For us Maltese, Victory Day, which we celebrate tomorrow, is the annual remembrance of two signal victories in our country’s history which also coincided on the same day – the 1565 victory over the invading Ottoman force and the World War II victory over the Nazis.

This year, the Victory Day celebrations come in the wider context of what is happening across the sea in Libya, the victory of the people of Libya over a 40-year-plus brutal dictatorship.

At first glance, the events appear to be widely dissimilar: The 1565 victory was a triumph of Christianity over Islam whereas the Libyan triumph is on the contrary a victory for the Allah hu Akhbar forces.

Malta is an island and its 1565 victory was against an invading force. Libya is part of the African continent and through its component parts – Tripolitania and Cyrenaica – has been rather stable for a number of centuries. The Libyan people’s victory is not against an invader but against a person, a system that is completely home-grown, hence its demons are closer to home.

On the other hand, it was only the Malta conflict that involved what have been called Clashes of Civilisations between the Christian civilisation and the Muslim one whereas the Libyan conflict does not have overtones of such clashes of civilisations, though, of course, it has others.

Yet there is far more in common between the Maltese victory and the victory of the Libyan people than many realise.

First of all, there is that unmistakeable burst of pride and joy after a victory against overwhelming odds.

The Maltese, even with the Knights and the mercenaries and the Piccolo and then Grande Soccorso, were severely outmanned by the Ottoman invaders. When, despite huge losses, the Ottoman forces turned tail and fled, the resulting burst of national pride on the part of the Maltese and of pride on the part of the Knights was so great that Valletta was then built from scratch and its main bastions completed within three years.

The Libyan – we must really stop calling them rebels – fighters were outgunned, outmanoeuvred, outran in the initial stages, but then by dint of personal courage, taking huge losses, using weapons stolen from taken or slain Gaddafi soldiers, they have now taken the upper hand. The resulting outburst of joy and elation will now accompany them as they seek to rebuild their nation, or rather to build it, for Gaddafi left them with no structures at all, no institutions, no systems of justice, a very elementary system of education, and no other business except for selling its oil.

We have not forgotten World War II, part of which was in fact waged over the same desert wastes where fighting is taking place now. While one can conceivably argue (we do not expect our Libyan friends to agree with this) that the 1565 battle was between the forces of light (Christendom) and those of darkness (Islam) it was more a battle between an invading force and a besieged island. World War II was different – now THAT was a battle between the forces of light and those of darkness.

Had Malta fallen, in all probability the Mediterranean would have become a Nazi sea, Northern Africa, including Libya, would have remained under the Nazi-Italian axis and democracy in Europe would have been relegated to the history books.

So too Libya. Had Gaddafi been successful, it would not just have been another Arab Spring gone sour, after two rather easy wins in Tunisia and Egypt, or a bloodbath of repression such as we can see in Syria and Bahrain, but the end of any hope the Libyans themselves could have entertained for their future and that of their children.

So, at the end, our victory and their victory do resemble each other. Just as on Victory Day the Maltese remember those who paid for the victory with their lives, so too the Libyan people by erecting whole walls of pictures of martyrs, by renaming the most important space in their capital Martyrs’ Square and by all the hallowed ways in which people come to terms with tragedy and move on, are building the future.