Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/384358
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2014 13 ment was in the Hilton hotel in 1963; which was, I think, vital. Also, a new power station…" These exigencies underscored the fragility of an economy dependent on foreign rule. "Borg Olivier want- ed to ask for a loan from the World Bank. He couldn't do it with the Constitution of the time; he had to ask Britain for permission. In 1963, it was realised that you couldn't indus- trialise, you couldn't have a tourism infrastructure, without the energy to supply these hotels and other places. Everything had to be built up from scratch." At the same time there was also growing cognisance of the fact that retaining the status quo was simply no longer an option. "Everyone re- alised that the British base would be closed down anyway. You couldn't just continue under the British as we were before. Independence became not only desirable, but inevitable." Progress was impossible under the British for another reason, which Ugo Mifsud Bonnici confesses inter- ested him keenly and personally. "Education, when Malta was a Crown Colony, was always kept back. I can show you a document, signed by [British governor] Charles Bon- ham Carter, saying succinctly this: that though it was 'deplorable' that a substantial number of children in Malta did not have the opportunity of even attending primary school… it would be a 'burden' if we were to in- troduce elementary education for all. Secondly, Bonham Carter saw no use having more secondary schools – at the time there were very few – be- cause there was no prospect for em- ployment for even those with higher education. And by 'higher education', he meant secondary education. For- get tertiary education, university and all that. So the British government was looking askance at education itself. It was a burden they couldn't shoulder. How can you advance or progress, in a country where educa- tion is kept on the backburner?" Mifsud Bonnici here produces a yellowed document, bearing the seal of the British government and la- belled 'SECRET', and shows me the signature and date – Charles Bon- ham Carter, 2 December, 1936. It was a briefing of the Council of Ministers. He proceeds to read out the relevant paragraphs (adding his own asides), culminating in the fol- lowing, stark declaration: "'I think it desirable to place on record the dan- gers, which experience has shown in other countries, are likely to arise by providing a high standard of educa- tion regardless of the employment that is going to be available for the products of this education. Educa- tion must be regarded as a means to an end…' – can you believe this? – 'and if we have an educational sys- tem which turns out pupils for whom there is no reasonable end, already we are failing in our duties.'…" Mifsud Bonnici puts the document aside and gives me an exasperated look. "This is the sort of obscurant- ism we were dealing with at the time. And I must tell you: when I became an MP in 1966, I began try- ing to persuade my government that we should have not only elementary school for all – which by the way had been achieved by then – but also sec- ondary education for all. But [former director of education] Ms Marjorie Mortimer tried to persuade me not to pursue that line. She was still con- vinced of what Bonham Carter had said 30 years earlier…" All this, he adds, fuelled a thirst for independence, because it was not possible to achieve a higher standard of living under the colonial regime. "This is one of the great achieve- ments of Maltese governments of whatever hue. Before the war, when we only had limited self-govern- ment, the drive was to build primary schools. This was done in the 1920s. After independence in 1964 – and this is something I brag about – im- portance to secondary school for all meant that there was a great change in the educational profile of these is- lands." One would, in fact, be hard pressed to find anyone today who would ar- gue that independence was a mistake. Still, there were (and to an extent still are) critics of the actual independ- ence agreement itself. Labour argued that Malta sold itself short: that even though we became an independent country in September 1964, large swathes of the island remained un- der British rule. We still had a British governor, the Queen was still head of state; and the defence agreement meant that Malta continued to de- pend on British services for its sur- vival anyway… Mifsud Bonnici however defends the independence treaty as the only one realistically possible at the time. "Borg Olivier realised that even eco- nomic independence meant a very gradual process. Money, for example. One of the things he wanted from the outset was to have a Maltese central bank: to begin to detach the system from the British system. And in all other spheres it had to be a gradual process. Borg Olivier was also criti- cised for allowing the British a con- tinued foothold on Malta as a British base, through a defence agreement until 1975. But he did it because he knew it would be impossible other- wise. Too many people depended on the British defence establishment. Not just the dockyard: the Air Min- istry, the War Department, the Royal Engineers… they all had so many Maltese employees. You couldn't just say 'British get out'… as Mintoff was bluffing at one time. It was our way of getting money into the economy. In fact even Mintoff – who had criti- cised the defence agreement – found himself having to extend the same agreement until 1979. The complete hold the British system had on our country had to be detached slowly, gradually. It couldn't have been done in another way." Interview Independence may be taken for granted today, but there was a time when it was mistrusted or even feared. President Emeritus UGO MIFSUD BONNICI re-lives the tensions of Malta's moment of uncertainty in the dark PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD