Post-war Malta : the dependence – independence syndrome

Abstract

Much attention has been devoted to the war: the sea and air battles, the North African campaign and, via Malta, the invasion of Sicily, strategies and generals, campaigns and offensives. The same rather applies to Maltese in the second world war - heroism, devotion, fortitude. What the war did in the socio-political sphere has been rather disregarded, yet this could be more important. Apart from the physical destruction, hence the need for reconstruction which became dominant motifs of politics and government, there were two other major consequences. The first was that the war put paid to italianita. The second was that it radically altered the social composition and lifestyIe of various towns and villages, particularly those most devastated by the Axis. Allied propaganda during war hysteria, when parachuting pilots tended to risk lynching, left a heavy toll on Maltese outlooks.