History and national unity - mutually exclusive?

The slogan the PL has chosen for its electoral campaign is Malta Tagħna Lkoll. The rationale behind such a slogan, as has been explained numerous times by the PL exponents and Joseph Muscat himself, is to give a sense of unity rather than of division.

In their bid towards national unity, the PL have been continuously criticising the PN for mentioning parts of our recent, and not so recent, political history, because this fosters division not unity.

Are the PL right or wrong? Is the PN fostering division, when its exponents remind us of the not so glorious past of the PL?

Quite honestly, there is no clear cut answer.

Admittingly, the mentioning of such instances can foster division in our nation, especially when more than half the Maltese population has a vivid experience of those turbulent times. Due to this many, I included, tend to recount them with a lot of passion. In this sense, the spirit which Joseph Muscat is trying to instill in his party, and beyond, (even if 25 years late) is commendable.

One however has to be cautious, because the arguments put forward by the PL seem to be based on the premise that in order to foster unity we need to forget the past and focus on the future.

Frankly, I disagree with this reasoning. In my opinion, such a rationale is not only wrong but, more importantly, does not lead to national unity.

But before continuing further, we need to stop and reflect on the notion of national unity. What do we understand by national unity? This is one question I would like some intelligent journalist to ask the leaders of the political parties. Some, seem to equate it with the way all fairy-tales end "....and they lived happily ever after." Or to the one described by Ġuże' Ellul Mercer in his writing Malta Ġenna tal-art.

The notion of national unity is a very complex issue. I will tackle it in another post. For the sake of this post, it is sufficient to realise that such a notion needs to be problematized. Now, back to importance of history.

Everyone will agree with me that our future needs to be built on solid ground. Well, in my view (and many others who are more intelligent than I can ever aspire to be), a crucial component of that solid ground is our past. The study of our history helps us to better understand ourselves - from where have our present values originated? Why segments of Maltese behave the way they do? Moreover, by critically reflecting on the mistakes our ancestors, or we, have done we may be able to avoid making similar mistakes.

It therefore follows that if we really do not want history to repeat itself, one way to do it is by remembering it.