I was with Nationalist teenage friends during the Independence ceremony of 1964 at midnight in Floriana. For obvious reasons, we never discussed politics, so while the Maltese flag replaced the old Union Jack, we were really more interested in the girls around us, but I still secretly got goose pimples.
Ten years later came the Republic. This time I got more than goose pimples. You see, I had always found the supposedly independent island’s attachment to a foreign crown difficult to stomach, so I joined the crowds only too happily in the rain-soaked streets of Valletta to greet the first President of the Republic. I remain to this day a staunch republican with, I must add, close connections to the ever-growing republican movement in Australia.
By the time Freedom Day arrived in 1979, I was married with a three-year-old daughter. She came with me everywhere during the many celebrations, whether I was there as a mere spectator or on journalistic duties. The world had turned full circle: while the girl enjoyed the lights and the fireworks, I cherished the significance.
All that, I hope, goes far in confirming my commitment to the national cause and which, quite obviously, carries with it the insistence to use the Maltese language in everyday life without in any way undermining our innate gift of learning and actually using other languages, particularly English. But my feet remain steadfastly glued to the ground.
Reality has to play its part in a globalised world where jingoism has rightly been relegated to the lesser echelons. Being proud of your national identity and the culture that permeates it does not mean we have to think and act from a surrealistic standpoint that puts Malta right at the centre of the universe. With the mind-boggling advance of electronics in the last two decades, even our popular slogan about being “a bridge between two continents at the centre of the Mediterranean” has lost most of its erstwhile lustre.
Yes, we have our black holes. One has engulfed Castile Place as it tries to grapple with the dilemmas of European Union membership achieved under badly negotiated conditions and in an atmosphere of embarrassing subservience. Anything you throw into this black hole never comes back. It may resurface in other forms, usually in the shape of inexplicable U-turns or in the convenient format of a-mask-for-every-occasion.
We have our quasars too. The Paceville quasar is an extremely powerful and distant active galactic nucleus. First identified way back in the sixties as being a high redshift source of electromagnetic energy, it is today the focus of our tourism trade when other quasars, such as those of Marsascala, Bugibba and Qawra, have been left to vanish into the great oblivion of the universe.
Supernovas and constellations abound too. A supernova is a stellar explosion. Like the SmartCity project, it can be extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy before fading from view. This, of course, is not what we hope for with regard to the project at Rinella, but many still honestly feel this centre of the universe has lost too much of its roving territory, actually giving it away for free so that others could make their millions.
The constellations we treat unevenly. The biggest one, which starts from Brussels and ends somewhere in the former Soviet Union, continues to offer as much inspiration as it dishes out in frustration. Funds are lost and, as a direct consequence, projects are abandoned or shelved. Other constellations involved with our declared status of neutrality and adherence to non-alignment are connected and/or disconnected according to circumstances in our very confusing way of making constitutional arrangements.
Sometimes the suspicion that we have also had aliens infiltrating us becomes too strong to ignore. They come from afar on battered boats and we welcome them with anti-contamination masks and gloves. Very few Maltese seem willing to understand them. But they also come from nearby posing as world-renowned chefs and top-class managers to whom most Maltese find it easy to say yes and kowtow to them. They are a different kind of aliens, seemingly more approachable, with white skin, fair hair and a generous paunch.
In this phantasmagorical way we control the universe. While other celestial bodies tremble as a result of their economic woes, we have the temerity to induce our very own crisis. Inter-galactic arrogance gives us a carte blanche to mimic the big stars and the heavenly bodies, to first declare we have done so well and then, when the supreme test is over, to claim that the citizens of this exceptional place need to accept the sacrifices being proposed.
It is not easy to understand us. Poised as we are at the very hub of whatever happens in this universe, we can afford to play hide-and-seek with reality. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, now you see us, now you don’t. You want our hunters? Have them, but the shooting goes on and gun-carrying permits will continue to roll out. You want our bankrupt State-owned shipyards? Have them, but join us in the applause for Gordon Brown and his Sarkozian elves as they use public funds to save their defunct private banks.
You want our land? Have it, as long as our developers enjoy their many light years, we’re OK.
The more the universe expands, the more likely we are to become estranged. While others move out to explore and to find new galaxies, we remain stuck to the centre, pathetically revolving on the same spot, like a time warp waiting to implode and yet so happy to know it.