other hand, Mr Camilleri’s own assertions that there is overwhelming evidence supporting his theory.

Professor Vella ironically calls such assertions a “brave and valid contribution”. But though I love irony, I think that here perhaps the irony is misplaced. In my (non-ironical) opinion, such baseless assertions amount to pseudo-history and ultimately serve only to misguide pupils, students, and the general public.

Mr Camilleri’s is not a “linked general narrative of part of Maltese history”. It’s simply historical fiction, i.e. assertions lacking the crucial backing of evidence. Mr Camilleri’s book is akin to the (in)famous 1982 bestseller, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, referred to by all historians of repute as “pseudo-history”. SKS should have been more careful, and published Mr Camilleri’s book only after a thorough re-thinking and rewriting exercise. Or they might have commissioned a ghostwriter to intervene, as they did in the past on quite a few occasions.

Mark Camilleri is probably the first and only person in the whole world to be given a State’s highest award for publishing pornography (is this why he criticised the Prime Minister in his book?). And yet, despite publishing a piece which humiliates women, he hides behind a lady to reply to justified criticism. Why doesn’t he man up and, if this is the only way he can do it, instead of hiding behind a lady’s skirts, defend his book by publicly criticising, even in an “undemocratic” fashion, any of my own? That way, at least, he would avoid having to ask ladies to leap to his defence.

Incidentally, it’s defence and not defense in British English, which is the English used in Malta and Australia, among other places.