Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/326223
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 8 JUNE 2014 Opinion 17 A public story There is nothing wrong in preserving structures and monuments from previous epochs. Without them, Valletta would not boast of its superb bastions, palatial buildings, prominent temples and monuments. They do not only belong to our collective memory of the city, they also tell our public story. But to conserve this narrative one needs to create a meaningful balance between what reminds us of our past and symbols that perpetuate our earlier, submissive, inferior status. Artefacts that do not tell our story, if not a sorry one, should be the ones that are faded out and not, for example, our bloody fight for Malta's first representative assembly. Examples of non-meaningful symbols abound, from Spencer monument at the beginning of National Road that leads to the capital to several sepulchral monuments in our prime gardens, dedicated to persons who passed away distant from Malta with little or no connection whatsoever to our history. Such emblematic structures could easily be removed to other less symbolic public spaces and make space for more deserved native commemorations. How this nation was cajoled into a submissive colonial position is not only marked by monuments; there are simpler signs. Our language, another feat of survival on its own steam, manifests some of our lost sites of memory. French knights, the majority of the Order's members in Malta did business with the Maltese, respected their elite positions within the government and struck social relationships with 18th- century intellectuals. Significant of equality, they used to greet the Maltese with 'bonġu' and 'bonswa'. Italianate culture, in itself nurturing local artists in their Latin-refined civilization for a number of centuries, appreciated amicable transactions of any sort with 'grazie', rounding off their Maltese dealings with 'ciao', our Maltese word for 'thank you' and 'hi/bye' respectively. On a different level, I guess the most wide-spread English word the Maltese populace learnt under British rule was 'sorry', notably badly used to mean 'excuse me'. Were the majority of the Maltese, mostly poor and illiterate for most of their colonial years, so submissive as to have empowered themselves with the most common password that would please any foreign superior? Today this simplistic ref lection is not only manifested in local non-educated people but impressively so in the everyday jargon of thousands of non- English speaking foreigners who live in Malta. A casual bus ride will strike the message home more than all the anthropological arguments one could muster. Dignified and reparative Politicians normally come from a generous breed of people who enjoy parading their talents in public for the common good. It is thanks to them that progress is achieved in a country. When in government, they could strike a balance between development of their nation's identity, nowadays often attached to material gain, and aesthetic and dignified pride. Admittedly they cannot do this without the assistance of their executive administrative arms, several authoritative structures and people of merit taking important decisions at the right juncture of a state's fate continuously challenged by global hegemony. To them we owe a lot. But there is another lot that very often is forgotten. Those are the researchers, the thinkers who are cautious to move without the necessary scientific instruments. Only a few days ago, someone sitting on a committee was kind enough to state on the public media that 8 September might, from this year, also include the commemoration of the 2 September 1798 Maltese peasants' revolt against 'the French', "as it happens to be close". One wonders how one never thought of celebrating Ash Wednesday on Carnival's Mardi Gras when they sit side by side on the calendar. Victory Day is four and a half centuries old, as old as our capital city, and when the memory of WWII was added we assume the reason was to include all those who died for a national cause. During the 1565 Great Siege and WWII, the Maltese fought a war provoked by aliens but defended their own territory from what was perceived at the time as malevolent threats. In 1798, countryside insurgents rose against 40% of the Maltese population who inhabited and worked in la Cité, spread around the harbour area, mostly made up of Maltese intellectuals, innovative administrators and a garrison of four thousand French soldiers. The insurrection was organised by privileged ecclesiastics and traditional traders, who defended their diminished rights to continue to exploit the ignorant masses. They fought against enlightened 'democracy' in its dawning European days; they rolled over those who wanted to secularise this little island into modernity. It is good to remember the dead – all the victims of that era including the Jacobins led by Ransijat and Vassalli – but it is totally different from 8 September. Before one decides to wake up after 216 years and remember forgotten heroes on both sides of that conf lict, I believe one should study how it could be done in a dignified and reparative way within a national context of a past that continuously impinges on our present identity and future memory. Artefacts that do not tell our story, if not a sorry one, should be the ones that are faded out Download the MaltaToday App now