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16 News maltatoday SUNDAY 7 JANUARY 2018 UNIVERSAL suffrage opened the way for all women and many disenfranchised men, to exercise their right to vote and participate in elections for the first time in Malta's history. The trajectory of women's emancipation is very often omitted from the prevailing nar- ratives that reinforce our sense of nation- hood. This commemoration attempts to re- dress the prevalent collective amnesia about women's place in history. After World War I, an all-male National Assembly convened in Valletta in early 1919 to discuss self-government. It comprised a wide spectrum of Maltese civil society, but it failed to reflect the developments that had taken place in London in the post-war pe- riod, when in 1918, British women acquired the right to vote and the right to contest elections. Prof Godfrey Pirotta published records of correspondence between British suffragettes and the Colonial Office in London, which reveal that the British suffragettes had their eyes on Malta. Prior to the approval of the 1921 Constitution, the leading British femi- nist Eva Hubback, who headed the National Society for Equal Citizenship, fiercely pro- tested the exclusion of Maltese women from the franchise, which it deemed to "a most retrograde step." She was "anxious to have an amendment moved [in Parliament] to the effect that women in Malta are also enfranchised" but the Constitution was approved by Letters Patent (i.e. it was merely signed by the mon- arch) and she never had the opportunity to table amendments. While women were excluded from discus- sions that led to the Amery-Milner Consti- tution, which granted Malta autonomy in in- ternal affairs, the key political persona who was deeply sensitised to the advancement of women, was imprisoned in exile, in Egypt. Manwel Dimech was a social gadfly who deemed education to be an agent of social mobility and progress and who was attuned to the demands of the suffragette movement in the UK and the rest of the continent. Di- mech saw the struggle for self-determination as intrinsically linked with women's libera- tion. In the year that Emily Pankhurst put wind in the sails of the suffragettes in Man- chester in 1903, Dimech had already ap- pealed for women's liberation in his publica- tion Il-Bandiera tal-Maltin (The Flag of the Maltese). The arrival of the new Constitution of 1921 eventually led to sporadic calls for women's enfranchisement. In the inter-war period demands for the vote for women were either embedded with- in mounting pressures towards social wel- fare, that were inspired by socialist ideals, or in appeals that aimed to empower privileged women who already enjoyed status, a degree of education, property and social capital but were still not eligible to vote. Mabel Strickland belonged to the latter category. Ten years after the granting of self-government, Strickland pleaded before a Royal Commission on Maltese Affairs pro- posing amendments to the Constitution of 1921 to "consider the equity of bringing the political status of the women of Malta more into line with that enjoyed by the women of English and other self-governing units of the British Commonwealth". In 1931 she managed to persuade 428 women to sign a petition, which she sent to a Royal Commission. The petition stated: "We feel that the time has undoubtedly come for the recognition of the right of women in Malta to take part in the delib- erations of the Parliament of the island, in view of their already active interest in pub- lic life … We sincerely believe that women's influence and increased participation in the public life of Malta will be conducive to the better government or these islands…" One whole year later, the Royal Commis- sion answered that the petition did not seem to have the support of any of the politi- cal parties and hence there was no evidence that the extension of the franchise would be acceptable. The suffragette cam- paign in Malta never took to the streets. It was a struggle con- ducted mainly from behind the desk, through contributions to the press and driven by inter-personal net- works. Josephine Burns de Bono and Hélène Buhagiar The Women of Malta Association entered the political scene in the late January 1944 in a meeting for women that aimed to enlist sympathy in securing for women in Malta equal political rights with men. Burns de Bono was appointed President of the Women of Malta Association whereas Hélène Buhagiar became Secretary General. Hélène Buhagiar was a generation older than Josephine. She came from a family of ade- quate means and contacts. Since 1916 she had been the driving force of the Malta Art Association, where she invested most of her time and energy. Both women used the press as their main vehicle to advocate for suffrage and obtain a place in the all-male National Assembly which convened to draft the new 1947 con- stitution. These developments took place while it was clear that the war had brought a seismic political change. The Nationalists were in a state of disarray with their leader Enrico Mizzi being tainted by his pronounced Italianate sympathies. The Labour Party emerged as a major new force, especially after it formed the Labour Front with the General Workers' Union. The National Assembly's first meeting took place on 20th January 1945 at the Palace, in Val- letta. It included representatives of the press and Mabel Strickland was nominated on be- half of The Times of Malta. In the second sitting, a delegate challenged the presence of "a woman in the Assembly" and stated that this constituted a precedent and might be construed as meaning that women had the right to vote in general elec- tions. Although this man's views on women were ubiquitous in Malta in the 1940s, his motion to bar her on the grounds that she was a woman, found no one to second it. Reggie Miller The Labour Front was ready to push for universal suffrage. At the helm of the GWU, Reggie Miller was fully aware of trends that were slowly catching up in Europe, where equality had emerged as a new theme on the political and the trade union agendas. However, segments of the union repre- sentatives feared that since women were paid less than men, their presence in the labour market threatened work conditions and undermined union demands to improve them. During the 1944 annual conference of the GWU, a certain Mr Cassano tabled a motion to exclude all female workers from membership. Union minutes reveal that it was Reggie Miller who convincingly counter-argued that the motion was tantamount to deny- ing women the right to unionise. "[Miller] deprecated the idea of a union which was fighting tooth and nail against all sorts of dis- crimination should itself admit in its organi- sation the principle of discrimination, this time – by sex. The union would no longer be General if it excluded any class or section of bona-fide workers." (AGM minutes 25 May 1944). Miller was sympathetic with women's emancipation. It was through his guidance that the Women of Malta Association was quickly set up specifically to demand the right to female suffrage. Josephine Burns de Bono fitted within Miller's strategies because she did not divorce the situation of women from broader social and political processes. While Burns de Bono worked to influence the direction of the Labour Front by building bridges with the GWU and Labour officials, Mabel Strickland was busy burning bridges with them. A harsh critic of the Labour Front, Strick- land remained loyal to the women's cause and had no sympathy with the ambivalence and the impasse faced by trade unionists in the face of the anxieties of jobless male workers. It was in the third meeting of the Assem- bly, that two Labour Front delegates Guzè Cassar and Turu Colombo, moved a motion in support of the Women of Malta Associa- tion's application to be represented in the National Assembly. "It is the opinion of this Assembly that the admission of the delegates of this Association will mean the acceptance of the principle of equal rights for women in the political life of the island including the right to vote in parliamentary elections". On that day the Association was admitted to the Assembly but the biggest gain was the agree- ment in the principle on the notion of equal political rights. Both Burns de Bono and Buhagiar were al- lowed to participate on behalf of the Asso- ciation. When the Association was formally approved on 16 March 1945, one of the most prolific opponents of female suffrage in the press, William E. Chetcuti, lamented in The Bulletin that it "would seem that by a bare majority of only 10 votes, in the absence of about 160 members and with the aid of the open vote, our small band of budding wom- en politicians have, with the gallant half of several vote hunters, contrived to achieve what they call their emancipation". His article was entitled: "Women Minding Men's Business" – just one illustration of the tone used by many opponents of female suf- frage at that time. Michael Gonzi The most vociferous opposition to wom- en's suffrage came from influential Church circles. Opposition was not merely through its influence on delegates in the Assembly but also from clerics within the community that were in a position to influence public opinion. The newspaper of the Catholic Action Movement, Leħen is-Sewwa (Voice of Truth) The road to women's suffrage and beyond Women's enfranchisement and the nation-building project in Malta Dr CARMEN SAMMUT Manuel Dimech Archbishop Michael Gonzi