When push turns to shove, Malta's parochial identity with its close kinship to the Roman Catholic church, will yield to a more inclusive sense of being a constituent part of mother Europe. There can be no other option for Malta's long term prosperity and security as it enters the second millennium, in spite of political maneuvering between the two rival leading parties.
Malta's surprising freeze on its application for EU membership stems in part from an inferiority complex, a consequence of victimization suffered under repressive colonialism. As a vassal of empire it was held slave by another nation, with whom it shared little in common with respect to imperial grandiosity and stupefying class and racial arrogance. Malta's unfortunate past as an unwilling pawn has left a legacy of an indelible pain, which yet haunts the collective consciousness of its proud and stubborn people. Once again a sense of fear and suspicion prevail at the national level, against trading off its hard won freedom as an independent nation to a larger far more powerful entity. This feeling of impotency, learned from bitter experience of having become embroiled in a world war not of its own making, transcends into an inordinate phobia of losing one's identity as a sovereign country.
Self-isolation and exclusion are no answers to Malta's difficult struggle to maintain a measure of control over its own fate. The delaying measure now in vogue, serves only to prolongate an obvious and inevitable conclusion. Malta is not a stepchild of Europe, but an integral part of it. It has been thus since antiquity, when geopolitical boundaries were drawn separating Europe from Asia and Africa. No juggling of contemporary political expediencies between the MLP and MNP platforms will ever alter Malta's immutable European identity. Party posturing poses a real threat, in that Malta's eventual membership may be predicated on less favorable terms than now offered.
The world is rapidly changing to accommodate huge geographic blocks based mainly on trade and economics. The selfish interest of individual nations is no longer the pivotal criteria upon which global decisions are predicated. Alone and cast adrift, no nation large or small can survive on its own. Malta would do well to keep this harsh reality in mind. The island's unprecedented economic prosperity brought with it a sense of euphoria, a feeling of invincibility, proof what a people can accomplish once freed of foreign occupation and meddling in their internal affairs. Success also brought with it a false sense of security, an exaggerated conviction of self reliance. While Malta prospered, larger external political events evolved which transformed a divided European continent into a united federation. Malta's choice to delay its application for EU membership, in order to safeguard its unique institutions and character is based on short term selfish gains, and will come back to haunt it. Better to belong within the EU as an associate member, with some voting restrictions due to its small size, than remain an outcast competing for leftover handouts. A similar arrangement between the U.S.A and Puerto Rico might serve as a good role model.
Malta without Europe will not survive, at least not in a manner befitting its comfortable European lifestyle. Malta is simply too tiny a country to compete on its own strength and merits against European mega corporate or trade consolidations, unless it is content with becoming another third world nation in the midst of a prosperous Europe, to be exploited as a source of cheap labor. The prospect of continuing on as a sovereign independent country is an illusion Malta can ill afford. In truth, the changing demographics of an expansionist EU has already robbed Malta of this romanticist option. EU unification may be delayed, but not stopped. The inevitable course of history cannot be reversed. Today's glimmer of pride in a free Malta will tarnish tomorrow's prospects for a brighter future, when Malta finds itself isolated in the Mediterranean region, forced to again look towards the less accommodating Eastern and Southern neighbors for survival.
Surely Malta will rise to the challenge as it has throughout its long and glorious history. What counts are not the self-serving platforms of the MLP and MNP, but the determination of the Maltese to do what is right for the country and the future of their children.
E-mail to Joseph Vella: vellajoseph@msn.net
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