Charles Xuereb: How our monuments misrepresent national identity

A monument, a word derived from the Latin monumentum, meaning a memorial adorned by an epitaph, is born out of death. It materializes the absence by creating a meaningful visual. It exhorts the living to acknowledge and accept that which is no more, supporting memory and offering an invitation to share a common future.

This apt definition by Odon Vallet does not rule out the collective, often national, monument which a city or country erects to mark dates and places associated with heroes or public achievements, often remembering a protagonist or protagonists whose life impinged on identity. Examples of the former type abound in war cenotaphs while that of the latter, normally fewer in number, range from megalithic ruins to independence or freedom memorials.

Well-known ideologist Régis Debray, who believes monuments emerge with the conscience of history, categorizes memorials under three headings: message, form and trace. All three mobilize different qualities of respect and affection: the aesthetic pleasure of a spectator is not the same as the historical interest of the visitor or of the civic morality of the participant.

Examples from Paris include the Bastille column as a message-monument, the glass Pyramid at the Louvre as a form-monument and Victor Hugo’s residence at Place des Vosges as a trace-monument; often the latter is appreciated less for its aesthetics and more for its connected historical utility.

If one were to apply these categories to Valletta’s monumental sites one could easily pick Piano’s bastion-like entrance for its form, Ball’s Lower Barrakka mausoleum for its message and St John’s Co-Cathedral for its trace of history.

World-wide in our times the form variety seems to be gaining popularity: it is an opportunity for modern societies to produce what is contemporary, give a particular character to the place and attract tourists seeking architectural novel oeuvres. None of the three Valletta sites mentioned above however could really and truly reclaim Maltese ownership.

The first monument in Valletta to a former President sharing a prime public space with Malta’s foremost collective identity monument

Malteseness in Valletta

After 50 years of independence, if one were to stroll around our capital city one would hardly find strong notions of Malteseness. Given our past association with foreigners it comes as no surprise that Valletta itself is a monument to its French founder La Valette as is the inestimable treasure of St John’s commissioned by another French grandmaster, La Cassière. The different Langues of the Order left their respective national marks in auberges they built; some still stand, namely those of Italy, Spain, Bavaria and Provence.

Architecturally only two buildings in the capital survive from the British era: the Royal Opera House, recently joining our megalithic temples as a site of ruins, and St Paul’s, religiously dwarfed by the aggrandized dome of the Carmelites Church. As if to correct this imbalance, however, the British managed to fill Valletta’s bastion gardens with sepulchral memorials for servicemen and officials. Their colonialist authoritative presence was further boosted through the anointment of most landmarks around the Palace with large royal insignias cast in stone.

Above all the defunct British Empire still beckons with the 19th century symbolic figure of Queen Victoria, enthroned right in the heart of this island’s republican square. Since independence the Maltese only seem to have crept in quite unobtrusively in the capital through a set of unelaborated busts and statues of past prime ministers concentrated around Castille. Lord Strickland is the only one enjoying a memorial in the Upper Barrakka.

This inscription at the Upper Barrakka Gardens commemorates the Queen (of where?)’s last visit to Malta in 2007. Why does the plaque speak of the diamond jubilee instead of the visit? After 50 years of independence inviting the future sovereign of the ex-colonialists constitutes continuation?

Respect to national memory

To date presidential monuments did not adorn Valletta; a post-independence tradition opted to return their affective memories to their original constituency neighbourhoods. This month however registered the first exception: a former President’s statue made it to one of the top places of exposure in Republic Street, sharing this prime public space with a historical monument that is considered to be the strongest in embodying collective identity (by St John’s side there is also the bust of Pius V associated with the founding plans of the city).

This is markedly a significant departure from the norm and one wonders – with all due respect to President de Marco, who deserves to be remembered on a national scale – if any ‘protocol’ was observed with respect to the people’s national memory.

Is the placing of this statue for a non-prime minister in the capital – now also creating a precedent – to be categorized as a message or trace monument? De Marco’s presence in front of the courts makes one assume that it was placed there for an emotional exchange with the spectator regarding his association with justice. But his long contribution as a lawyer and minister of justice had been superseded by other parameters once he became president.

After 50 years of independence with the young nation-state still missing a proper monument to national memory that links together social bonds at the heart of its own capital, a general impression has been formed: monuments are removed from prime sites (Sette Giugno and Dun Mikiel Xerri went to Hastings in 2009), erected in the wrong place (La Valette in a small square behind the Teatru ruins without a decent epitaph in 2012) and introduced in core city areas with little or no socio-cultural planning. In her investigation on identity and place making in re-unified Berlin Luise Heidenrejch encourages politicians and architects to show sensitive, future-oriented interactions with the city and its inhabitants before taking such decisions.

Props for social cohesion

Creating citizens in a new state has never been easy but colonies normally face stiffer challenges. After years of indoctrination about their masters’ ‘superior’ history, it takes time for authorities to push one’s own ‘humbler’ national story to the front of education, the media and the public sphere, the latter considered to be the virtuous place of citizenship.

Erecting statues of prominent personalities in the hub of the capital, in other words using communal props to remember collectively and selectively experiences in the hope of achieving social cohesion through memory, should ideally be approached with a sense of long-term planning and careful attention. Each monument’s relation – in importance, space, size and location – to other monuments, especially in a small place like Malta’s capital, should be given much serious thought.

Honouring public protagonists soon after their demise as a rule appears to be a laudable gesture, but without allowing an adequate lapse of time to put into proper perspective the contribution that the distinguished deceased gave to his or her country, one could risk repeating what happened with the George Cross on the flag. Besides it may also risk, without deeper investigation, the overlooking of other monuments that could be blocking memory.

An overhaul revision of Valletta’s monumental landscape – not only from an aesthetic point of view and/or political exigency – should start a healthy reassessment to determine which non-Maltese monuments could perhaps move to more suited areas or locations outside the city. Given the historical context of the memorial, such action may in the long run benefit the remembrance of the person concerned. It could certainly help local generations get rid of a possible ‘historical malady’ that usually perverts the social relationship between experience and expectation.

If one were to promote, say the Upper Barrakka, as a Maltese Pantheon – the Mall in Floriana already seems to enjoy this status – then spaces could be created after certain monuments with little or no significant relation to our history (the column in front of the Upper Barrakka lift comes to mind), move to more appropriate locations like military cemeteries in Floriana or Pietà. The regained prime space can then be used for more deserving notions with better possibilities of national import.

The missing collective monument

Having gained independence after decades of political, cultural and economic upheavals Valletta would be rendering its citizenry on these Islands a much needed boost to identity if it were to erect a collective patriotic monument in homage to our generational path to self-reliance and maturity as a nation-state without having to be anti-any foreigner.

The new work of art would be executed in a modern idiom compatible with its surroundings (not necessarily Austin Camilleri’s beautiful three-legged horse), ideally carrying an epitaph to relay the message it purports. This ‘national monument’, mirroring seven thousand years of history need not be pedantic or outlandish.

It could easily be placed on St George’s Square, which would then ideally be renamed Pjazza Malta, or in Republic Square instead of the empirical remnant. In the latter option the fine-looking statue of the queen could then join other monuments in Hastings Gardens, which could be designated to cover the British era.

Cultural empowerment

Building a new Maltese identity after independence does not only depend on economics; identity and memory feed each other with historical commemorations that over a period of time, are meant to induce national consciousness. All politicians deserve respect and appreciation but rushing to ‘decorate’ the capital’s streets and corners with formal statues of men in various poses may prolong further lethargy in a community that still seems to be confused about its distorted and fragmented collective memory.

It would be a great pity if our actions do not engage future generations in appreciating a cohesive and meaningful monumental landscape meant to honour and respect our past enabling identity formation. The public sphere embellished with interactive monumental art works has an important role – it can contribute handsomely towards cultural empowerment and citizenship.

Charles Xuereb is the author of ‘France in the Maltese Collective Memory – Perspectives, Perceptions, Identities after Bonaparte in British Malta’ which is to be published by the Malta University Press.