There will, no doubt, be a deluge of self-congratulatory messages today and tomorrow to mark Malta’s first 50 years of independence.

We may spend 99% of the time bickering in what we call politics, but then at heart we are all nationalists with a small n. And the myth ‘Malta Fior del Mondo’ is still alive and kicking so many generations after it was concocted.

The Nationalist Party justly takes credit for having brought Independence to Malta, and Labour, characteristically, voted against in the referendum and boycotted and even tried to disrupt the celebrations. But it was definitely in favour of independence and, when it came to office, it used to the maximum force in its dealings with Britain and later with the whole world.

Independence was the natural aspiration of an island people which geography had set up as a separated island, and which had been administratively governed as an almost independent entity for at least 500 years. Malta’s independence came about as Britain was giving independence to so many of its colonies, from India to its African colonies.

It would be useless, and worse, to spend this weekend in self-congratulatory rhetoric without analysing what went well and what did not.

Roughly speaking, Malta has spent its independent years under two administrations, almost equally divided.

It began under George Borg Olivier who began with almost nothing if not the Services rundown and who laid the foundations of a modern state changing from a Services-centre to a private enterprise one. The gradualist methods of Borg Olivier did not please the Maltese who chose dynamic and impetuous Dom Mintoff who did get the Brits to cough up more for the base (which they were always planning to shed) but then, with the Brits gone, found no one to support him in his international adventure than Muammar Gaddafi.

The Mintoff years were marked by rigid austerity, statal-centred economy, and human rights infringements which led to the tumultuous years of the 1980s.

The Nationalists took over in 1987 and opened the country to free enterprise but even so failed to persuade the electorate of the reasons why the 1970s and 1980s were two lost decades, so much so that in 1996 they were defeated. Managing to climb back after just two years and thanks to Dom Mintoff, they quickly obtained EU membership and later that of the euro. But the electorate was still not convinced of the value of freedom, rule of law and private enterprise that, also because of a collectively tired administration and some corruption cases as well as defections from some disaffected, they were booted out in 2012.

Politics aside, 50 years after independence, we find ourselves in the lower part of competitiveness indexes, with a GDP growth that has at best been lackadaisical and anaemic, with a huge proportion of the working population employed by the State, which then takes quite a big bite of the meagre takings of the population. With roads that countries in the Third World have better, together with added stress brought about by such a dense population, with the natural environment being the big loser of these 50 years.

There are countries, like Singapore, who obtained their independence around the same time, but who have done much, much better. Comparisons aside, yes, we could have done better.

And, as we look to the future, we must shed off the continual bickering and take clear and measurable steps to do better. Our people deserves this and more.