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14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JUNE 2020 NEWS Historical villains in public places attracted the umbrage of Black Lives Matters protesters seeking to right the wrongs of racism, slavery and colonialism. So would relocating Queen Victoria's monument from Republic Square help us confront our colonial ghosts, or erase a part of history? JAMES DEBONO MONUMENTS in prominent public squares carry symbolic power. They convey a message that the person represented is worthy of respect. In former confederate states in the USA, monuments for Civil War gen- erals who fought for slavery on the wrong side of history are still revered by white supremacists. In these societies, slavery, colo- nialism and institutional racism are not perceived as distant past events but a living reality. The toppling of these monuments represents a fight-back against the murderous legacy of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and present-day police brutality. It is the same anger that animates native populations confronted by monuments commemorat- ing the "discovery" of America, which triggered a genocide. And even European citizens of Afri- can origin are faced with mon- uments commemorating the philanthropy of slave-owners or figures like King Leopold II of Belgium, responsible for a geno- cide in Congo. But does the argument get over- stretched with politicians like Winston Churchill, who despite their odious views on colonialism and race, still fought on the right side of history in the struggle against Nazism? Where does one draw the line? What's sure is that the discussion on monuments has empowered the oppressed to reclaim history by expressing a final judgement on their oppres- sors. So where does that leave the Maltese, themselves reluctant victims of colonialism but whose historical memory remains skin deep? Whitewashing the crime Despite experiencing a colonial legacy which retarded its devel- opment and kept thousands in abject destitution, forcing many to emigrate, colonialism remains a taboo subject in Malta. This is especially so in a middle-class milieu, where anti-colonialism is snubbed for its association with the tumultuous Mintoffian pe- riod, a brief time where a crude attempt to construct a Mediter- ranean, post-colonial Maltese identity was shaped by expres- sions of national pride which were often derided as crass and over-politicised by the intellectu- al elites. There were small steps, like re- naming Prince of Wales Street in Sliema as Manuel Dimech Street; Kingsway becoming Republic Street; and other aesthetic 're- brands' designed to expunge the British influence inside Malta. But these were met by retrench- ment and passive resistance. Indeed, Mintoff's post-colonial narrative failed to take off, even pushed aside when years later Malta's intellectual class found its aspirations fulfilled by EU mem- bership. And it is here that the Maltese encounter a vacuum in their as- sessment of themselves and their past. It is an ambivalence towards colonialism that stems from the Maltese intelligentsia's fear of losing their umbilical cord with continental elites – first Italian, then British and finally European. Before WWII, the elite's Italian connection fostered the first an- ti-British sentiment. But after the war, the upper classes shifted al- legiance to the Crown in disdain at the masses gravitating towards Mintoffian socialism and its aspi- ration for full independence. And history does get written by dominant elites… one reason perhaps why the sinister and brutal side of colonialism gets whitewashed, relegated to bor- ing history lessons which numb students and leaves them with- out any semblance of a national popular culture that is rooted in history. A debate in a vacuum? In such a scenario, the debate on monuments may be taking place in vacuum, triggering disbelief, uneasiness and a deeply-held fear of seeing colonial memorials re- placed by some modern bizarro creation, a fear grounded in the sheer ugliness of many post-in- dependence monuments. While the idea of removing Queen Victoria's monument harks back to the 1970s when the monument even had a ham- mer and a sickle sprayed on it, anti-colonialism is no longer the fashion within the Labour Party. Malta is now is gripped by the fe- ver of an economic growth which thrives in our role as a service hub for the global economy, so nationalism is more comforta- bly deployed against the poorer others – immigrants – rather than former colonial overlords. Indeed, Labour politicians today hail from the same cultural mi- lieu as the PN, having no appetite to confront the ghosts of the past. Even culture minister José Her- rera intervened to decry the no- tion of removing monuments as ridiculous. Completely oblivious to the singularity of the Queen Victoria monument occupying one of Malta's most prominent squares, celebrating the empire and its "civilising" mission, Her- rera reduced the argument to one about removing monuments associated with foreign rule – something which nobody is sug- gesting. "Were one to remove the statue of Queen Victoria, the same should apply for the statue of De Valette since at the time Malta was under the reign of the Knights of St John… It would be ridiculous to dismantle monu- ments pertaining to an imperi- alist period. History cannot be changed and must be taken with- in the context of that particular era." Not all monuments are equal Aleks Farrugia, a former Torca editor, writer and educator who kick-started the debate on re- moving the Queen Victoria mon- ument is unfazed by criticism of wanting to eradicate history. "The Queen Victoria monument was part of her jubilee celebra- tions. At the time other Victoria monuments, almost all looking the same, were placed across the British empire as a celebratory reminder of British might – a monument to dominion and sub- jugation, to the 'civilising influ- ence' of Britishness". It was also a time when the "racist" ideology of empire was deployed. "The British assumed the right to colonise based on the flimsy excuse that they brought Off with her head?