The truth is Malta has enjoyed a privileged status with neighbouring Libya since 1971, that is only two years after the 1st September Revolution spearheaded by Muammar Gaddafi.
It is also true that a huge number of Maltese citizens, from businessmen and politicians to media persons and factory workers, had for many years exploited this special relationship. The vast and lucrative Libyan market, so near and so inviting, was a major playing field for Maltese entrepreneurship and creativity.
Mutual investments benefited both countries. At both personal and corporative levels, we have all eagerly tapped into it. I, for one, have been involved in news, books, magazines, script writing and sundry other projects. People established their own little or big empires in hotels, advertising, education, supermarkets, industrial and electronic services and retail businesses, while over the many years, the Libyan oilfields provided thousands of well-paid jobs to bread-winners of happy Maltese families.
Many just did it for the money; for some time there were even those who may also have been motivated by common ideological beliefs, flavours of the day, really. The fact remained that irrespective of the political system in Gaddafi’s Libya, the Maltese were doing well, many families would otherwise have had to emigrate or take on less rewarding jobs, and most Libyan or Maltese-Libyan owned factories served an expanding and readily available market.
That was the up side. On the down side, with Libya more or less a permanent pariah state, it was inevitable that Malta and the Maltese would have to suffer the mud of international diplomacy brushing off on them. There were American-inspired boycotts against our thriving hotel chains and at the worst of times, the rest of the world simply believed the phantasmagorical sales talk of the international media that Malta was to be literally annexed to Libya. That came exactly after similarly absurd claims of a Cuban Malta and, later, a Chinese Malta, which, not surprisingly, turned out to be hollow journalistic incantations!
Inevitably, though, some of the mud stuck. Even with the change of government in 1987, things remained very much the same. The new Nationalist government could hardly shun or discard the island’s privileged status with Gaddafi’s Libya, even though some of its adherents had previously protested against and felt uncomfortable with Labour’s close relations with the Colonel’s administration in Tripoli. One of them, today a failed politician, had melodramatically proposed to put Mintoff in a sack and have him sent to Gaddafi.
Malta’s close ties with Libya remained as strong as the international distrust of them. The Maltese working force in Libya remained stable, the Libyan presence on the Island flourished and joint projects kept up their production. Malta was rightly not willing to commit economic hara-kiri, whatever the Americans and their Nato puppets thought or would have wanted to see happen.
Right up to the very eve of the current Arab Spring revolution that quickly engulfed Libya as well, our own Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was caught on camera canoodling with Muammar Gaddafi inside his Bedouin tent. For the right reasons, of course – the promotion of Maltese investment offers and bilateral trade.
With the full support of the Opposition, the Maltese government has since played its cards very well. Foreign Minister Tonio Borg, with whom I share some Libya memories from the time we were newspaper colleagues, has been living a nightmare during which he has shown tact, prudence and opportunism, all of them like sparkling fresh eggs in one big diplomatic basket.
We have, at times, seen Castille make chewing-gum of the neutrality clause in our Constitution, but Labour and Labour spokesmen have shown a maturity and a stoic realism that serve national aspirations well in times of global uncertainty.
It is what post-Gaddafi Libya will mean for Malta that understandably rattles Maltese minds today. A democratic Libya makes more sense to a democratic neighbour, but what if it would spell the end to our privileged status with Libyans and Libyan businesses? Would the resulting vacuum be filled by new opportunities, new projects and new investments that could somehow keep this debt-laden country of ours afloat?
In Benghazi, boiling point centre of the anti-Gaddafi revolution, there have been posters and billboards lauding “The Fantastic Four”, featuring Britain’s Cameron, US President Barack Obama, France’s Sarkozy and Italy’s bunga bunga Premier, Silvio Berlusconi. You can’t blame the creator of those propaganda images of the four Western leaders; after all they have been the chief financiers and military service providers to the rebellion. All in the name of democracy, of course.
While we cannot pretend to have expected Prime Minister Gonzi’s face fluttering in the desert wind with those of the famous four, the signs could be ominous for us as a working nation. If any one thinks that now that the Gaddafi regime has been defeated and removed after no less than 42 long years, things can go back to normal, our privileged status intact and Libyans at home and abroad welcoming us and our custom back, he or she needs to quickly see an analyst.
Post-Gaddafi Libya is going to be a completely new reality. Neighbourly ties will still, hopefully, stand us in good stead, but “the fantastic four” will also be barging in to claim a lot more than their pound of flesh. In pre-Gaddafi Libya, Malta merely enjoyed the scraps and leftovers of British, American and Italian economic enterprises, mostly surrounding their military bases. The clock could easily be turned back to those days.
On a more optimistic note, though, Libya is still a large, unspoilt land of great beauty. Its cultural assets are enormous and its touristic potential still one of the best kept secrets of the modern world. Instinctive Maltese endeavour could still save the day for us, just as the uprising has possibly saved the day for Libyans in general. That is at least what most Maltese who have, for so long, benefited from Maltese-Libyan cooperation, are hoping and keeping their fingers crossed for.