Continues from yesterday’s article on ‘Malta’s Joan of Arc’. This is the concluding article of this series.

Part 7: Daphne’s column

Labour will self destruct.

And when it does, the country will collapse with it. Labours fanatical policy of l’état c’est moi is the perfect recipe for that dénouement. Mintoffianism’s defeat left the country in ruins, so will Muscatainism’s fall. Labour’s fatalism contrasts with the Nationalists’ constructiveness and party-state separation. 

Strong Nationalist representation in the EU Parliament is essential to mitigate the effects of the fall on the country, to restore Malta’s reputation and to improve relations with the EU. It will be the arena from which the Nationalists will regenerate the country. Whenever Nationalists are defeated, they hand over a country in a better state. When the day of the changing of the guard comes, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s guiding light in the reconstruction will be as influential as Joan of Arc’s was.

For Daphne was and still is a national treasure. Her visceral understanding of the past and the now of Maltese political history due to her personal experiences regaled her with quasi-prophetic insights. And we know how badly prophets are treated in their country. 

I too have a dream: of a tall neoclassical column erected in the middle of Castille square. On top of that column is the marble figure of Daphne facing and towering over Castille. She holds a sheaf of papers in one arm that faces lawcourtwards and, with her other arm points an admonishing finger down at Castille.

It will be so tall that it indents the Valletta skyline at a level higher than the spire of the Anglican cathedral, a legacy of British rule that Mintoff railed against.

The Minister of Justice surely would not object to this column as it was his suggestion to apply for a memorial. The Chairman for Valletta would consider this his masterpiece – Malta’s own Nelson’s column after the mediocrity of his vulgar polystyrene figures. The Tourism Minister will not object as this is destined to become Malta’s prime touristic site. The ministers who mourned the loss of the Azure window will be consoled by a substitute in the form of Daphne’s running commentary blog set in stone. Finally, the godfather of Castille who in his munificence has regaled us with countless skyline punching monuments in the shape of cranes and shapeless high rise monstrosities will be delighted  to oblige

But wait. I wake up and realise that the Talibanic mindset of Labour cannot appreciate national treasures. They only remove them.

And then I have another dream- of a Nationalist victory and the announcement of their first project- the construction of our own Statue of Liberty arising from a rocky promontory just in front of the foremost edge of the bastion wall: a grand monument peaking at a level just below the Anglican spire visible to all approaching Malta by air and sea. Daphne’s figure welcomes them with her torch of freedom held aloft. Lady Daphne giving her message of hope to all the people of the world struggling for their freedom of expression under oppressive totalitarian regimes.

Then I marvel at the new sloping skyline of Valletta which documents Malta’s political history from the sixteenth century onward; the legacy in stone of the Knights, the nostalgic legacy of orderly British government in the shape of the Anglican Cathedral and the two new additions by the Nationalist Party representing the hard-earned return to sanity of politics in post-Independence Malta.

I am finally woken up by the warm, contented feeling that justice has finally been served.