More than three quarters of us who live on these islands have relatives who live abroad. We might be a small country in size, but we have a big family spread all over the world.
Maltese and Gozitans have been emigrating to all corners of the world for centuries. At first, most of our people who had to emigrate because of unemployment and poverty, sought a better life in neighbouring Mediterranean countries.
Then, since the 1800s, they started venturing to faraway countries like Argentina, the United States and Australia. Today there are Maltese, Gozitans and their descendants in around 194 countries, practically in every country in the world. Like most other Maltese and Gozitans, I have relatives in at least three other countries on different sides of our planet.
There are around 120,000 first generation and 300,000 second and third generation Maltese living abroad. This means that we have a diaspora of around 420,000, as many Maltese and Gozitans as we have on our islands.
A 2019 World Bank report shows that even today, 24% of all Maltese live outside Malta, putting the rate of emigration for the Maltese population as the highest out of any EU country. The destinations have changed as today we have new diasporas in Brussels and Luxembourg, reflecting our membership of the European Union.
Despite that most of us have relatives abroad, I still feel that on our islands and amongst our population, we are still not aware enough of the reality and history of the emigration of our people over the centuries. I still feel that we still consider our history and reality of emigration, as parallel to our history and reality on these islands.
I think that we need to address this and move towards becoming more aware and forging more links among the Maltese and Gozitans in the whole wide world, considering ourselves as one. Two years ago, we financed Henry Frendo’s publication ‘Diaspora, Maltese overseas settlement’, dedicated “to all those who have felt constrained to leave their home country.” We must do more.
Communications technology is at least making it more possible to have a closer community and to be more in touch with each other across the continents. We must strive to get even closer.
Among others
Last year, we also helped publish Michael Refalo’s detailed research on the Maltese and Egypt in the 19th century. His book ‘Among others’ is ground-breaking and should serve as a model for other historical studies of Maltese migration in the Mediterranean and beyond.
Refalo looks at the world of the Maltese in Egypt between 1860 and 1923 “from below”. He analyses the Maltese living among others in Egypt, not by focussing solely on famous individuals who made a name for themselves, but on the daily lives of the many ‘ordinary and anonymous’ men, women and children who are usually reduced to silence in traditional historical accounts given “from above”.
Through painstaking and pioneering research on primary sources, Refalo brings to life the Maltese who lived mostly in Cairo and Alexandria, but also in Port Said and Suez. They lived among fellow British subjects (as Malta was then a British colony and Egypt a British protectorate) but also among migrants coming from Greece, Italy and other Arab countries, Armenians and others.
The rich tapestry that emerges from Refalo’s research has neither sentimentalism nor triumphalism. Using the historical method of Antonio Gramsci, himself a Sardinian migrant in Genoa and Turin, Refalo locates the Maltese migrants as ‘subalterns’, concentrating on their coping and survival strategies to provide a living for themselves and their families.
Gramsci’s subaltern perspective tries to understand society through conditions of subordination of people belonging to the different caste, class, age, gender, race etc. It seeks to present an alternate image of society through the viewpoint of the masses who are usually unrepresented.
Refalo shows us how a number of Maltese managed to emerge from their low status and were successful in commercial and professional fields. While trying to recreate, in Egypt, a home away from home, the Maltese still felt uprooted and had to struggle not only at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid, but also compete with other migrants who had also left their countries because they could not find employment and build a decent life where they were born.
Although the Maltese were British subjects, the British still looked down on them. Refalo also recounts how the Maltese related to other migrants, entered into business with them, quarrelled, married, fought, pimped, formed criminal gangs with Italians, Greeks and other migrants as well as with Egyptians. As expected, looking at life ‘from the underside’, reveals the “family skeletons” within the closets of the Maltese in Egypt.
Refalo also compiles an impressive statistical account of how many Maltese emigrated to Egypt, from which towns and villages they came, their professions and trades, ages and marital status. He narrates the daily lives of the Maltese in Egypt, where they lived, their homes and relations with their neighbours and involvement in the community at large. He describes their family lives: their marriage and remarriage and children at work.
Refalo gives us an account of the wealth creation and business and professional success of those who made it, but also the difficult lives of those who remained poor and marginalised. He tells us about the crimes they committed and how both the rich and the poor died, including their accidental death and suicide and shares with us their testaments.