How "Incomplete" Independence Helped Malta's Economy Thrive on Its 60th Anniversary

The 1960s and 1970s were the height of the decolonization movement. Centuries of European presence across the globe, particularly in Africa, disappeared in years. Sometimes it was the result of sheer violence, such as how the Algerian independence fighters took down an increasingly exasperated colonial French army and drove out millions of white residents fleeing in fear. But others, like Malta, simply saw the breakup of colonial empires as inevitable for the overstretched colonial powers, feigning allegiance to symbols of continued colonial rule in exchange for concrete progress toward self-governance.

The successful militants may sneer at the gradual compromisers for being naive and timid. The dignity of independence lies both in the symbolism to tossing out colonial presence and severing of sometimes predative economic and political structures that benefit the colonial metropole. Those who fought for independence can point to the nationalization of foreign assets such as in energy, infrastructure, and even manufacturing as a sign that only a total break with the colonizer can provide the complete sovereignty needed for economic self-reliance.

Yet, in many ways, 60 years of Maltese independence displays almost a perfect rebuttal to the proponent of that complete break. Indeed, Malta's economic success owes so much its still-present connection with Britain that many of the formerly colonized countries of the world may be envious of how it leveraged that incomplete decolonization for wealth. While the country tossed out the Queen as the head of the state a decade into its independence, it nurtured the Commonwealth ties that in turn blossomed well beyond even how it would have imagined upon the decision.

Part of that comes down to the luck of being British colony, rather than say, a French or Spanish one. The legion of British pensioners certainly is a major source of revenue for Malta, but that is overshadowed by how its continued embrace of the English language spawned a much bigger money spinner in the develop of the English language school industry. While plenty of countries speak English, none can claim the combination of affordability, proximity to other European countries, good climate, relaxing lifestyle, and the widespread use of English in daily life.

Indeed, militant independence fighters, in the name of cultural decolonization, has erased colonial languages that tied it to the global markets, a mistake that Malta, in adopting English and co-official language with Maltese, did not make. For all the hundreds of millions of English speakers that the likes of India, Pakistan, and Nigeria possess, the inability to ensure English skills trickle down to every individual, like Malta has among its youths, means that English ability has only served a small globetrotting elite that remain in isolated English-speaking communities outside the mainstream non-English-speaking ones.

And it is that whole-of-society familiarity with Britain, the Anglo-Saxon culture, and by extension, the popular media of the English-speaking world, that lubricated the development of its tourist industry. Legal codes written in the global lingua franca as well as a business population who can communicate well it surely helped to negotiate the entry of everything from international hotel chains to Hollywood production studios to tens of thousands of Indian and Filipino migrant workers that turn the little islands into arguably a much more global hotspot than the surrounding countries with equivalent tourist resources. 

After all, mild Mediterranean climate, pristine beaches, and sun-soaked stone architecture built centuries ago are all great, but in this part of the world, they are not unique. What is unique is true accommodation of foreigners, based on not reminding the foreigners that they are too foreign and somehow lesser than the true natives. That humility do not come from those coming from a world of complete military victory over the colonizers or those who are proud to say that they have never experienced colonization. They instead come from those who learned to live it in a different form even after supposed independence.

Just as the foreign tourists appreciate the continued presence of British red telephone boxes on the historical streets of Malta, that appreciate that the Maltese psyche continue to remind itself that the historical British connection is an integral part worth protecting, even if it is not being used all the time. That internal diversity, stemming from incomplete decolonization, is what people are willing to invest in and to pay money to see. Not so dignified, perhaps, but the flexible mentality is the exactly the right ingredient for a small open economy to take off.