France in the Maltese Collective Memory,
Perceptions, Perspectives, Identities after Bonaparte in British Malta, Charles Xuereb, Malta University Press, 418 pp, 40c.

Charles Xuereb focuses on the critical period when the Maltese islands, already tormented by internal debates, went from the declining domination of the Order of St. John to the irruption of the French Revolution’s armies and ideas, and eventually to the long-lasting British colonization. I am thus tempted to emphasize the new light shed by this book on the years 1798 to 1800, a period which seems to have long been purposely misjudged, until historians approached it scientifically as Prof. Henry Frendo did in a series of articles he wrote for the Sunday Times of Malta in 1998.

Charles Xuereb’s book enabled me to find some clues in order to answer a question that any French friend of Malta would raise: since France was culturally, politically and economically so close to the Maltese islands during the Order’s era (and that is clearly detailed in the recent book of Prof. Alain Blondy “Malta and Marseille in the eighteenth century”), how come France lost the position it should have enjoyed in the Maltese collective memory and instead has become, for some Maltese and for a long time, a dubious nation?

 

Common history with France

Our common history throughout the last years of the eighteenth century was obviously violent. Beyond the hasty manner in which young General Bonaparte tried to impose the French Revolution’s principles on the Maltese people, when very few of them were truly convinced by the 1789 ideals, the conditions demanded in return for the transfer of St John’s Co-Cathedral to the Bishop of Malta, challenging the influence and incomes of the Church as well as the robbery of sacred items by some soldiers have hurt Maltese religious feelings. Above all, we have to bear in mind the important human toll due to the fighting during the blockade, but also due to starvation and infectious diseases. Victims were on both sides, since around 40,000 Maltese people were located with the French in besieged Valletta and Cottonera. Charles Xuereb rightly dedicates his book to all casualties on both sides.

Part of the answer to this question on France’s position in the Maltese collective memory must lie beyond any doubt in the excesses of a different epoch. Unfortunately, it appears that those events have defined France’s image in the Maltese mindset ever since, ignoring other periods of time but also the more positive contributions of these two years, such as the development of civil law principles, the abolition of slavery or the establishment of a public education system which was not maintained afterwards, depriving the Maltese of their education for several decades. During colonial times the quest to convey such a stereotyped image of France could be understood. However, fifty years after Malta’s independence, the time may have come to reconsider our common history, and to ensure it is accurately recorded in school textbooks or in video shows for tourists that regularly include some 120,000 from France visiting the Island every year.

Charles Xuereb’s outstanding book provides thought-provoking inputs in this regard, and points out the necessity for Maltese people to take greater ownership of their long and rich history in order to better assert their identity.  May he be thanked for launching such a motivating discussion.