Historically, for most of history, the greatest risk and challenge for the Maltese people was survival and avoiding ethnic cleansing. This challenged abated some time after Malta’s occupation by the Knights of Saint John, who turned Malta into a highly economic active and deadly maritime outpost. The Maltese population grew from around 30,000 people to 100,000 people throughout the time of the Knights from 1530 to 1798, even after having faced multiple invasions by the Ottomans.
Prior to 1530, without the protection of the Knights of Saint John, the risk of getting ethnically cleansed was even much higher with Muslim corsairs often wreaking havoc on the Islands with once even abducting the islands’ archbishop. The population of the Maltese islands was last ethnically cleansed in the 9th century.
Fast forward to today, unless the Labour Party turns Malta into an illiberal one-party state, it will leave behind a legacy of what is likely the lowest birth rate in Malta’s recorded history. This is the Labour Party’s greatest irony to its steadfast and orthodox upholding of Malta’s constitutional neutrality. The origins of Malta’s constitutional neutrality are complex and multi-faceted, and it is also the result of a long historical, political and meditative process that balanced between sovereignty and economic development. Neutrality is not a fundamental principle that has historically guaranteed the nation’s existence: it’s actually a very recent phenomenon. For the largest part of its history, Malta’s population growth happened under the occupation and protection of a foreign power or entity.
Neutrality in Malta’s foreign relations was introduced as a prerequisite for non-alignment, and non-alignment was pursued in the interest of sovereignty with economic development. The Labour Party chose full sovereignty and independence over integration with Britain after 1959, and non-alignment was pursued because it provided Malta with the maximum monetary value possible out of foreign relations. An assessment of today’s constitutional neutrality would have to show whether today’s neutrality is enabling Malta’s security, sovereignty, and economic growth.
As a non-aligned nation, Malta sought to remain neutral and nuclear-free but the reality on the ground was that the Maltese government still made use of Libya as its security guarantee against the West. In turn, Prime Minister Dom Mintoff used to turn to the British as a security guarantee against Libya, regularly playing both sides so as to extract the maximum value out of both relations. This situation was possible in Malta’s particular context of that time during the Cold War. Neutrality and non-alignment should not be seen as simply principled and moral ideals sought by a particular socialist ideology of that time, but should also be seen in the context of double-digit growth rates with subdued inflation during a time when the oil crisis had crashed Western economies and wrought havoc with inflation. The calibration of foreign policy back then was relevant to ongoing international and economic developments.
Today, those in the Labour Party who are most vocal about neutrality are the ones taking pro-Russian positions, ignoring Malta’s national security, and disregarding European security: like Alex Agius Saliba. This is because these individuals do not have a proper reading of history. They want to live in denial, and in their little bubble while everything around them is changing against them and their wishes. They think that neutrality is a divine concept that will absolutely guarantee our security and our existence.
In practice, the Labour Party is even in denial about Malta’s security. Malta has informal security guarantees from Italy and makes regular use of the French defence and intelligence apparatus on national security matters, especially on terrorism. Malta is effectively already in a defence alliance with France and Italy and we are so privileged that we do not need to give the same guarantees. Europe considers us too small and vulnerable to effectively contribute to anything in Europe related to defence and actual fighting capabilities. This is another reason why Malta should be careful about dismissing Europe to enthusiastically seek a Trump dividend.
This point is crucial to understand Malta’s security risks. If Malta is considered as too vulnerable and small to provide any effective combat activities, that also means that without a security guarantee from either Italy or France, we are vulnerable to attack and, in an extreme event, potentially ethnic-cleansing.
Today, our existence is not threatened by security risks, but by a broken economic model and a divided society that is presided by an ever more authoritarian government. Labour’s adventures in organised crime and reckless economic and development policy, are turning the Maltese against each and away from their home country. This is the legacy that future Labour Party historians have to contend with. The fundamental problem seem to be yet again the same. The Labour Party is busier covering up for criminal politicians and abuse of power instead of actively working for the betterment and the development of the nation.
There was a time during Silvio Berlusconi’s Premiership of Italy, when a criminal government seemed harmless and even fun. The Labour Party has fully adopted Berlusconi’s style of politics: attacking the judiciary, covering up for organised crime, and turning the economy into a cheap labour market that is dependent on Chinese goods. The youth seems to be broke, childless and lacking national pride. What’s the government doing about this?
You can’t successfully pretend to be overtly-concerned about your country’s existence via neutrality, when at the same time you ignore all your actions that are leading to the nation’s actual non-existence. These matters are related. They are related because the old way of international politics has changed and this also requires a calibration of national politics. Many European countries seem to understand the incoming strategic challenges: Germany is set to spend up to €500 billion in infrastructure along with limitless defence spending. On the other hand, the Prime Minister is still deluding himself that the right choice for Malta is to continue “investing in diplomacy” whatever that means.
In reality we know what it means. It means the government will keep ignoring new realities and will consistently shit-talk its way out of every problem, including collapsing birth-rates and national security.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply