Freedom

Malta has more than its fair share of public holidays.  Some are religious, in common with other Roman Catholic countries:  Christmas and Good Friday; the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, Saint Joseph, and the Assumption of Mary.  There’s also a local religious public holiday, the Feast of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, when believers celebrate the introduction of Christianity to Malta following Paul’s shipwreck in the north of the island during his voyage to Rome.

Other public holidays have more political roots.  Victory Day celebrates the breaking of the Great Siege of 1565. On 7 June, Sette Giugno, Malta remembers the four men killed by British forces during the bread riots of 1919.  Three further days celebrate the gradual loosening of British colonial power:  the achievement of independence on 21 September, 1964; the political transition from constitutional monarchy to republic on 13 December, 1974; and the final withdrawal of British troops and the Royal Navy from Malta on 31 March, 1979. 

The complete departure of the British meant that for the first time in over one thousand years Malta was not the military base of a foreign power. This is celebrated on Freedom Day at the War Memorial in Floriana, and in Birgu at the Freedom Monument.  The monument stands between the waterfront and the Church of St. Lawrence, at the archway that the British built to mark the entrance into their Royal Naval base.  It is the site where the British Union Flag was lowered for the final time on 31 March 1979, and replaced with the Maltese flag. At the top of the pathway to the flag-pole on the monument are four bronze figures that represent the peaceful handover of the Naval base to Maltese control.

The morning of Freedom Day is typically a time for pomp and ceremony, with Maltese troops and a marching band in full dress uniform, and a visit to the monument by both the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic.  In the afternoon the Grand Harbour sees a display of Maltese strength on the water:  the Freedom Day regatta, in which rowers from the Cottonera and other coastal cities compete.  The regatta is a tradition originally introduced by the Knights as part of the Victory Day celebrations, but since 1979 it has become a bi-annual event. 

Today is Freedom Day.  I doubt that any of the activities I’ve described have taken place this year, although of course I didn’t go to look.  Like my neighbours, I am staying home, staying safe.  When I do go outside for some fresh air, I see that Birgu has become like a ghost town.  In an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus, we have voluntarily given up our freedom.  We really are all in this together.

Which got me thinking.  Victory Day, Freedom Day and the rest, they all mark the end of something that involved the exercise of power by one group of people against another, be that foreign aggression, colonisation, or military occupation.  But the virus is different.  It is a social equalizer.  It may have invaded our small island nation, but none of the superpowers have any particular power to stop it either.  No amount of wealth has prevented the spread of infection to the countries that make up the G8 or the G20.  Individuals revered as somehow superior to the rest of us, like Charles, Prince of Wales, are just as susceptible to infection as people lower down the social ladder, although they are still more likely to be tested and treated quickly. Still, there’s something very leveling about this global lockdown.

One day we will be free of the pandemic, and when we are, let us have a new Freedom Day.  An international day of celebration, when we remember some of the positives of the difficult days of isolation.  Days when communities tried to come together to look out for each other, and to pay respect to those often taken for granted.  Days when we began to think more of the importance of so-called ‘unskilled’ workers like shop-keepers, hospital cleaners and rubbish collectors. Days when the circumstances of your birth didn’t entirely protect you from the difficulties of ordinary life.  Days when many neo-liberal governments began to consider more socially conscious economic policies, putting the value of individuals’ lives before capitalism and greed.

For the majority of the world’s population, life before corona was not a life of freedom.  The exercise of power by the many against the few was everywhere.  But the virus doesn’t recognise the artificial structures that allow some people to wield power over others.  We’re back to nature now, and in nature there’s far less inequality.

When we eventually gain our freedom from the lockdown, let’s remember this, and vow not to go back to a global society in which people are denied their freedom as they were before the virus.  We can be better than that.