Even within the context of today’s rainbow configurations of political parties and movements, the Left everywhere in the world has always been more inclined to accept and to work with writers, poets and other artists, most of whom have an innate progressive and humanitarian outlook on life. Malta has been no exception, thank goodness.
From its very inception, the Maltese Labour environment has been embellished by the committed presence of its writers and poets. While the “leftist” intellectuals of various centuries ago, foremost among them Mikiel Anton Vassalli, have almost always exclusively been remembered and celebrated by the Labour Party, the party’s own emergence in the early 20s was preceded by the unstinting work of established writers and early Maltese language stalwarts like Manwel Dimech, Guze’ Orlando, Juan Mamo, and Guze’ Muscat Azzopardi.
The trend continued well into the 40s, 50s and 60s as a new generation of writers and poets gradually came on the scene, all of them aware of the need to resuscitate the island after the trauma of World War II. Guze’ Ellul Mercer, Anton Buttigieg, who later followed GEM as deputy leader of the Malta Labour Party during the horrendous politico-religious dispute 1962/66, Paul Xuereb, Joe Micallef Stafrace, Lino Spiteri and several others assumed the mantle of front liners in the unenviable search for a new Malta out of the social and physical destruction it had suffered in fighting someone else’s war.
Quite by coincidence, the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the award of the George Cross to the Maltese people (the great British journalist of the time, James Cameron, had rightly commented: “You can’t eat the George Cross”) took place during the same week that the Labour Party was celebrating Karmenu Vassallo, one of Malta’s greatest poets, whose alignment with the political Left is best remembered in connection with his 1971 electoral candidacy. Though he was not elected, his votes actually made the difference for Labour to win the district, and, as a result, the election, after numerous recounts when a majority of votes, which Labour had achieved, did not mean a majority of seats.
Karmenu Vassallo was, with other pioneers like Guze’ Aquilina, Ninu Cremona, Guze’ Chetcuti, Guze’ Galea, and Dun Karm, fully supportive of the Labour Party’s pro-Maltese stand at a time when others were wrestling for a predomination of either Italian or English. This was the pro-Maltese intellectuals’ first foray – directly and indirectly – into national politics, a struggle that was eventually won, albeit by default, and consolidated in the late 50s when the first cries for independence from Britain were heard, stunning many of those who today wax lyrical about independence.
The evening dedicated to Vassallo at the CNL in Hamrun last week, induced by the SKS publication of Marcel Zammit Marmara’s highly acclaimed biography of the poet, “Il-Hajja ta’ Karmenu Vassallo”, was not only one of the slickest literary productions I have ever attended, but also a hugely nostalgic opportunity for the many writers and poets, of different political persuasions, who were present.
Maltese literary activities are often either excessively boring due to prolonged stretches of uninterrupted readings, or else simply rendered superficial by the now predictable mixing of poetry with pizza and cheap wine, or the other way round, really. The Vassallo evening, under the direction of Zep Camilleri, was a joy to experience. Readings were kept short, addresses were even shorter, and the artistic element, coming from such talented participants as Mro Dominic Galea, singers Doreen Galea, Joseph Aquilina and Corazon Mizzi, and readers Charles Abela Mizzi and Charles Coleiro, was perfectly timed and executed.
For yours truly, it was also an opportunity to be in an audience with fellow Sixties writers and poets – Achille Mizzi, Philip Sciberras, Alfred Degabriele, Victor Fenech and Oliver Friggieri among several others, who, in their various ways, had been acquainted with Karmenu Vassallo.
My own was a very limited one, but still warmly remembered. I can still vividly recall how deeply pained the great poet had been when informed that a few of us had not taken too kindly to our exclusion in his 1969 anthology Vatum Consortium. Vassallo had gone as far as to phone me at my Malta News office to say how sorry he was and how angry he was with himself for having overlooked some of us “young ’uns”. This was typical of the man’s kindness and sincerity, though one must admit, we neither had any right to be included nor had we written any masterpieces that made our inclusion mandatory!
Labour leader Joseph Muscat addressed a chock-full theatre, ironically providing the only political moment of the evening with a speech that was everything but political.
He was followed by Oliver Friggieri, who had been both a friend and, at the time, a youthful admirer of Vassallo’s. To go back to the start of this piece, with his short and unscheduled intervention, Friggieri actually rewarded the highly receptive audience with a red-and-white bouquet of a speech that, rightly so, intentionally or not, had no space for the George Cross. He played masterfully with the idea of writers and poets in politics as juxtaposed with the reality of politicians in the literary scene. His message clearly was: there is only one Malta, there is only one nation, there is only one Karmenu Vassallo.
It was certainly an evening to remember. That it should have taken place under the auspices of a political party hardly seemed to matter. That a political party should do it, however, was not only appreciated but also encouraged at a time when the Maltese language is again sadly under siege from various natural and unnatural sources.
The success of the Vassallo evening shows there is still hope. To fill to capacity – with a cultural event focusing on one Maltese poet – a theatre that is often filled only for political gatherings, is no mean thing in this day and age. That it happened to be the Labour Party rekindling its traditional attachment to Maltese writers and poets with a social commitment was no surprise, however.