The two Maltas illusion - Ranier Fsadni

A recent BBC radio programme addressed Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination and what it reveals about Malta. In that hushed observer’s voice usually associated with wildlife programming (“now, we can see the cheetah watching the zebra”), the presenter told the World Service listeners about “the two Maltas” all around him.

We shouldn’t blame Tim Whewell. He had plenty of interviewees to shore up that view. One told him that, essentially, Caruana Galizia’s mourners upheld British values of rule of law, while Joseph Muscat’s electoral victory in June was owed to the masses with a ‘Mediterranean mentality’ (as though there’s only one). One of Muscat’s supporters described Malta as divided between circa 5,000 snobs and the rest.

Once Whewell had his theory, he ran with it. In introducing an interview with a local Labour politician from Gudja, he remarked how in Malta even local feasts are polarised. The implication was clear: the two Maltas had parallels at local community level, and they ran deep back in time.

That remark should make the rest of us pause. It’s laughable to suggest that public disagreements about Caruana Galizia’s murder has anything remotely to do with divisions...