Some people say that the reason many Maltese fly the flags of other nations during the football season is because we never make it to the World Cup. Unable to support our own team, we support the teams of other countries. We even call those teams “ours”: “it-team taghna”.

I don’t think so, though. I think it’s because we have such a weak sense of national identity. This weakness manifests itself in other ways, too – most notably in our need to harp on about national identity all the time. Some examples are the way our artists repeatedly paint the same hackneyed Maltese scenes, which are snapped up by buyers, the obsession with language to the detriment of literacy, the inferiority complex that shows up in demonstrations of pseudo-superiority, the juxtaposition of “us” (Arabic-speaking Christians) against “them” (Arabic-speaking Muslims). Nobody with a real sense of national identity would ever fly the flag of another nation, for whatever reason, and whether or not their national team made it to the World Cup.

The strange mix of patriotism and xenophobia that is present in all discussions about immigration – illegal and even legal – is curiously absent in international football tournaments. Then, we burst out into its polar opposite, xenomania. In Maltese living-rooms and bars throughout the past month, people have been rooting for the English, the Italians, the Brazilians (yes, the Brazilians) and even the Germans. The first two suggest that the political and social culture of the first half of the 20th century was more deeply embedded than we think. It points to a hangover from the days when, if you were Maltese, then you were either “for” the colonial British and “against” all suggestions of greater Italian influence, or vice versa. Families today are still affected by this outlook. It’s probably the reason why the Italian team irritates me so much, over and above my irrational dislike for men who blow-dry their hair and use moisturiser. The new generation, not realising that there is a reason why Maltese people are divided into Italy and England supporters, take it as perfectly natural that a Maltese person with a Maltese passport should support the team of another country, and never question it.

Up to the World Cup of 1990, it was even clearer that this Maltese support for the teams of England or Italy was due to the political culture of the previous four generations. There was little or no talk at that time of supporting other teams, such as Brazil. It was either Italy or England, and the division between the two was sharp and hard. Then, more than now, Maltese “England supporters” would root for any team playing against Italy, and rush out to celebrate if Italy lost. Maltese “Italy” supporters would cheer on any team – even Togo, if need be – that played against England, and take to the streets in carcades, waving Italian flags, if England lost. As an Italian friend, who was at a loss to understand why Maltese people were carcading with Italian flags when no Italian would ever carcade with a Maltese flag, said to me last week: “There are many crazy people in Malta.”

Avid support by Maltese people for the German team is a very recent development, as well it might be. If support for Italy and England are an unwitting acknowledgement of our political history, then support for Germany ignores that history all together. It’s true that bygones are bygones, there’s been a lot of water under the bridge and all that, but I still find something highly distasteful about Maltese people carcading around Malta proudly and happily flying the flag of the nation that, just 60 years ago, was doing its best to kill us and to bomb Malta into oblivion. There are limits, and we can’t be that insensitive to the past.

When I found a couple of German flags on the bedroom floors at home this past week, my reaction was: “Look, I don’t want any foreign flags in this house. I especially do not want any German flags. We’re Maltese, not German.” One day, I’ll put those flags through the boil cycle in the washing-machine with plenty of bleach, and pretend it was an accident. There may be no need to do so because, at this stage, peer pressure is already starting to wane. With luck, and some subtle indoctrination, they won’t turn into the kind of Maltese man who embarrasses himself by running around waving an Italian or Brazilian flag, a Union flag, or – horrors – a German one.

I find the flying of Italian and German flags by Maltese people particularly offensive. Many thousands of people – Maltese and British – fought, died and suffered terrible privations in the effort to ensure that we would never have to fly either of those flags, and here we are doing so of our own accord. Yes, there are a lot of crazy people in Malta – or rather, people with scant perspective on their past or even on their present. No English person would ever fly the German flag, even in the unlikely event that England never made it to the World Cup ever again. The symbolism of flags is lost on us, perhaps because we have only had one for such a short while.

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At least there is some light relief, though this once more points to the suggestion that support for England is informed by political and cultural support for the British in the first half of the 20th century. We are indifferent or oblivious to the fact that Britain and England are not one and the same thing. England is just England, a part of Britain. Britain also includes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, none of which are incorporated into England the geographical location, or England the football team. Yet a mixture of ignorance and the fact that the Maltese word Inglizi is used to refer generally to the British rather than just to the English (and was used for our colonisers in the past), we confuse “English” with “British”. So the celebrating Maltese “England” supporters have been flying the Union flag – the flag of Britain – rather than the flag of St George, which is the English flag. It’s hilarious. The Scots don’t support the English team, but the Maltese do – by waving the national flag of Scotland, St Andrew’s cross, which is incorporated into the Union flag.

Yes, there are many crazy people in Malta. Or perhaps we should use a more palatable word and say that we’re eccentric. As for me, there’s only one flag I’ll ever be persuaded to fly: the Maltese flag. But that’s because I have a sharp sense of national identity, probably sharper than that of my fellow countrymen who spit at those who speak English but are then perfectly happy to rush about the island waving the Italian tricolore, ignoring the fact that it was only through a very narrow escape that we were not forced by Benito Mussolini to fly it against our will. Have some pride, will you?