Independence Day in 2019 Malta

composer Bedřich Smetana even called his most beautiful piece Ma Vlast, meaning My Country. Many others composed dances from their countries, like the Hungarian Ferencz Liszt, say. Our own Camilleri wrote The Malta Suite and much more, including the magnificent Maltese Dances, of which I particularly like IV –I actually think it’s his best achievement.

But why did Charles Camilleri (who passed away 10 years ago) write Romantic music in the mid- to late-20th century? Why did many of our poets write Romantic poetry in the early to mid-20th century? (Till the rebels of the 1960s took centre stage, that is, and kicked Romanticism out, ironically as the Romantic impetus culminated in the attainment of independent statehood.)

This week – the week preceding one of our tiny State’s Trinity of Feasts, Independence Day – I engaged in an exquisite conversation with somebody whose intellect immediately attracted and fascinated me. We were discussing whether the statue of Queen Victoria, Empress of subcontinent India and of li’l Malta (and of the remainder of the three-quarters of the globe marked in pink on the maps of the time), should remain slap-bang in the middle of Republic Square. Isn’t that a contradiction?, I asked.

I realised that my interlocutor is one of those fine minds that can transform a conversation into something between a game of chess and an interview. In the sense that one of us would say a word and the other would know that there’s a potentially irresistible temptation behind it – if we’re not careful we might be tempted to go down the rabbit hole in search of the Truth. Indeed, such conversations do somehow remind you of Alice in Wonderland, because they can turn out to be a long string of unfinished arguments each holding its own wonder but each tantalisingly trying to deviate from the main argument in search of some elusive Truth. After all, isn’t a possible etymology of “Alice”, Alethea, Greek for truth?

But we agreed – quickly, as is usually the case in such circumstances – to avoid the digressions and stick to the subject. And thus, it became also a game of chess, us two interlocutors playing together against Temptation and resisting the urge to stray from the point.

So I asked my interlocutor, What is the Queen’s statue doing in a square that, in postIndependence years, we named Republic Square? How to solve the contradiction?

My interlocutor smiled, more with the eyes than the lips, as intelligent people are wont to do. The argument I got as an answer was provocatively simple: The Queen should stay there because the statue’s location is in itself a historical statement!

Provocatively but also deceivingly simple. And then the bombshell - the George Cross. Was I in favour or against the retention of the G.C. on our flag?, my interlocutor asked, and, because I am a gentleman, I had to answer truthfully and own up to my mixed feelings.

But my real interest at that moment was Queen Victoria’s statue. After all, Charles Xuereb (who was not my interlocutor on this occasion, but has publicly expressed ideas so strong on this and similar subjects that he has to crop up in such conversations) is right. Valletta is dominated by foreign symbols of power while the Maltese State is conspicuously absent on the public memory level in the capital city of the country.

My interlocutor then expressed an interesting idea: We should grow out of the habit of erecting monuments to people.

I would assume (because this was not said) that also meant we should similarly grow out of the habit of erecting monuments to symbolise nationbuilding moments in our history.

Hmmm, I retorted, adding, But remember: Malta was robbed of the nineteenth century!

My interlocutor looked me straight in the eye. Ennio Morricone could have provided the music for the scene... there was suspense, it was like a duel and mine had probably been an unexpected move. “Malta robbed of the nineteenth century”, I had ventured and I could still hear the crack sound of my words in the air.

Well yes – I will now continue, because our conversation had by then come to an end, both of us having other, previously-arranged engagements elsewhere – Malta has been robbed of the nineteenth century. While other countries were living their nationalist moments, we were a colony of a far-away global power. Our Romanticism then took place in the 20th century and, from a certain point of view, it has still not completely run its course. My interlocutor would probably want us to take the accelerated path, the fast track, jump all that 19th century claptrap and land on the 21st century turf of post-modernity. But I think we still need to live the Nationalist sentiment, even if in diluted form (after all, we’re a minuscule State and a minuscule Nation), and to understand the State.

Particularly when migration from culturally-different countries is one of the main issues of our times.

Independence Day, thus, still has its relevance even in this day and age. Not for the sake of idealist or nostalgic or airyfairy nationalism. But for a well-paced transition from the world of yesterday to the world of today (and tomorrow). Other parts of Europe are where they are because they went through a step-by-step evolution. We cannot jump from Step One to Step Four without going through Steps Two and Three. Just look at the disaster the great leaps have caused in Eastern Europe, where peasant societies were forced to become avant-garde without going

My Personal Library (67)

I’m close to my word limit. So, I will mention briefly Lewis Carroll’s Alice‘s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). This fantasy novel is considered a children’s book, but anybody who’s read it knows that in reality it’s engaging for adults too. It is my considered opinion that in times like ours, reading books like this one and its companion Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), helps to understand the “wonderful” games politicians like the Invincible are good at playing, and possibly winning.