The Great Pork Sandwich Intifada

Honestly, though. Who would have ever guessed there was such a deeply embedded link between patriotic sentiment in Malta, and… pork sandwiches?

Sounds absurd, I know. For other nations, the equivalent image might be a great warrior or hero from the pages of history: William Wallace, perhaps, or George Washington, or Garibaldi (the man, not the biscuit) or Genghis Khan. And the source of their patriotism might be some epochal victory on the field of battle, when the land they love so passionately finally became a ‘patria’ after centuries of armed struggle.

For us? Oh, just a few pieces of pork-belly thrust between two slices of Maltese bread will do nicely, thank you very much. And some tomato ‘sos’ while you’re at it, too. Oh, and can I have some fries to go with that? Thanks... 

That’s some patriotic sentiment, you know. Why, I’m suddenly so proud to be Maltese I might just organise a good old ‘majjalata’ with a few fellow patriots. We’ll wash the pork down with some Farsons beer, and sing along to Freddie Portelli’s ‘Viva Malta’: “Ghal din il-gzira naghmlu kollox…” Sure, Freddie, we’ll do absolutely anything for this island. Especially if it involves stuffing our faces with fatty foods, and literally ‘pigging out’…

This might also explain the curious statistical coincidence whereby (judging by the video) the average Maltese ‘revolutionary hero’ currently weighs a minimum of around 200 kilos. Of course their black T-shirts are only available in XXXL. Just think of all the pork and bread you’d have to stuff your face with, before proving yourself worthy to actually wear one... 

But it takes a certain flair, I must admit, to organise a barbecue where other countries might take to the streets armed with scythes and pitchforks, and maybe set fire to a few police cars here and there. Our methods of national insurgency are so much more… civilised. 

Let other, less developed nations storm their seats of government, and affix their political leaders’ heads to the battlements, and all that. Here, we prefer to set up open-air carveries, and hand out bits and pieces of a slaughtered pig while brandishing a bloodied meat-cleaver.

Hmmm. OK, I suspect the Maltese pork-eating patriots don’t see the irony in this one either, so I may as well spell it out for them (it’s the least I could do, after they so generously fed me enough for the entire year last Friday). The last time people were heard complaining about the ‘public dismemberment of domestic animals in urban neighbourhoods’… it was themselves, in protest at the Muslim tradition of slaughtering a sheep during Ramadan.

Sheep, pig, pig, sheep… slaughtered as a religious ritual, slaughtered as a protest against other people’s religious rituals… any patriot care to actually explain the difference? Oh wait, let me guess: one is ‘halal’, and the other ‘haram’. It just depends whether you prefer mutton or pork in your doner, that’s all…

Nor is this the only area where the distinction between ‘protesters’ and ‘protested’ starts looking like the humans and the pigs at the end of Animal Farm. Tell you what: let’s try and digest the logic along with the pork, and see where it all takes us. 

The reason why Maltese patriots felt compelled to partake in a public sucking pig banquet last week, is that they object to a large number of Muslims praying where they can actually see them.

They have no objection to these people praying in principle, mind you… just not in their line of vision, that’s all. And they’ve even suggested alternative venues that are conveniently invisible to themselves: like the only official mosque in the entire country… which is somehow expected to cater for the needs of a Muslim population that has more than quadrupled in the past two decades alone.

Doing rounds on the Internet at the moment is an aerial photograph of this mosque in Paola. There are arrows pointing towards the vacant grounds on either side of the building. More than enough room, the caption (roughly) reads, for 1,000 Muslims to pray together, without ruining the view for everyone else.

So why do they insist on praying in front of the Msida church? They don’t need to. So they shouldn’t. Now have a pork sandwich, and shut up…

OK, let us for a moment close an eye at the glaring non-sequitur staring us in the face. What Maltese Muslims ‘need’ is hardly the issue here; it’s their freedom to exercise human rights that is at steak… I mean, stake. Like Maltese Catholics (or any other religion/denomination), Muslims enjoy both freedom of worship and the right to peaceful public assembly. They are quite frankly free to pray wherever they like, and so is everyone else: including the patriots themselves.

But let’s ignore all that, and apply the same logic to Catholicism. How much space do Maltese Catholics have to worship, and how does it match with their actual needs?

For starters, there doesn’t seem to be any clear consensus on how many places of worship there actually are for Catholics in Malta. Tradition has it that there is ‘one church for every day of the year’: which would make it 365 and three quarters (which sounds reasonable, considering there’s bound to be one under construction somewhere). But that doesn’t include roadside chapels, private chapels, chapels housed in schools, hospitals, homes for the elderly, etc. And it certainly doesn’t include the village streets and squares that also double up as venues for religious festivities: processions, band marches, fireworks displays, the lot.

Now: how many church-going Catholics are there in Malta? Again, there is no clear-cut answer. Foreign newspapers tend to talk of a “90% Catholic population” – but that’s only a reflection of how many people were baptised in the Catholic faith. The “90%” also includes lapsed Catholics, and – ironically – Catholics who have converted to Islam. Even at face value, the figure may have to be revised: it dates back to a time before some 35,000 residency permits were issued to foreigners, many of them Muslim, by Identity Malta.

The Church itself estimates that only 51% of the 90% actually attend Mass on Sundays; and here, too, the rate seems to be declining by roughly 1% a year.

Using the patriots’ logic, “365 and three-quarters” suddenly seems an awful lot of churches. How many people can each take at maximum capacity? I’ve been to weddings and funeral services attended by over 1,000. Effectively, you could fit the entire population of Malta in the sum total of its churches; with plenty of chapels and other facilities to accommodate the spill-over.

That’s at least twice as much worship space as we actually need. So, sticking to the patriots’ logic, roughly half Malta’s churches should theoretically have to be demolished. If Muslims must limit themselves only to the precise space that can accommodate their numbers… why should it be any different for Catholics? What’s sauce for the hog must surely be sauce for the gammon...

But in any case: it would perhaps have been too much to expect both a logical argument and also very tasty mid-afternoon snack from the same source. Besides: the ‘Great Pork Sandwich Intifada’ we all witnessed in Msida this week – when the patriotic crowd rose to its feet, and cried: “VIVA MALTA! Do you want mustard or ketchup with your kebab?”, etc. – was not exactly the first time a popular protest was expressed through the unique iconography of sausage rolls and ‘bziezen bil-perzut’. 

Back in the days when the Portomaso Hilton project was still under construction (around mid-1990s), a group of intrepid environmentalists – including, as I recall, the late Julian Manduca – had staged a hunger strike outside Castille. Hilton employees responded by pelting them with ham and tuna rolls, bought for that purpose from the Gabbana by City Gate: “Here, hungry? Have a bite of this…” 

So thoughtful and selfless of them, I remember thinking at the time. Worrying about the malnutrition of their adversaries, while their own employment may have been hanging in the balance…

Nor was that the only example. The famous uprising of June 7, 1919… which some historians liken to our own version of the storming of the Bastille… was likewise related (literally) to bread-and-butter issues. Yes, yes, there may indeed have been a seminal meeting of the Maltese National Assembly going on in the background, and the event itself may have paved the way to self-government in 1921… but scratch beneath the surface, and what do you find?

Sandwiches, yet again. By 1919, the cost of importing flour – and hence, making bread – had skyrocketed in line with increasing naval insurance premiums, largely owing to unexploded mines after World War I. A single loaf of bread had trebled in price that year alone… and the Colonial government refused to introduce a bread subsidy. 

Can you imagine the effect of all this on the price of an ordinary pork breadroll? No wonder the Maltese would revolt in an attempt to overthrow their Colonial rulers, and even get themselves killed in the process. They had been left with literally nothing to throw at each other...

So make no mistake. For better or worse, our identity as a Maltese nation is inextricably linked with bread and ham. It’s only a matter of time before someone suggests replacing the George Cross on the flag with a pair of intersecting pork delhis; and while we’re at it, we can always the change the first line of our national anthem to: “Lil Dil-Majjalata”. 

Not only does it scan perfectly, but – unlike the original – it is also demonstrably true. 

Right, that’s it. Now I’m off to Msida to stock up on pork for the winter, before the Malta Patriotic Free Subway Diner closes…