Malta: steeped in a rich history of heroism and tragedy

This piece is not going to be a travelogue that recounts descriptions of landscapes and culture. Instead, it will be political and based on encounters with people who interested me when I visited mainly Malta, the small southern European country of just over half a million people, which has had a fascination for me since my political awakening at school in the early 1970s and activism of the next decade.

It has taken me more than four decades to this spring to finally visit the Mediterranean island. In the early 1980s, I remember a Brixton based fellow Labour Party Black Sections activist named Clive had a Maltese wife. Prior to that, I had heard about the charismatic socialist and nationalist Dominic "Dom" Mintoff on the international stage when he was leader of Malta from 1971 to 1984. Mintoff was the Oxford University educated son of a father who was a local Maltese cook for the occupying British Navy.

Mintoff had been leader of the Partit Laburista (Labour Party) from 1949 to 1984, and from 1955 to 1958 was the eighth Prime Minister, when Malta was still a British colony, and again from 1971 to 1984. It has a history of being ruled since the beginning of time by Arabs, Greeks, Italians, French, Spanish and, for 150 years until independence in 1964, by the British colonisers. But it took a further 15 years before the British were forced to leave their military base on the strategically located Mediterranean island and ensure the Maltese had true self-determination. During the Second World War, Malta was the headquarters of Britain's Mediterranean naval fleet, of which more later.

Mintoff's tenure as Prime Minister saw the creation of a comprehensive welfare state, nationalisation of large corporations, a substantial increase in the general standard of living and the establishment of the Maltese republic, but was later on marred by a stagnant economy, a rise in authoritarianism and outbreaks of political violence.

Malta is located between Italy's island of Sicily and Tunisia, North Africa. Its capital Valletta, is the smallest capital city in the European Union by both area and population.

Tourism contributes around 11.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Malta is a popular tourist destination, with 1.6 million of them a year, many British, choosing it instead of the mainly favoured warm European destination for them of Spain. That's three times more tourists visiting than there are residents. In 2019, Malta had a record year in tourism, with more than 2.1 million tourists that year. Apart from the weather and cheaper than British prices, the fact that the majority of the population speak English is a big draw.

A succession of powers have ruled the country's inhabited archipelago islands of Malta, and smaller Gozo and Comino, and shaped its culture and society. These include the Phoenicians, city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon,  Greeks, and Romans in antiquity; the Arabs, French Normans and Spanish Aragonese during the Middle Ages; and the Knights Hospitaller, part of the Italy-based Holy Roman Empire, the French, and British in the modern era.

Malta was besieged by German allies, including Italy, during World War II and was an important Allied base for North Africa and the Mediterranean. The siege of the country in World War II was a military campaign in the Mediterranean theatre. From June 1940 to November 1942, the fight for the control of the strategically important island of the British Crown Colony of Malta pitted the air and naval forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany against the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

The opening of a new front in North Africa in June 1940 increased Malta's already considerable value. The Axis resolved to bomb or starve Malta into submission, to soften it up for invasion, by attacking its ports, towns, cities, and Allied shipping supplying the island. Malta was one of the most intensively bombed areas during the war. The German Luftwaffe and Italian Regia Aeronautica flew a total of 3,000 bombing raids over two years, dropping 6,700 tons of bombs on the Grand Harbour area alone.

Their success would have allowed a combined German–Italian amphibious landing (Operation Herkules) supported by German airborne forces (Fallschirmjäger) but this did not happen. In the densely populated island, 5,524 private dwellings were destroyed, 9,925 were damaged but repairable and 14,225 damaged by bomb blast. In addition 111 churches, 50 hospitals, institutions or colleges, 36 theatres, clubs, government offices, banks, factories, flour mills and other commercial buildings suffered destruction or damage, a total of 30,000 buildings in all. 

Allied convoys were able to supply and reinforce Malta, while the RAF defended its airspace, though at great cost in lives and buildings. There were 2,301 airmen killed or wounded and 1,300 civilians also perished.

Malta established its current parliamentary republic in 1974 when it ended having the United Kingdom monarch as its head of state but it remained a member of the British Commonwealth. Malta has close historical and cultural ties to Italy and especially neighbouring Sicily; between 62 and 66 percent of Maltese people speak or have significant knowledge of the Italian language. The economy is dependent on foreign trade, serving as a freight trans-shipment point, manufacturing, especially electronics and textiles, and tourism.

Malta's Partit Laburista, a centre-left social democratic party, has been the governing party since 2013 and is currently led by Prime Minister Robert Abela, who has been in office since 13 January 2020.

Unfortunately, corruption, money laundering, and government maladministration in Malta have significantly increased since the Labour Party returned to power. In fact, Malta's record of clean governance has decreased since 2013, and the country is now considered among one of the worst EU member states in tackling corruption according to Transparency International. The same association noted that Malta dropped to its lowest ever ranking of 65th place in a report published in February 2025.

Internationally-known Maltese writer, journalist, blogger Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bombing in 2017 after spending years exposing government corruption. Her assassination, aged 53, sparked worldwide outrage. Click on this link to read more.

The government offers overseas movie maker generous financial concessions so, as a result, film production has contributed to the Maltese economy. Several popular movies have ben shot on the island, including Midnight Express, Popeye, Gladiator, Game of Thrones and The Count of Monte Cristo.

On my open top bus tour of the north of the country I saw Salina national park where there is a sea water desalination plant that turns salty sea water into the drinkable kind. The pools of water there are separated by levies, (pictured below).

The recorded English language woman commentator on the tour I hear through headphones says that in parts of Malta “progress is regress” referring to the modern buildings around the Carmelite church at Beluga. She bemoans the fact that not many oak trees planted by the British colonisers are left. And what's left of the Spiteri Italian admiral's palace, in the centre of town, is now "unfortunately" surrounded by modern commercial buildings.

The name of one place, Sliema, we visited translated from the Maltese word meaning "peace". There’s a town named Pembroke by the British and twinned with a place of the same name in Wales. Other Maltese town named after St Paul, the country's patron saint, and the English, Ireland and Scotland patron saints of St George, St Patrick and St Andrew.

Alan, in his 50s and from Norwich, said he'd been travelling to Malta on holiday for eight year. He said he can get a cheap direct Ryanair flight. "People speak English and it's warmer than Norwich." Linda, an Australian in her mid-20s, said: "We're all foreigners here. Well, mostly." Talking about the teenaged Maltese that flock to the popular bars and clubs in the bustling by evening Pacoville area of St Julian's, Albanian waiter, Petro, said: "They drink before they come out. If we're lucky they'll buy a round of shots for 15 Euros and that's all they'll drink all night."

Paolo, a chatty bandana and shades-wearing driver of a buggy-type vehicle that takes you on a 30-minute tour of Valletta for £17, bemoaned the demise of "(Dom) Mintoff the 1970s socialist prime minister of Malta. "He was the best leader in the world but the people of Malta didn't appreciate it. The ones governing the country today are corrupt. They're not for the people."

He is contradicted somewhat by Malta's relatively high standard of living, prosperity, cleanliness and efficiency. Though its reliance on low paid migrant workers in sectors of the economy, including hospitality and transport, is concerning. I met them from Slovakia, Colombia, Tunisia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Italy, Grenada, Senegal, Albania, Slovenia and Kenya.

An American marines lieutenant colonel I met on an open top hop on hop off tourist bus remarked on how British the place was, which he and his wife liked.

I went on a speedy catamaran boat trip to Sicily that took an hour and 45 minutes from Valletta to Pozzallo. In Sicily for the day, the feisty coach tour guide, Laurie, had a tattoo on an ankle that looked hand-drawn. She said she was from New York, in the US. But her accent was strangely Americo-Italian. She annoyingly kept saying, every other sentence, "you will be able to" rather than can. In her job for the last 16 years, she displayed an encyclopaedic knowledge of Sicily's flora and agriculture. We learnt the island was conquered by Arabs, Greeks and...Not during the whole day did she mention the mafia or cosa nostra. Perhaps because we were in the south of the island not famed for them and they were alleged to have been in the west and the capital, Palermo, in the north.

A barman from Rome said he thought they no longer existed. But, if they did, they were the current elected government of "fascist" prime minister Giorgia Meloni.