Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/384358
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2014 Opinion 26 John Baldacchino I n an article titled Beyond Independence (MaltaToday, January 5, 2014), I was keen to stress that, "to me, it is more important to be a human being than to claim some national badge, or in the name of patriotism, turn one's country into a fortress that forgets it forms part of a wider world of human beings." I was also keen to add that just as there is no Independence without democracy, there can be no democracy without social justice, and more so, there can be no social justice without compassion. On the 50th anniversary of Malta's Independence, I want to dwell on compassion and the three challenges it raises: diversity, liberty and solidarity. Writing from Scotland I am writing the present article on the day when Scots are voting in the Independence Referendum. The time and place are obviously crucial: I write from Scotland while I am asked to ref lect on 50 years of Maltese independence. It is tempting to ref lect on one's own history in such circumstances, especially if one happens to turn 50 in the same year that one's country of birth celebrates half a century as an independent state. I also sense a degree of benign irony in that I now find myself participating in a democratic process that is taking place within the same United Kingdom from which Malta got its independence in 1964. This bricolage of histories and circumstances is neither unusual nor unexpected. After all, contingency is never the exception in the ways of human fate. I speak of irony and contingency with an eye to discuss diversity, liberty and solidarity. I do this in recognition of that great American philosopher Richard Rorty, who in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (published in 1989), calls himself an ironist. By "ironist" he means "the sort of person who faces up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires." Intrigued by Rorty's take on solidarity, I am interested in how the contingency – or indeed the accident – of self hood, language and community are bound to converge in a need to see life from beyond one's centre. Like Rorty I believe that principles and desires cannot claim to be absolute in any way. Yet because absolutes amount to excuses for oppression, by ungrounding one's own principles and desires one continues to hope "that suffering will be diminished" and "that the humiliation of human beings by other human beings may cease," as Rorty put it. So for those who hold their sense of self and community as absolute, especially when it comes to their idea of nationhood or belief, I would suggest that they either stop reading or brace themselves for disappointment. This is because as I speak of independence, I am not intended to wax lyrical on "'us' Maltese", let alone on how "we" came to be so distinctly what "we are" by moving away from "them", whoever "they" happen to be. "… to see strange people as fellow sufferers" I should clarify that while I love unions of people freely bonded in democratic conviviality and shared histories, and while I relate to some nations more than others, I am not a fan of nationalism in any form or shape. Likewise, while I am deeply tied to the Maltese struggle for freedom and self- determination, I want to look at the future – 50 years' on, if you like – from a position that cannot be seen from the inside outwards, but by looking in from within the margins. While I am not interested in waving a national f lag from the centre I want everyone to recognize the tenacity of human beings and their claim to freedom and intelligence from within the margins that are mostly ignored by the noisy crowds that think they can gain leverage by bullying themselves into prominence or power. By "those in the margins" I mean those who are left behind: the poor and the weak; those who are hated for their different beliefs, appearance and lifestyle; and those who are conveniently forgotten. In other words, I want to hear the voice of those who are ignored by the necessities of the many. And yes, I am speaking as a utopian, invoking the ou tópos, the place that is not there but which could be there if we care to imagine and want it. In Rorty's utopia, human solidarity is "a goal to be achieved." More importantly this goal "is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers" (and I emphasize this last bit). Societies built on prejudice Diversity, liberty and There is no independence without democracy, no democracy without social justice, no social justice without compassion Three major protagonists: Dom Mintoff (left) and George Borg Olivier, and (below) Eddie Fenech Adami