Mark A. Sammut

Since it seems that Mark Camilleri has the ear of the powers-that-be, his latest book acquires political relevance.Labour's publishing house, SKS, has published Mr Camilleri's A Materialist Revision of Maltese History 870-1919. As far as this reviewer can tell, this is its second publication in English. Unfortunately, it is riddled with serious problems of orthography. The verbs "to cease" and "to seize", say, seem to constitute an intractable issue.
Unacknowledged similarities?Mr Camilleri's book is more or less similar, if not identical, to SKS's first book ever, Il-Mixja tal-Ħaddiem Lejn il-Ħelsien [The Workers' Progress Toward Freedom] published way back in 1982, in Maltese. The major difference is that that book's focus was limited to Vassalli, Dimech and Mintoff, whereas Mr Camilleri is more ambitious in scope, claiming to cover more than a thousand years.
Why is 6% of the book devoted to 1909-10?The book obviously fails to cover that much material and its structure is irredeemably lopsided. Although Mr Camilleri claims that the principal theory applies to the entire thousand years, he adduces virtually no evidence about the Middle Ages. Yet, he inexplicably devotes a lot of attention to 1909-10, which take up no less than ten full pages of the book's 162.These two years seem to have no inherent historical importance, but were selected because the author thought of sleuthing for clues in police log-books. It is not clear, at the least to this reviewer, why these log-books should be relevant to the declared theme of this book, namely that the Maltese lived in more poverty and misery than other peoples during the thousand years it purportedly covers. Consider the following example: the 1910 case of one Ariana Zammit who had lent her nephew "one pair gold bracelet [sic], one gold necklace, one gold brooch set with diamonds, one pair gold earrings" (pp. 152-153). Mr Camilleri wanted here to illustrate the point that "lending was a very common activity amongst the poor." Other examples of poverty and misery include people loitering in the public market in search of employment, or selling vegetables without a licence, or people retracting reports on missing parasols (having later found them at home).The book is replete with such counter-senses which obviously obfuscate the author's declared thesis. 
The Church as the No. 1 oppressor of the workers?The real overall thesis seems to be not so much poverty and misery (no evidence supplied) as the supposed oppression by the Church. Again, no evidence is offered to support this claim, and the reader is expected to take the author at his word. Then again, the supposed oppression seems to be sexual rather than economic or political, but all this is either merely declared or implied, rather than duly articulated and substantiated.The author declares that his work is set in a Marxist-Hegelian frame. As a matter of fact, it does seem to adhere to the Marxist idea-criticised by Karl Popper in his Conjectures and Refutations (1963)-that if facts refute the theory, then both the theory and the evidence have to be re-interpreted in order to make them agree. A similar problem seems to afflict Hegel too, who claimed that if facts contradict theory, then "um so schlimmer für die Fakten"-so much the worse for the facts. Mr Camilleri seems aware of this conundrum and there are moments when he attempts to tender statements in evidence of his theory. But then they turn out to be either factually incorrect or else misleading. Ironically, this induces the reader to wonder whether the book's explanations of Hegel and other thinkers are actually trustworthy.
Factually incorrect statements?Mr Camilleri calls Vassalli a "Francophone" (p. 83) and Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, il-Gross, a "pro-Italian nationalist" (p. 155). In fact, the former was a Francophile, the latter a pro-Maltese nationalist who declared himself independent of the Mizzi-led party in 1936.But let us consider two other examples, with more far-reaching implications.One. Women, according to Mr Camilleri, lived in a "highly oppressive" social environment in which they "remained second-class citizens in comparison to men: they worked for longer hours for cheaper wages, their sexual lives were regulated by men and their opinions and feelings mattered very little" (p. 29). This might have been the case in the early 20th century, but it certainly was not the case throughout the entire 1000-year period purportedly covered by Mr Camilleri's book. The Middle Ages - and this might shock the more delicate among readers - were an era in which women (and their dowries) were not actually abused of, ruthlessly or otherwise.Whereas at one stage, Mr Camilleri claims that there is a "lack of evidence" with regard to the Middle Ages (p. 11), he then remembers that "the Maltese observed customs and laws similar to their Sicilian counterparts" (p. 55). Let's consider three historical snapshots. Whereas one cannot superimpose contemporary values on an unsuspecting past, the picture which emerges when not looking through the doctrinaire lens, is quite decent.In his 1897 book on the history of legislation in Malta, which can serve for the period 870-1400, Debono states that the Byzantines brought their laws with them to Sicily, and therefore Malta. Siciliano-Villaneuva, in his Sul Diritto Greco-Romano Privato in Sicilia, asserts that the Byzantines introduced the Ecloga in Sicily. The Ecloga enhanced the rights of women and children at the expense of those of the father, whose power was sharply curtailed.Notary Giacomo Zabbara's deeds (1486-1488) are a goldmine. One Jacobus sells, with the consent of his wife and son, the house at Rabat in which they were living (14 March 1487). One Caterina promises dowry to her daughter subject to the condition that the bridegroom should acquire a slave for the service of the bride (13 April 1486). Following the death of one Ventura, her husband carries out her wishes and hands over part of the dowry she had promised to the spouse of her niece (30 November 1486). The present reviewer cannot find a single instance of ruthless abuse of women in any of these (and other) deeds published by Zabbara. With regard to the 1784 Municipal Code of Malta provisions on dowry, Professor A Micallef wrote that "the wife can bring with her as dowry all her present and future assets. The constitution of a dowry is not considered as a donation between spouses, because the wife always holds the full ownership of the dotal assets" (my translation). It is therefore unclear on which evidence Mr Camilleri bases his assertions. Two. "The entrenchment of the ideas of the Enlightenment in the Order's institutional structures continued during de Rohan [sic] who appointed Neapolitan lawyer Giandonato Rogadeo [...] to introduce sweeping administrative reforms in the judiciary" (p. 80). While it is clear that Mr Camilleri is not referring to Catholic Enlightenment, it is factually incorrect to say that Rogadeo was a follower of "progressive" Enlightenment. He scorned Rousseau, and in 1777, he demanded that Beccaria's book be banned. If, on the other hand, Mr Camilleri is indeed impliedly referring to Catholic Enlightenment, then why doesn't he say so explicitly?
Misleading statements?Two examples.One. In the introduction to the book, Mr Camilleri premises that he "made an effort to make this text readable to the general reader" (p. 28). However, when a mere 50 pages later he writes that, "Enlightenment ideals were becoming ever more popular amongst the Knights" he adds, "French Knights read [...] mainly Aristotle", failing to cast light on the implications. Mr Camilleri might have illuminated the general reader with the famous phrase encapsulating the Enlightenment attitude toward the Greek philosopher: "if Aristotle were here, he would not be an Aristotelian." Instead, he leaves the general reader in the dark, not knowing how the Knights read Aristotle.Two. Mr Camilleri claims that his "study was very much restricted by the lack of statistics on the society and economy of the Maltese Islands" (p. 32). But there is no lack in reality. In an article published last year in The Economic History Review entitled "Strategic colonies and economic development: real wages in Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Malta, 1836-1913", Paul Caruana Galizia concludes that "[l]iving standards in these countries were in fact at the European average." Why did Mr Camilleri fail to analyse and counter this research? If Dr Caruana Galizia's conclusion is right, then Mr Camilleri's central argument collapses like a house of cards.
Cabbages and Kings?The real surprise is the twist at the end, almost in the style of American writer O. Henry (author of Cabbages and Kings). Whereas the major antagonist of the "workers" throughout the centuries is the Church (the minor antagonist being the conservative elite class), the epilogue opens a new front: "as our neoliberal politicians are delighting themselves with the rapid economic growth of the country, the ghost of the Maltese paradigm of dependency is slowing making a comeback" (p. 172). Essentially, the book closes with thinly-veiled criticism levelled at Prime Minister Muscat. Coming from an SKS publication, this is truly an unexpected twist.