'The conscience of Malta'

Oliver Friggieri discusses the state of Malta:

..The real turning point in Malta’s modern history was, to my mind, Napoleon’s plan of transforming the island into a dream of his own. He invaded the island only to update life in Malta, but he underestimated the fact that the tiny local community constituted one unique whole, a nation, however insignificant. I tried to interpret this in Rewwixta. Smallness can also be complete, and in no logical way inferior to any other. It of course means being weak. It is the weakness of countries, which have never been, and most likely will never be, in a position of wreaking havoc on the rest of the planet. That is up to the big ones to do..

..Modern Malta is dualistic. One cannot understand living in Malta, in all the aspects pertaining to individual, social and collective life if not in terms of everything being solely divisible into two. The Napoleonic era seems to have enforced the process of Maltese self-consciousness. At least some of the basic questions on the island’s perennial agenda seem to have been given shape since then. One of these conclusions is perhaps the idea that apart from one’s own, there only remains another idea. Our inalienable bipartisanship, which I believe precedes birth (as Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux fjuri amply shows), is not an end in itself. It is perhaps a subliminal reaction against finiteness, numerical, terrestrial and whatever..

Despite, or perhaps owing to, this duality, Malta is nevertheless a complete entity, a country with an unbroken historical tradition, a land where the present makes sense and can be perceived only in the light of the past, an ever unfolding truth islanders have to live by, embracing change, resisting change. In trying to recount all this through novels, I found it quite intriguing to learn how tradition, modernity, survival, renewal, absorption, adaptation, are somehow varied dimensions of one single reality. Rather than research, it was the effort to translate systematic conclusions into current situations, which made me believe that Malta’s future actually depends upon its past, on its fullest recognition of its past. Destroy the past of Malta, and Malta will disappear, today, tomorrow. I have tried to recall this in Gizimin li qatt ma jiftah..

When I wrote Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux fjuri I used to think that partisanship could be gradually eliminated. It may not be likeable, but it is inevitable. Today it is clearer to conclude that partisanship defines the community as a small and complex country, and the only option is to somehow civilize it, to reorganise it in terms of mutual respect. But, again, I think partisanship precedes birth. Outside partisanship there is nothingness. Most of the words uttered contextually in our language in Malta are loaded; they have a connotation added to their minimal denotation. This also happens with English. It is an added problem to the Church in the field of public communication..

We have basically overcome our congenital sense of inferiority and have discovered we are not alone. You cannot understand Malta without constant reference to the evolution of Europe. Maltese Studies are by definition international, even intercontinental, and cover quite a long span of time. Our historical tradition binds us continually with powers that were greater than us. The Maltese were called barbarians in the Acts of the Apostles, because as men of the sea they could not speak Greek. Malta’s history was written by simple people who remained uncelebrated; they spoke through their stones. We Maltese have built ourselves. In an unobtrusive way we have implemented all the changes that have taken place in Europe, and still retained a full democracy with very little shocks because we have a sense of moderation. Both the MLP and the PN, namely almost all of us, have constantly striven to build a nation State out of a colony, and that is to the credit of all of us. That is why, as I did in Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri, I would again like to propose the choice of a special, casual day to be proclaimed our one and only national one. The official ones, important and divisive, will be the constituent parts of this day. The day of Malta...