Ich bin ein Malteser

It’s the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination today. Back in 1963 Kennedy was in Berlin addressing a city that had just seen a wall erected by the Soviets in an attempt to curb its citizens freedoms. Kennedy wanted to send out a message, he wanted to encourage the Berliners in their fight for freedom and to show them that they are not alone – that they had the solidarity of the whole of the west.

To underline that sense of solidarity and oneness through freedom, Kennedy chose the famous phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner”. Here is how the President put it:

“Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum [“I am a Roman citizen”]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner!”… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!””

The sense of pride of being a citizen of Rome in 60 A.D. or of Berlin in 1963 was underlined by the set of values that being a citizen of a certain nation (or city-state – hence, “citizen”) represented. Kennedy was tying the sense of Berlin-ness to the sense of freedom that the West was meant to encapsulate (not always too well) in the times of the Cold War. Granted, he did end up saying that he was a doughnut (ein Berliner) but that was more due to grammatical shortcomings than anything else.

I wonder what resonance the phrase “Ich bin ein Malteser” would have nowadays. The pictogram below shows four possible ideas that might have sprung to mind in jest or seriously should you have stated that phrase to a passer-by in Frankfurt for example.

An aficionado of canines might think of the “Maltese dog“, a sweet tooth might think of the chocolates, a traveller yearning for sun and sea might have thought of that poster he saw at the travel agent. Germans would also think of the Order of Malta’s relief agency that is present on German streets. That was before our government decided to turn salesman and sell citizenship over the counter as though it were pastizzi or hobz biz-zejt. Without any shadow of doubt, as those of us who work in international environments have discovered much to our chagrin, the instinctive reply now would be “How much for your passport?”

You see, our salesman in Miami either has not grasped this fact or just prefers to ignore it. “Jiena Malti”, “Ich bin Malteser”, “Sono Maltese”, “I am Maltese”, “Je suis Maltais” … it has lost that proud ring to it. It’s not only a matter of pride for pride itself. It’s also about meaning and values. What does being Maltese mean nowadays? Enterprising? Welcoming? Jovial? Sunny?

The sale of passports – no matter how refined – ends up becoming an even further denigration of all that is Maltese. Standing by and justifying such a sale with a “cosi fan tutti” attitude is only symptomatic of how devalued our sense of citizenship has become. Ironically only 8 months after a campaign that banked hugely on the concept of “being Maltese” we find the very idea of citizenship and belonging being eroded at a rapid pace.

50 years ago to this day JFK died in suspicious circumstances. His spirit and yearning for a free and better world did not die with him. I strongly doubt whether we can really say “Ich bin ein Malteser” today and feel just as involved and in solidarity with the struggle for a better world.