This is, at least, what Dr Mark Montebello OP maintains in a new book to be published in a few weeks by PIN Publications. The book, simply titled Dimech, is an analytical and fully documented biography of the great patriot. In advance of the publication, for three consecutive editions, which started last week, we shall be regaled with long extracts translated from the original. These have been taken from the third part of the ninth chapter, where Dr Montebello narrates Dimech’s deportation in 1914. For convenience’s sake all documented notes have been omitted, and the division of paragraphs altered. The book shall be on sale from major booksellers in Malta and Gozo.

Part II

The last few days had been truly bleak for the Dimechs. Yet, the worst was still to come. Many were surprised by the unexpected arrest of Dimech and his companions. Some may have hoped that Dimech’s arrest would be temporary and last only a few days. After all, Vella, Ahar, Nicholas and the others had been released after two days. Even the police officers who arrested him, may have been unaware as to the duration of his incarceration, and perhaps presumed that he would be released before long. If these were the thoughts they harboured, they were terribly mistaken.

Malta was going through a turbulent and uncertain period. In view of an Order in Court issued in Balmoral on 26 October 1896, Governor Henry Leslie Rundle proclaimed martial law on 2 August 1914, that is, one month before Dimech was arrested and two days before Britain declared war on Germany. The Order in Council authorised the Governor to assume dictatorial powers if need be. According to the third sub-article of article three:

“The Governor may order any person to quit the Colony, or any part of or place in the Colony, to be specified in such order, and if any person shall refuse to obey any such order the Governor may cause him to be arrested and removed from the Colony, or from such part thereof or place therein, and for that purpose to be placed on board of any ship or boat.

It is very unlikely that Dimech ever thought about this clause while in jail. He might not even have been aware that such stipulation existed. Unfortunately for him, other sinister individuals were. On 2 September, that is less than 48 hours after Dimech had been arrested, Crown Advocate Vincenzo Frendo Azzopardi wrote to Lieutenant Governor John E. Clauson suggesting that the provision stipulated in Article 3 of the martial law be applied in Dimech’s case. His letter reads:

“Though the confiscated papers show clearly enough the socialist and revolutionary drift of Dimech’s writings and display of anti-English feeling, there are no sufficient grounds for a criminal prosecution against him.

He is intelligent and clever and has a powerful ascendancy over the masses. His mission now is to create agitation, and I heard things, I cannot recall the source, that he is a secret foreign agent.

I consider him a dangerous fellow and I submit for consideration the upholding of his expulsion under the 1896 Order in Council.

This step would break a dangerous growing association created by him among the labouring classes.

Should this suggestion meet with approval I submit that it should be carried out before his release from arrest, if possible, and that he should be quietly taken on board the steamer at the time of departure.

On the same day, that is 2 September 1914, Clauson informed the Governor about Frendo Azzopardi’s proposal. Rundle granted his approval without any hesitation. Thereupon, the government’s Assistant Secretary Edgar Bonavia prepared a document authorising the police to deport Dimech. The Governor and the Lieutenant Governor signed the document on the following day, 3 September 1914. The document reads:

To William C. Millard Esq.

Acting Superintendent of Police.

Whereas by sub-clause 3 of clause III of the Order in Council of the 26th October 1896, it is among other things provided that the Governor may order any person to quit the Colony, and that if any person shall refuse to obey any such order the Governor may cause him to be arrested and removed from the Colony, and for that purpose place on board of any ship or boat;

And whereas it appears to Us that it is necessary that Emmanuele Dimech should quit this Colony;

Now therefore, We hereby order that the said Emmanuele Dimech shall quit this Colony forthwith, and We authorise and require you, the said William C. Millard, Acting Superintendent of Police, to communicate this order unto him, the said Emmanuele Dimech, and should he refuse to obey it, to arrest him and remove him from this Colony and place him on board of any ship or boat, for the purpose of quitting this Colony.

Dimech’s destiny was sealed. The malediction he used to curse the British “may they leave and be damned by all and sundry” was coming true in a bizarre and perverse manner, afflicting he who uttered it rather than the accursed.

Though he may never have considered seriously the eventuality of exile, Dimech must have known that there were certain individuals who wanted him to leave, in some way or another.

Around the year 1895, while he was serving a term in jail, the then Director of the Civil Prisons, Giorgio Crispo Barbaro, asked a prisoner to poison Dimech. Even in 1912, the excommunicant Dimech alleged that some persons were attempting to poison him. At the time, he believed that one of the aims behind the war being waged against him by the Church was to have him voluntarily leave Malta. Following the Bishop’s pardon, Dimech conjectured that there were peopled who wanted him confined to the Frankuni mental asylum.

The gut-feeling that there were certain individuals who considered him dangerous and hence wished to eliminate him became more intense, particularly as different attempts to have him silenced were time and again thwarted. It emerges conspicuously in an article he wrote at the beginning of August 1914, entitled Dead or Banished (Jew mejjet jew barra minn Malta). The article reads:

People!

In one way or another, by fair means or foul, they want to eliminate the person who alone in Malta has not been bribed; the only one who has continuously thwarted their wicked attempts to have poor innocent people hanged. They want to get rid of Manwel Dimech!

The only ways in which they would have me remain in Malta is as a cadaver, confined to a mental asylum, locked-up in a prison or lethargically subdued; unable to observe, react or shout my disgust at what is going on around me. They want to transform me from a flesh-and-blood creature into something akin to a clay, papier mâché or wooden statute; a being that has eyes but does not see, a mouth which cannot speak and fingers that are not able to clutch a pen!

They do not want me to remain in Malta. To achieve their end, they are spending conspicuous amounts of money and propagating countless lies.

Recently, an esteemed gentleman was heard discussing the ‘Dimech problem’ with two fellows who are not known to be paradigms of saintliness. Speaking in Italian, the gentleman maintained that “Dimech should be eliminated, or else he should be made to dismantle his Xirca, give up his journalism, abandon all his other activities and stay put.”.

As for you, fellow Maltese, do you want me to go? Do you want me to leave Malta for good? Do you want me to abandon all the projects I have undertaken? Do you want me to keep silent, throw away my pen and stay put as if I were made of stone? Do you want me to stop troubling them while they abuse you, keep you in the dark, hit you, hang your children and subsequently spread their callous lies about them? Do you want me to die and sink into an abyssal grave, so that they may be free to abuse you, your children and your belongings? Should I die so as not to disturb these gentlemen?

They despise me III They awfully do!!! They are all the time pondering on how to hinder my activities. It is as if I were a burden they need to get rid off! Some are inducing people to ignore or boycott me. Others attempt to instigate the rabble against me. In addition, some benevolent gentlemen are propagating stories in which I play the role of a ghoulish monster! Soon, mothers will start using the name ‘Manwel Dimech’ to scare their children, rather than refer to the proverbial ghosts!

© 2004 Daritama

To be continued