Home » Malta » MALTA

West Africa, Malta and the Balkans in 1999

MALTA

Bec
2004-09-19 14:28:20

Displayed times (last time: )

Valletta
I got here on the overnight ferry from Tripoli at 9 o'clock in the morning. My guidebook had warned that the fare would be an exorbitant 170 dollars but I paid only 25 dollars for a bunk in a six berth cabin (including breakfast).

What a magnificent sight was to sail into Valletta's Grand harbour on this bright sunny day!

Fortress Valletta is built on a rocky peninsula isolated from the mainland by a huge ditch crossed by this bridge leading to the city's main entrance gate.

Republic street, the city's main artery, goes from the city gate to fort Saint Elmo at the tip of the peninsula. I visited the excellent National Museum which is located on this street but I missed the Saint Elmo Military Museum which was closed when I was there.

With half a dozen secondary forts defending its approaches in this part of the island, fortress Valletta was almost impregnable. It resisted an epic siege by the Turks in 1665 and bravely withstood all efforts of Nazi Germany to subdue it during the second world war.

Tarxien
Naturally I could not miss visiting some of the archaeological sites. This is all that is left of a statue of the Mother Goddess found at Tarxien not far from Valletta. Other representations of this goddess found elsewhere in the islands show equally large proportions hence the name "Fat Lady".

Between 5500 and 4000 years ago the Maltese islands were inhabited by a successful agricultural society that had sufficient surpluses and the required technical ability to build several megalithic temples which are believed to be the first of their kind in the world.

The size, number and distribution of these temples as well as the fineness of the stone work involved imply the existence of a strong and stable central government in the hands of a ruling clergy capable of mustering the community's surpluses for their construction.

These megalithic portals open onto a succession of two lobed rounded spaces deemed to symbolize the fertile interior of Mother Earth, goddess of cyclical renewal. In some places the temples are associated with man-made caverns used as the burial place for thousands of individuals whose bones were evidently rearranged periodically.

Back to modern times where religion, renewal and death are still closely associated. Just before leaving for the Balkans, I took this picture of the 100 ton gun installed in Fort Rinella which was built especially for it between 1878 and 1886. In fact it weighed 152 tons with its carriage. It could fire at one ton shell three miles and pierce no less than 21 inches of armor at that distance. There was only one other built like it and it is in Gibraltar.

I was in Africa when the Kosovo crisis led to NATO's intervention against the Miloevic regime in Belgrade. I had amply observed how the cohabitation of distinct ethnic groups on the same territory can lead to tribal politics and the supremacy of one of them over the others. The "ethnic cleansing" that had been going on in the Balkans was taking violence one step further. I just had to go and see for myself before the whole powder keg blew up as it did in 1914, causing WW I.

Copyright Bernard Cloutier

All rights reserved.

Please visit my website