Une communaute maltaise en Tunisia entre les groupes arabo-berbere et francais

Abstract

This community, about which the speaker talks with first-hand knowledge, was formed from 1840 to 1890 by the amalgamation of Maltese families from Malta and Algeria, and settled at Porto Farina (Ghar al-Melh). An attempt is made to analyse the internal contradictions which the community has always been unable to resolve:

I. Both on account of what it thought itself to be, and on account of its aspirations, the community tended subjectively to lean towards the two reference groups, French and English, but its objective characteristics did not dispose it to integration with them. 2. On account of its innate culture and conditions of life, the community was extremely close to the Tunisian group, which. exercised a great influence on it, had contact with it, and used it as an intermediary with the French group, but nevertheless no profound assimilation took place.

Each of these movements prevented the other from developing fully, and an attempt is made to see how the dynamics of colonization accentuated these contradictions and made greater each impasse. Moreover, the Maltese community was cut off from its cultural and national origins, and lived in a state of loneliness and insecurity.