Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/490723
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 APRIL 2015 15 this tradition, as he has done with so many others? "No, no, no, no," he energetically replies. "No, no, no. Tell you what: by that argument, why not resusci- tate other traditions from the past? Piracy, for instance. We should all become pirates once more, and while we're at it, re-introduce slav- ery. Wasn't that a tradition, too? To sell human beings for profit? Come on. We would be deluding ourselves to argue like that. I would argue that a country should grow out of such traditions. Otherwise we may as well go back to the days of head-hunting. Are those the traditions we want?" Part of the problem, he adds, is that in Malta we always tend to conflate issues that shouldn't be conflated [his actual words were: 'inhawdu l- hass mal-bass']. "There are so many lovely tradi- tions which we've lost… we've even lost our own history. We don't know it at all. Nobody knows the history of Malta. We had foreign occupiers who did everything they could to make us forget where we're coming from. We had the Church deliberately keeping people ignorant so it could spoon- feed them with nonsense. In the meantime, we've forgotten all our magnificent medieval history. In the Grand Harbour, for instance, there was once a naval battle between the Angevins and the Aragonese which changed the entire course of Euro- pean history. It's even known as the 'battle of Malta'. Yet nobody knows about it. There were three separate revolutions against foreign occupi- ers… not involving foreign powers this time, but involving ourselves: we rose up as a nation against oppres- sors. Three times. This is our own history… yet we know nothing about it. These are the problems facing our country…" Meanwhile, matters are com- pounded by what he describes as the absurd state of Maltese politics. "I might get into trouble for saying this, but anyhow… these days, I feel that the two parties have practically merged into one and the same thing. On another level, they remind me of the Roman soldiers who played dice for the robe of Christ. That's how I picture them. The robe of Christ represents Malta, and the two parties are like two soldiers playing a game to see who's going to win it. I am sorry, but… they might take offence, and as far as I am concerned they can get as offended as they like. I'm just telling them what the people think, if they really want to know. This is not just me talking. This is what I hear in the street…" In fact, Mallia's position as a pub- lic figure also furnishes him with a platform from which voice popular opinion. Does he view himself as a spokesperson for the Maltese peo- ple? "I believe it's my duty. A lot of people don't understand this. But if I have been lucky enough to have a public voice, I can either use it for my own personal gain… so that peo- ple say, ah, what a nice person that Salvu Mallia is… or I can use it like a prophet, which means I would prob- ably end up like a prophet, too: i.e., on the receiving end of a couple of blows to the head. But I believe it is a duty of anyone in the media to use that voice to speak out on behalf of others." Interview Has Malta's most popular television presenter finally overstepped his limits by taking on the mantle of campaigner for the SHout campaign against spring hunting? Salvu Mallia PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD