| Home | God's Country The Rocks of Malta by Jerry Salyer Those who feel besieged by modernity could do far worse than seek refuge on Malta. The Maltese know siege-weathering as well as anybody, and their hospitality is vouched for by a guidebook infinitely superior to Lonely Planet. Chapter 28 of Acts of the Apostles describes the welcome given Saint Paul and Saint Luke, following their escape from a shipwreck off Malta’s coast: “And the natives showed us unusual kindness; for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome, because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold.” I first set eyes on Maltese rock as a junior officer aboard a warship, and knew little more of the place beyond basic economic, military, geographic facts: A small nation, composed of three islands--Gozo, Comino, and Malta proper. Strategically located in the Western Mediterranean, between Sicily and North Africa. Primary industries include fishing, shipbuilding, tourism. Even the most uninformed observer, however, will soon realise that here is a gem of a place--with countless facets. Local folklore identifies Malta with Homer’s idyllic island Oggia, where bedraggled Odysseus arrived as a castaway following the sacking of Troy. Calypso, a local goddess who lived in one of Oggia’s caves, saw Odysseus floundering out from the surf; she fell in love with him, rescued him and nursed him back to health. She kept the hero with her for eight years, until Zeus finally commanded her to send the voyager back on his way home. Calypso’s Cave is located along the northern coast of Gozo. The cave-mouth is about three feet high and six feet wide, and leads into a series of three chambers. If you should ever find yourself exploring this cave, I recommend bringing a flashlight--or at least a well-fuelled Zippo. After reflecting on Homer’s tale within the cave’s pitch-darkness, you may then step back out into the sunlight to get an eye-dazzling perspective on the gorgeous beach of Ramla Bay. Intriguingly, the elaborate pre-Christian civilisation of Malta actually was centred upon a matriarchal nature-goddess. Impressive temple remains of this forgotten cult are to be found today at the town of Tarxien, and they tantalisingly demonstrate just how much of the human drama is hidden by antiquity’s mist. The Tarxien site must have been an even more moving sight when it was active--over four-and-a-half millenia ago. As it is, we can only guess at the lost arts that went into composing this complex symphony of megalithic blocks, stone facades, passage entrances, and spiral-relief carvings. There is something poignant about viewing the healthily-pagan images carved in the Tarxien temple: Images of a mother sow suckling her piglets... of fish, of bulls, of a curious arboreal symbol archaeologists have dubbed “The Tree of Life.” Not only did these ancient pantheists possess a real, tangible craftsmanship one does not find among post-modern pagans, among virtuality-bound aficionados of Sid Meier’s Civilization--these builders also knew they owed a debt of gratitude, worship, and honour for the bounty of nature. There are numerous other sites where memories in stone hint at Malta’s time-shrouded legacy. A viewing of Tarxien should be followed by a visit to the Hypogeum--a subterranean burial complex dating back to 3,000 B.C. Those who regard iPodless ancient man as a pitiful, impotent barbarian should try their hand at reshaping the very rock of the Earth, and see how close they can come to this interwoven network of rich red-ochre decorated chambers and passageways. But of course history is not merely about the past, but about the movement of that past into the present and toward the future. It is not entirely clear where the aboriginal Maltese came from, nor what happened to them--what is well documented is the Phoenician colony established on the islands around 800 B.C. Six hundred years later Malta had allied herself to Rome’s rising star, and became a Roman naval base. As with Europe writ large, the islands received the Gospel thanks to the spread of Roman civilisation: Greatly impressed by Saint Paul, the Maltese took to the Faith rapidly, and were firmly Christian by the 3rd century A.D. Saint Paul’s providential visit is recorded throughout Malta today--at Saint Paul’s Bay, where he came ashore, at Saint Paul’s Grotto where the apostle spent his sojourn, and at the Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck in the capital city of Valetta. (As in other European lands, one can hardly throw a loaf of bread in Malta without it landing at the steps of a magnificent church.) Valetta will seem awesome yet familiar to the Catholic traveller. She is a fortress-city, as formidable today as when Grandmaster Jean de la Vallete (from whom the citadel later took her name) led the Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and the hardy Maltese infantry in a tenacious defence against Ottoman invaders: The Great Siege of 1565. European victory at Malta broke Suleiman the Magnificent’s expansive drive; it also set the standard for Western chivalry, as vastly outnumbered Christian warriors stood firm in the face of the Ottoman juggernaut. Over 300 shattered Turkish ships and 30,000 Turkish casualties broke, futilely, upon the Maltese rock. Perhaps the Maltese had learned a distaste for Muslim rule, by having fallen to Muslim conquerors from North Africa in 870 A.D.--and perhaps they had developed a sense of solidarity with the rest of Christendom from Count Roger of Normandy, who drove out the Muslims two centuries later. In any case, for Malta the Crusades are not some malleable abstraction, subject to politically-correct whims, but rather a very solid piece of history--history attested to by the battlements, bastions, towering citadel walls, and the armoury-collection at the Grandmaster’s Palace. The Great Siege and the knights’ valor echoes even into American popular culture. Gritty crime writer Dashiell Hammett drew his classic detective novel The Maltese Falcon (later translated into a piece of film-noir starring Humphrey Bogart) from the legendary fame of Valetta’s knights. Hammett’s story illustrates American character touching upon its European antecedents--albeit in degenerated fashion. Sam Spade, quintessential hard-bitten private eye, investigates the murder of his incompetent, odious partner. His inquiry quickly embroils him in a mesh of intrigue surrounding the theft of a jewel-encrusted relic--a statuette of a falcon supposedly made by the Knights of Saint John centuries ago. To look on the bright side, Spade exemplifies the highest form of the alienated megalopolitan man: He is a brutally-honest protagonist who does the best he can in a jungle of treachery, greed, and self-serving passions. A sense of grim fidelity unites the contemporary tough-guy with his more ennobled, chivalric predecessors. As the gumshoe puts it: “When a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it.” At the other end of the spectrum squats the villain of the piece: The vicious millionaire Mr. Gutman illustrates the ills of the oligarchic age. Indeed Gutman’s archetype is Exhibit A for G. K. Chesterton’s case that modernity’s social decay is more attributable to pretentiously-cynical elites than to the common-folk. Gutman takes it as a given that the wars to defend Europe from jihad were “largely a matter of loot”, and derides the notion that some may serve causes greater than themselves: “I do like a man who tells you right out that he’s looking out for himself. Don’t we all? I don’t trust a man that says he’s not. And the man that’s telling the truth when he says he’s not I distrust most of all, because he’s an ass and an ass that’s going contrary to the laws of nature.” This is the materialistic, nutshell-bound mindset of economics-and-power worshippers everywhere. When looking at any historical event they strive to project their own shallow motives onto the struggle--or if this is impossible, then they declare the contenders “mad”. I, for one, can neither trust nor respect those who raise mistrust to the status of a virtue--for such enlightened-sceptics mistake their Hobbesian nearsightedness for wisdom. Yes, only an ass trusts blindly--yet far worse is the ass who is blind to trustworthiness. Meanwhile the truth that no man is an island is epitomised by those who live on islands. For such islanders must remain aware both of the interconnectedness of creation, and of their dependence upon their fellow-man. And if their island is continually buffeted by the ambitions of the powerful, then these islanders must learn cues from the hard, resolute tan-coloured rocks upon which they live. The Knights of Saint John were cast out by the arms of Napoleon, in 1798--but a mere two years later the Maltese revolted fiercely against the French. Following French withdrawal, the islands were eventually placed under the aegis of the British Empire. English rule contributed several important nuances to Maltese identity. For one thing, Malta became a critical Royal Navy port, and as such was fiercely coveted by England’s foes--which laid the grounds for a new great siege, during the Second World War. Flights of Italian and German bombers relentlessly pounded Malta in an effort to dislodge the small English naval and army force located there, while Axis blockade-ships strove to starve the islands. History repeated itself: the natives staunchly supported their allies in yet another epic (and victorious) defence of their home. Today on display in Valetta the wayfarer can see the very same King George Cross that was awarded by His Majesty to the Maltese people. A representation of this same cross is to be seen on the Maltese national flag. The connections between Malta and England are evident in other ways. Though the Crown granted Malta independence in 1964 there are still close ties of kin, friendship, and commerce between the two nations. And after a century and a half as part of the British Empire, the Maltese now speak English as smoothly and easily as they speak their own language. (The native tongue of Malta is a rare jewel of linguistics--a synthesis originally rooted in the language of Phoenicia, yet having drawn into itself elements of French, Sicilian, and Arabic.) Food defines place as much as language; in Malta one can be reminded of Malta’s role as cross-roads of the Mediterranean by making a tour of European cuisines. Simply walking the streets of St. Julian’s (the nightlife center) or Valetta allow for a cosmopolitan survey of the major culinary styles of the Continent--the best French meal I have ever had was not in Paris, but in St. Julian’s. Actual Maltese dishes are somewhat reminiscent of southern Italy or Sicily. For this country of fishermen, seafood--such as stuffed squid and fish stew--is a particular speciality. Yet the most famous dish of all is probably the Maltese rabbit, prepared in a mix of broth, wine, and herbs. Malta is still an ardently Catholic country--98% of the population are within the fold of the Church. While the islands have their share of vice, there is no anti-Christian hostility such as what one might find among high-ranking government officials of other European nations--Spain, for example. Abortion is still illegal, and so far as I know no one has to watch what they say for fear of being pounced on by thought-police hounds howling of “homophobia”, “sexism”, or “Christian fanaticism.” While naturally not every Maltese is pious, the Church is a respected authority in society. Conversely one need not endure the barrage of mind-bogglingly insipid drivel we hear in the States regarding the ardent pacifism of Mohammed and his heirs, or regarding how tribally-xenophobic it was for Crusaders to attack, without provocation, lands such as, say, Egypt that had been converted by the gentle words of Islamic apostles. It is a refreshingly wholesome whiff of sanity to know there are a few Westerners who still prefer honouring their ancestors over apologising for them. There is reason for concern about Malta’s 2004 entrance into the EU, however. Of course far wiser heads than mine cannot foresee for certain how Malta will fare, now that she has been swept into that rapidly swelling secular regime--a regime run by technocrats who adamantly deny the very Christian heritage that built European civilisation. Per the militantly-agnostic European constitution one would think that the glories of the West--the great cathedrals, the sculptures of Michaelangelo, the music of Bach, the poetry of Dante--all sprang up from nowhere in the night, like mushrooms. One has to wonder whether it has ever occurred to these metaphysicians of neo-paganism to take a closer look at the life-cycle of seemingly “self-creating” mushrooms. The wiser heathens of a bygone age--the ancient Maltese, for example--at least knew that all living things owe their being to some mystery residing behind creation, knew that every creature owes a life-debt to the past. Make no mistake: The “European Union” project is merely one more gambit by the Gutmans of the world, by those whose pride feeds their appetite for dominion, for possession. Religion, regional identity, and humanity itself all stand in the way of those appetites. Along with various NGO “philanthropists” such as George Soros, the technocratic-architects of globalist centralisation seek to remake Europe in their own sterile Ikean image. They have declared Christian communities everywhere as targets for pro-abortion activism. They seek to gnaw at the roots of the Faith whenever and wherever they can get at them, under the guises of tolerance, efficiency, progress. To call their agenda “megalomaniacal” would be to give it too much credit--for their aims are claustrophobically small rather than grandiose. For the sake of their mean little fantasies they would turn all proudly independent lands such as Malta into administrative-districts of Brave New World. A world of empty cradles, vapid talk, and insatiable consumers. But there is no excuse for despair; there is always hope, for every people. In the case of the Maltese, they have had to put up with foreign rule--the good, the bad, and the ugly--for most of their history. And in the face of the new besiegers, perhaps the brave among them will simply see another test, another reason to sing their national anthem all the more clearly. “L-Innu Malti” was written by Dun Karm, who moonlighted as Malta’s poet laureate (his primary vocation being the priesthood.) As Father Karm put it: Guard her, O Lord, as ever Thou hast guarded, This Motherland so dear whose name we bear, Keep her in mind, whom Thou hast made so fair. For Malta was once visited by a man who had no fear of storms, who had been granted the power to heal the sick. The rocks of Malta once felt the weight of a man who had been granted the power to shake off a viper’s bite as if it were less than a gnat’s-sting. This man was a messenger, and the message he bore was received and embraced by the Maltese nation. And the rocks of that nation have very, very long memories. Jerry Salyer writes from Annapolis, MD. |
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