One of the difficulties faced by small countries like ours that were governed for centuries by others in their own interests, is to think with our own mind, feel with our own heart and see through our own eyes what our true interests are.

We import almost all we need, but surely we shouldn’t also import how we think, how we feel and how we see ourselves and the world.

Surely we shouldn’t import our ideas and feelings like we import shoes and clothes. Instead, we need to produce these with our minds and hearts, in our own interest and for our own good. It’s easy to lower the flag of your former colonizer and hoist your own. It is easy to play your national anthem instead of your old ruler’s.  But real independence is being able to think with your own mind and feel with your own heart, see with your own eyes, and not the mind, heart and eyes of others.

It doesn’t mean we should retreat into shells like limpets clinging to the rocks with their backs to the world. Independence today requires a prudent and sensible interdependence.

No island and no country can cut itself off from the world, let alone us who survive and thrive in direct proportion to how well we develop our links with the rest of the world. We can love our country without hating other countries. We can have the kind of national sentiment and love of our country that is inclusive, that doesn’t turn in on itself and feel besieged by the rest of the world.

The kind of nationalism where we withdraw into ourselves and think we are the best in the world also does a lot of harm. It does as much damage as if we think we are inferior to others. In a small pond. even a small fish may think it is a whale.

Neither should we feel like Gulliver in Lilliput: a giant amongst little people.

But nor should we feel like Gulliver in Brobdignag; a little man in the midst of giants six floors high, mice as big as big dogs and flies as big as turtle doves.

The nationalism of a big country crushes the nationalism of small ones.

The true nationalism of a small country tries not to let bigger countries crush it.

 

Towards a common national narrative

In the Human Development Index (HDI) for 2022, Malta is ranked 27 out of 189 countries. We are in the fourth place in the world with countries with our population size or smaller: after Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg. In the world ranking we are just below France and above other EU member states like Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.

The HDI is compiled by the United Nations and used to measure “a country's average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living." A country is ranked according to how it performs in indicators such as “life expectancy, literacy rate, rural populations' access to electricity, GDP per capita, exports and imports, homicide rate, multidimensional poverty index, income inequality, internet availability, and many more.” HDI is divided into four tiers: very high human development (0.8-1.0), high human development (0.7-0.79), medium human development (0.55-.70), and low human development (below 0.55).

With a score of .895 Malta is ranked with the most developed countries with stable governments, widespread education, healthcare, high life expectancies, and growing, powerful economies. The first time the HDI was compiled in 1990, Malta was in the second tier and it took us 11 years to move upwards to the first tier in 2001. For the last 21 years Malta has been classified as a developed country which is sovereign, has a mature economy and technologically advanced infrastructure compared to other nations, enjoys political stability, provides social welfare programs and guarantees civil rights to its citizens.

We should all be proud of this achievement: the political parties who have formed successive governments, the public institutions and services, the business companies and organizations, the trade unions and civil society. There is still a lot to do. After all a country is a work in progress. We have serious shortcomings to overcome, but we have a come a long way in the last 58 years. We should develop a national narrative to celebrate this where we recognise the contribution that the whole country has given to our political, social and economic progress.

Our political discourse is still very divisive and confrontational. We often stress where we disagree, and we articulate our respective positions as if we disagree on every issue. We will continue to mature as a people not only where we manage to agree for the common good, but when we develop a national narrative which is stronger than our two partisan parallel narratives and are not afraid to assert where we converge as one country.

In ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ Sigmund Freud argues that “the smaller the real differences between two peoples, the larger it is bound to loom in their imagination”, a phenomenon he called the 'narcissism of small differences'. Freud says: "… it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other—Germans and South Germans, the English and the Scotch, and so on.” To these we can add Labourites and Nationalists living side by side on these small islands, using aggression towards each other to build internal cohesion.

Freud’s concept helps us to understand how in our small island we tend to stress where we disagree rather than when we agree amongst ourselves as a people. We have built parallel narratives making sure not to make them converge as if agreeing with each other is a sign of weakness, if not betrayal.

The more similar we are, the more different we project ourselves to be. Yet, in actual fact, we do agree a lot, and fundamentally, on very important issues.

We should acknowledge each other’s contribution and that of every sector of our population in making our country a viable nation state with a high quality of life. This will help us prepare ourselves better for the tough challenges that lie ahead where we have to reinvent ourselves in the new realities brought about by the pandemic, the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine.