If the letter, in another section of the English language press, by the president of the Nationalist Party General Council Victor Scerri demanding that the Queen of England make a public apology to the wartime Uganda deportees was, as the Prime Minister would have us all believe, written only in his own personal capacity, then I am the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Sorry is indeed the hardest word, as Elton John’s famous song purports it to be. For someone to expect the British monarch to make such a public, possibly controversial, apology during her recent visit to the island, after seven decades during which we have happily watched what used to be the world’s greatest empire ever vanish into the thin Commonwealth air, was not only naïve but also lacking in historical and military evaluation. Was it not “all fair in love and war” according to the old adage of the imperial era?

But then, if we are to go on a sorry-seeking spree it could all turn out to be fun in an otherwise dull and dreary phase of Maltese everyday life. And let’s take it straight down the centuries.

I would, in my own personal capacity, of course, demand at the very first sight of a top Arab diplomat at the airport, an immediate public apology for having mastered us for so long in our history. The Gozitans, who at one time lost their whole population to the marauding North Africans, would be elated. Perhaps Queen Giovanna of Gozo would invite the perplexed diplomat to Victoria for an amiable walkabout during which the schoolchildren of Gozo, Comino and Fungus Rock would wave their miniature national flag as well as the green one of Islam. Then he would take to the rostrum and, in a language that sounds familiar but is hardly understood, even by the villagers of Gharb, make an official apology to the present generation of the descendants of the slaves, the tortured, the raped and the kidnapped.

Perhaps we might even DNA-trace the direct line of the Bride of Mosta who, according to the popular legend now also available in English, was chosen for some special treatment by the Muslim attackers. If it turns out to include none other than the MLP general-secretary Jason Micallef, who hails from the village, the demand for an apology might not be so vociferous, but, lo and behold, if it after all involves the mayor of Mosta himself, Joseph P. De Martino, then the Arab diplomat would have a lot to answer to.

And let not the Turkish diplomats and businessmen relax in the knowledge that we seem to be concentrating on the Arab side of the Ottoman Empire. They too have an obligation to say sorry to most Maltese. Housewives lost all their cooking oil during the Great Siege, while some natives who turned Muslim under pressure from Mustapha Ali and Dragut eventually ended up being hung from their nostrils inside the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa. If that is not serious enough, what of those poor, beheaded fighters being canoed out in the direction of Fort St Angelo?

And the Turks should remember that today we have a lot of clout in Europe, you know. As members of the European Union we could very well decide to use our veto and refuse them entry into the EU before the year 2050. First they apologise publicly for all the butchery and their hideous manners and then, and only then, we’d give the green light from Castille.

The German Ambassador, I’m afraid, would be in for a tough time too. Has he never been to Valletta and noticed how the wily Maltese have, for such a long, long time, left what used to be the jewel of their pro-Italian culture, the old Opera House, in ruins? Saying sorry should not be that hard for him. And the bomb which almost destroyed our famous Rotunda in that central village again? And the whole Cottonera area where people lost their families, homes and businesses?

Here I have to get personal. After all, I am only writing in my own personal capacity. My paternal grandfather Duminku died on board the vessel Moore, which exploded and sank in Grand Harbour after hitting a mine. No trace of the unfortunate crew was ever found. Now, Your Excellency, is that not reason enough for a public apology to me here and now, even if I never knew my grandpa?

The British should avoid rubbing their hands in glee. All my widowed grandma received for the rest of her difficult life was an annual donation of not more than Lm5 extracted from the Poppy appeal fund. I think they should apologise for this thrifty attitude towards someone who had lost her beloved breadwinner at the very peak of World War II in defence of the great empire, freedom, liberty and what have you. The Uganda deportees at least returned home safe and sound to a hero’s welcome.

Hey you, Libyans – do you remember the Median Line issue with that friendly little isle up north? On the very day that so many Maltese hearts fluttered in anticipation of a long overdue oil strike that would have made us much less dependent on your oil-rich nation, you sent an unfriendly captain and his squad on board a Libyan Navy destroyer to immediately halt the drilling. What was it really – pure economic quick thinking, or an unwillingness to let us become fellow members of OPEC? An apology, sirs, would be most welcome. And I say so in my own personal capacity, by the way.

Guess who’s next. Madam Ambassador of the United States of America, you also owe us an apology. How many times have your institutions pictured us as partly-democratic and partly-free while you fatally injected or electrocuted your own citizens? Make it a good one, please. It would sound good coming from the world’s only superpower to one of the smallest nations in the universe, though you may by now have perceived that we tend to think of ourselves as the very centre of that immense, spiralling phenomenon.

In just two eventful years, the French caused as much havoc on these islands as almost two centuries of British rule. Zis is now opportune for a public apology to ze Maltese. They robbed our churches, so the new and old bishops of this country would solemnly order the ringing of the bells at the very utterance of the letter S of the word, and they stole our national treasures, so there would also be much cultural and patriotic rejoicing in the streets and public squares of La Valette. Pardonez moi, but it would be almost like the day we joined the EU to become “equal” members wiz zem and ze Germans. What’s ha ha in French?

I have purposely left our northerly neighbours until last on the list of possible apologies. Italy sent us many heartless rulers in feudal times, of course, but then Italy at the time did not exist. Nor did the FIFA World Cup. In WWII, Benito first described us as “bel fior del mondo” and then proceeded to send several air force squadrons to drop their perfumed bombs on our panic-stricken population. Modern Maltese history is still undecided over whether the dropping of most Italian bombs into the sea was attributable to a sheer lack of precision and an innate fear of anti-aircraft guns, or a symbolic gesture of geographic friendship and cultural bonhomie. So the Italian Ambassador can today rest calm and happy in his sleep.

The moral of the story is that we have indeed in recent years been rendered a sorry nation, caught in a sorry state, but those who should be automatic candidates for the honour of issuing a public apology for the present economic mess are still insisting we are cruising in the right direction. Downhill, alas.