Daphne: you know well that archaeology is a different discipline from history.

[Daphne – Yes. But one degree is quite enough at my age. I am not seeking election on the Labour Party ticket.]

Yes, of course, all property of the Order passed to the French Republic and then to the colonial government (Napoleon donated
St. John’s to the Bishop of Malta to be used as a co-cathedral). Is this in dispute?

[Daphne – Apparently, yes, because there are people who insist that the sword and dagger which departed from Malta with Napoleon somehow belong to ‘the Maltese’, and that the British ‘stole from the Maltese’ certain items of arms and armour.]

What was being discussed was whether Malta had the trappings of a state at the time of the Order, especially in the 18th century.

[Daphne – No, that’s not what was being discussed. We were discussing ownership of the sword and dagger, and how people cannot steal what they legitimately own, while others cannot lay claim to what was never theirs.]

The Order governed what was essentially a principality with the Grandmaster being the prince of a virtually independent “state”, though formally subject to the Sicilian crown. This was different from the position of “colony” at the time of the British – that’s all.

[Daphne – Yes, but it’s irrelevant. It was the Order of St John which owned the sword and dagger, and not the state of Malta.]

Bonaparte decreed that “All the property of the Order of Malta, of the Grand Master and of the different auberges of the knights belongs to the French Republic”. Later on, Vaubois was driven to take forced “loans” from the Maltese to finance his military needs. Taxes were also decreed by the French to pay for the government, the military garrison and the upkeep of roads – all expenses previously paid from the Order’s revenues.

Nevertheless, it was the French who ushered Malta into modern times following the medieval rule of the Order of St John. After the French capitulated and embarked for France with full battle honours, the Maltese were left destitute, having spent most of their money on fighting the French. Yet, in spite of all the sacrifices made by the Maltese, the British denied them the honour of marching into their capital bearing arms as a sign of victory.

Daphne……that was another era. You can’t judge history by modern thinking.

[Daphne – I’m not judging, Mario. I’m making an observation. The Catholic Church inculcated in the Maltese the belief that Freemasons are evil atheists and the end result was that the more uneducated among us still think that mazun means atheist.]

Summing up, for reasons of balance, I still think the Catholic Church was right to oppose Freemasonry in Malta. The very church was driven underground during Roman times. Look at it today.. it has flourished not in buildings and priests, but in the hearts of man. Similarly, for the same cause, but certainly not for the same reasons, Freemasonry has flourished in Malta.

[Daphne – That’s a hopeless comparison, Mario.]

[Daphne – No thank you. I am already an honours graduate in archaeology.]

The situation in the islands you mention had nothing to do with that obtaining in Malta. Malta had all the trappings of a state at the time and the Order was the government of that state. Of course, by this is not meant a nation-state but it was still very close to being a state with the Grandmaster as its prince. Under the British, the island became a colony. These are the facts and no amount of rhetoric will change them.

[Daphne – Precisely, which means that at no point before 1964 could ‘Malta’ lay claim to any buildings or goods left behind by the Order of St John, which passed from the Order to the French to the British, and finally, to the Maltese nation-state.]

We’re not parting company on this one. They can’t be stopped. Not when you have a country whose inhabitants believe in klikkek and love this sort of skulduggery. Honest networking is beneficial. It’s when the network becomes more important than the individual that dangers arise.

Granted, the Catholic Church has driven Freemasons underground in Malta and Italy. But there is no doubt that Freemasonry, and the way it is practised, is at best discriminatory, at worst dangerous. A UK magistrate friend of mine told me that he is expected to show a greater degree of leniency if he is judging a Freemason. That’s undermining the law.

[Daphne – Yes, on that we agree.]

What did you expect the Catholic Church to do? How would you have handled it?

[Daphne – I would have stayed out of it. The Catholic Church opposed and undermined any real or perceived rival or threat to its control. The British introduced no reforms which would have upset the bishops, and so made their lives easier here.]

In my view, at least there was a controlling factor. I’d hate to think that the Freemasons would have had a free hand. If that had to happen, there will be far fewer businesses in Malta. It’s already bad enough that the strong do their best by fair means or foul to stifle smaller competition.

Daphne, please don’t jump to conclusions. Most Maltese take “mazun” to mean a person who does not believe in God.

[Daphne – And 100,000+ Maltese believe that Dom Mintoff was is-salvatur ta’ Malta and that tennis-shoes are called slipper. The fact that most Maltese believe that ‘mazun’ means atheist rather than Freemason does not mean they are correct, or that you and I should make the same mistake because majority rules even where mistakes are concerned.]

It’s got nothing to do with the place I grew up in. It’s in that context that the word was used by the Catholic Church.

[Daphne – Exactly: Catholic propaganda. People who don’t believe in God are called ateji not mazuni. God forbid that everyone who doesn’t believe in God should find himself described as a Freemason.]

The Catholic Church has good reasons to mistrust and distrust Freemasons because their principles are irreconcilable with church doctrine in many ways.

[Daphne – Yes, and many people have good reason to mistrust and distrust the Catholic Church, but we don’t run around calling the archbishop a Freemason.]

Basically a good Catholic shouldn’t join secret societies like the Freemasons.

[Daphne – There are many other things which Catholics shouldn’t do, but I see them being done all around me by almost everyone I know and meet.]

The Maltese Freemasons hardly went out of their way to advertise themselves during the centuries, didn’t they?

As for the chess-pieces, my experience is that this is true. Freemasonry has actually flourished in Malta because people who join it think it will look good on their private CV. And it does.

[Daphne – Where you and I part company is in the belief that these things can be stopped. Ban Freemasonry, and people will dream up some other network. It’s human nature. I happen to be one of those people who believe that what the Catholic Church did here – turning Freemasons into the equivalent of homosexual Jews practising sodomy while poisoning wells – actually made the situation worse by driving it underground. Lodges are not secret societies in Britain so the transactions of Freemasons are easier to track. Not so here.]

I reiterate, that the secrecy surrounding the Freemasons in Malta is their own undoing. They should “come out” for use of a better word, declare themselves to be Freemasons who love dressing up in small multicoloured aprons and playing Secret Agent Boy Scout games, and that will be that. I’m sure that they will be seen for what they are. Taking off the mystique will probably be the end of them because they will find it difficult to try playing power games with people’s lives and businesses. And the bloody church has got nothing to do with this!

[Daphne – The Catholic Church in Malta is largely responsible for driving Freemasons underground, Mario, and if you reread your comment, you will see that you pinpointed it yourself. “Everybody” apparently uses the word mazun interchangeably with atheist (well, not where I come from anyway) because that’s what the priests told them from the pulpit. Maltese people of a certain age grew up listening to priests preaching hellfire against evil Freemasons, and this is the natural consequence. It is also one of the reasons why there are almost no openly homosexual people over the age of 50 on this island, and even fewer in Gozo.]

Still, a tenfold increase. Goddamn that article is sloppy.

I have absolutely no problem with Freemasons “coming out” so to speak, as long as their membership is known. I mean, if they are some kind of Rotary Club, then they shouldn’t have any problems shouldn’t they?

[Daphne – Of course they would. Maltese people think that British Freemasonry is the equivalent of the P2 and that Freemasons are evil creatures who perform magic spells and believe in another religion.]

In Malta, a Mazun means one who does not believe in God. That’s partly correct. But in Malta Freemasons have taken this secrecy and networking to new heights.

[Daphne – Where I come from, ‘Mazun’ isn’t used for a person who doesn’t believe in God. It’s used for somebody who is a Freemason. Maybe things are different in Zurrieq. But your definition illustrates my point about Maltese Catholic propaganda against Freemasons. Lots of Freemasons believe in God, and I know lots of atheists who are not Freemasons.]

I’m amazed at some of the members. I have been told by them that their goal is to make sure that the “higher strata” of society is protected from those lower down, so they actively promote their own and bring down their opponents if possible. This was a senior civil servant speaking.

At first i thought he was joking, until to my horror I realised he was dead serious. It goes without saying that I told these people exactly what I think of them.

In my opinion, it is the Maltese Freemasons who have dug a hole for themselves in Malta. One day, someone will have the courage to publish a list of names. It exists. I know someone has a complete list, and he is a supposed newspaperman who boasts about how fearless he is.

[Daphne – You see what I mean, Mario? Nobody would speak of ‘outing’ Freemasons in Britain, because Freemasonry isn’t perceived as evil or immoral. You think of Freemasonry as evil and immoral, and your attitude is typical of this society. That’s why Freemasons don’t ‘come out’. I think it’s interesting that you’re using the same terminology used for gays in the closet. The reason Freemasons don’t come out is the reason gays don’t come out: rather too many years of propaganda, suspicion and hatred.]

But we digress. La Vallette’s sword and dagger belong here in Malta. Not because we have any real or pretended right to it, but because they morally belong here and the French should know it. After all, the French did make free with Malta, and did confiscate silver belonging to the Maltese diocese, and not the knights.

[Daphne – U ejja, Mario – moral right! There is no such thing. There are only legal rights. But even if you had to acknowledge the existence of a moral right, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that something which didn’t exist in 1798 – the Maltese state – has a moral right to something which belonged to somebody else in that year? ‘The Maltese’ and ‘Malta’ are completely out of the equation – can’t you see that?]

As much as the sword and dagger belong here, so do the large amount of pieces the British pillaged from the Palace Armoury. They are morally ours. So give them back, please.

[Daphne – I’m going to have to disappoint you, Mario, but those pieces are no more ‘ours’ than are that sword and dagger, and for the very same reasons. Power over/ownership of Malta and of the Order’s goods, chattels, and buildings, transferred from the Order of St John, briefly to Napoleon, then to the British, with no hiatus in between. The British simply took what was legally theirs. They could have taken the lot, but obviously thought it would be indecent to do so and that it wouldn’t make for the best diplomatic relations on the road to independence. The only reason we own the things that are in the Palace Armoury now is because the British relinquished ownership of them. We never owned them before and we never had a legal or moral right to them.]

Come come, the inhabitants of Malta weren’t exactly living on the edge of starvation, or the population wouldn’t have mushroomed from ten thousand to 200 000 between 1530 and 1800.

As for the rest, sometimes I wonder if there’s anyone else sharing our views, Daffers.

[Daphne – Not 200,000 but c. 100,000: http://www.um.edu.mt/umms/mmj/PDF/140.pdf ]

Whereas Malta was a mere British colony, at the time of the Order of St John, Malta became to all intents and purposes a state, a principality. Though nominally the Order recognised the suzerainty of the Sicilian crown (as successors of the Spanish King), the Order of St John and Malta enjoyed independent status. In fact, ambassadors were sent and received by the Order which, of course, was not the case during British colonial rule.

[Daphne – They were not ambassadors to the Maltese state, but ambassadors to the court of the Grandmaster of the Order of St John.]

There was little or no distinction between the Order and Malta (as there is today) and diplomats accredited to the Order were said to be accredited to Malta.

[Daphne – ‘Malta’ did not exist, except as a geographical location. There was no statehood. When we speak of Malta today, we mean the state, not the actual geographical islands. Malta in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (and most of the 20th, too) was an island in the same way that, say, Santorini is an island. It was the name given to a piece of rock, without the attendant concepts of statehood, to distinguish it from those other pieces of rock, Lampedusa, Djerba and Pantelleria, among others.]

Malta was not merely a base; it was the home of the Order and the combination constituted a state.

[Daphne – That Malta was merely a base for a desperate group of knights who had been turfed out of their previous base and who had nowhere else to go: yes. As for the rest, not at all.]

The Maltese had practically no part to play in this state and the government was autocratic. It was, nevertheless, the Order which planted the roots of statehood in Malta whereas Britain reduced the island to a colony.

[Daphne – Well, that’s a reductive view of the origins of Malta’s statehood, if ever I heard one. Ten thousand feudal serfs living on the edge of starvation on a rock in the middle of the Mediterranean do not make for a state. This notion that we are somehow different to every other island in the Mediterranean captivates me. Given your reasoning, Rhodes would be a state, instead of just another island among the many hundreds around mainland Greece.]