Sette Giugno

The Malta Independent on Sunday | 2 June 2019

TAKING THE RIOTS TO THE STAGE: VII

THROUGH THE EYES OF THE MEDIA

THE SETTE GIUGNO IN MALTESE HISTORY – PROF. HENRY FRENDO

PHARMACIST GIUSEPPE AGIUS – DR SIMON MERCIECA

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SETTE GIUGNO IN MALTESE HISTORY, 100 YEARS LATER – PROF. DOMINIC FENECH

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TAKING THE RIOTS TO THE STAGE:

GIULIA MAGRI

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th less than a week away from the opening night of Sette VII, the level of excitement and curiosity is high to see just how one of the most significant periods of unrest in local history will be retold on stage. Sette VII is directed by The New Victorians, along with writer Erin Carter, Simon Bartolo as translator and the involvement of Zfin Malta, who will be bringing the story of the uprisings to life.

We met up with the sister duo, Bettina and Philippa to talk about what they discovered whilst researching about the National holiday, the difficulty to present events from numerous perspectives, and just how relevant the topics which stirred up the 1919 riots are in this day and age.

Maltese villagers to British soldiers: Shedding light on multiple perspectives

Photos by Kris Micallef

“Around Christmas time, Sean Buhagiar (artist director at Teatru Malta) called to ask if we would be interested in writing and directing a piece about Sette Giugno. Aside from being extremely excited about the offer, I also realised I needed to do my research!” said Philippa, recounting back to when they were first offered the opportunity to work on the project.

“We really needed to come to terms with what we were facing; we wanted to make sure that the story which is so close to the nation’s heart, is told in a fair way and not

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showing any signs of bias to anyone. The sisters explained how the first few months they had a period of ‘research and development’, where the sisters, alongside with Scottish writer Erin Carter, translator Simon Bartolo and the cast would read through different points of views of the event itself; highlighting that no account was ever the same.

Philippa said that once the research process was out of the way, they all sat down with the actors and Zfin dancers and asked them were their own opinions on the victims and the riots.

“We shed light on different characters on purpose,” said Bettina, “We would have a British Governor pleading to the King to help Malta, and how all the words get twisted; and we would easily sway the mood of the day depending on whose side we decided to portray.” They explained how they played with the idea of portraying the three sides of the story; the British, the Imperialists and the locals, who were extremely malnourished and exhausted at this point in history.

When asked whether they will be focusing on the four victims of the play, the sisters explained that they will be focusing on the community at the time. “We of course want people to sympathise with those four men who died, but we also wish for the audience to sympathise with the other sides of the story” said Philippa. They both hope that the performance will make the audience zoom out of the narrative which they are being fed and to have a different perspective of history.

The importance of language

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Sette will be a trilingual play, having performers speaking in Maltese, English and Italian; reflecting the situation of Malta at the time. “If there is a British King we feel that he should be speaking in English, and of course have workers speaking in Maltese,’ explained Bettina. “The tension was real, not everyone understood each other and there was a lack of communication.”

Philippa explained that whilst researching for the project they realised that the Language Question was never really resolved. “I never had considered the form of classism that was present between the Maltese and the British at the time.

There was a lot of friction and misunderstanding between the two, due to a clash of culture and language.”

Bettina explained that censorship always played an important role. “To think that censorship was only lifted for five months, from January till the riots, is so crazy, and that we still face censorship in this day in age.” The sisters explained that an important character which will take life on stage is the village multiplier, who had the job of reading the newspaper

and had the power to choose what news to feed the villagers.

“Since at the time there was such a low literacy level amongst the Maltese, this particular person played a vital role of informing villagers the news and it is great fun to bring this person to life and see the impact that they have on other characters.”

A Maltese Les Misérables? Not quite

When asked whether audiences will be expecting a Maltese Les Misérables or a form of history lesson, Bettina explained that she does hope that the audience will learn from the performance. “Even though I’ve been told to never describe a performance as a history lesson, but I do want the audience to come out and have learnt about our history. Personally, I do wish that this information would have been more accessible; whilst researching we didn’t find any interactive videos or something a bit more modern.”

She also said that it could be perceived as a musical, since the sisters will be using music as a form of storytelling.

“For me it’s a modern reimagining of the events that happened 100 years ago, and that we get to look back at our past and also pay respect to those who came before us,” said Philippa.

“We gave ourselves slightly more work, but the story is epic, Fort St. Elmo is epic, and all of this put together will heighten the experience.”

The sisters explained their own ties with the Sette Giugno riots. “Our grandfather used to recall how his own grandmother’s father, who was 19 at the time had recalled going to Valletta the day after the riots and seeing a piano being pushed off a balcony,’ said Bettina. ‘We never really questioned it, but we do now think whether that was his own memory of him being there, or he was recounting a collective memory of the nation. We hope that our performance makes people question their own history and to ask what is true and what is false.”

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SETTE GIUGNO: A HISTORY ALBERT GALEA

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orld War One was, in many ways, a break from historical tradition when it came to warfare. Masses of resources – both human and otherwise – were diverted into the war effort as what many initially thought was a conflict which would last a few weeks dragged on for four whole years.

Traditionally, Malta was one of the few places which actually gained during the time when European powers got into a squabble. The economy boomed during Napoleon’s Continental Blockade and during the Crimean War later in the 19th century.

World War One was different however. While Malta rose to fame as The Nurse of the Mediterranean for its role as a hospital island for thousands of allied troops, the economic prosperity that war generally brought to the islands never materialised.

Malta had, for centuries, been reliant on importing its foodstuffs – namely grain – from abroad.

However, as these same food stuffs started to dwindle in supply, the prices in Malta began to rise. In the face of these rising prices though, Maltese salaries remained stagnant, leaving workers unable to cope with even the most basic costs.

Paul Bartolo, whose book X’Kien Gara Sew fis-Sette Giugno delves deep into this period, in fact quotes Lieutenant Governor William C.F. Robertson as informing his superiors in London that “the general opinion is unanimous that the families of a lot of government workers are actually dying of hunger”.

As the situation deteriorated, the Malta Government Workers Union (MGWU) was set up in July 1916 under the presidency of Henry Ear, membership of which shot up to some 4,000 workers, many of whom were dockyard workers. At the time, the

dockyard was one of the biggest employers in the colony, employing 13,000 workers.

Workers were unsatisfied at their low salaries and at the fact that their English colleagues were paid a substantial amount more than they were for doing the same job.

A strike was ordered by the MGWU in May 1917 after the Union saw the two-shilling increase that the government had granted as too little. A demonstration march to Valletta followed, and the workers were eventually granted a three to five shilling increase on their weekly salaries. Still the MGWU continued to insist, until in October 1918 a wage rise of between half a pound and 15 shillings on workers’ weekly salary was granted.

People had expected the situation after 1918 to revert back to what it had been before the War broke out. However the situation did not improve all that much; bread remained expensive at 5 ½ d per rotolo in April 1919 compared to the pre-war rate of 2 ¾ d per rotolo, and wages remained low. Discontent spread towards the British government and, more so, towards grain importers and flour millers whom the Maltese believed were making extra profits off their backs. Both the Governor, Lord Paul Metheun, and Robertson were now trying to open the eyes of the colonial office to the deteriorating situation on the islands, but the public feeling towards the government remained hostile.

Malta’s problems were not only economic however; political discontent was also beginning to manifest itself in this period. The Maltese had been granted a political majority in a Legislative Assembly responsible for strictly local affairs for the first time in 1887 through the Knutsford Constitution. However following disputes on education funding, which came to characterise the Language Question, the constitution was revoked in 1903.

Instead, a new constitution based

Dr Filippo Sciberras on that of 1849 which left the Maltese in total minority to the British was implemented.

Come the end of the First World War though, Malta’s political class knew of the Allies declaration for colonies to move towards independence – referring to one of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points, one of which was on selfdetermination – and they also knew of the sizeable contribution that the Maltese islands had given to the war effort.

The National Assembly is called One of the main sticking points however, was that the Maltese themselves were divided; the factions of Nerik Mizzi and Ignazio Panzavecchia were divided on the tactic that they should employ in dealing with the British. In the end it fell to Filippo Sciberras – a 68 year old doctor, a well-respected and unifying figure, to take the initiative and unite the two sides. He called a National Assembly which first met

on 25 February 1919.

Shops closed and a large, enthusiastic crowd gathered as the Assembly met at the Giovine Malta, with figures such as Sciberras attracting raptures of applause. Sciberras was appointed president of the assembly while Nerik Mizzi took on the role of secretary.

Two resolutions were put forward; one from Sciberras and another from the Comitato Patriottico.

Sciberras’ referred to principles of liberty that the allies had fought for and maintained that the Maltese had the right to ask for a constitution which gives them administrative liberty on local affairs.

The Comitato’s resolution was more hard-hitting, speaking of how the British had broken their promises to the Maltese and that the Maltese had the historical and natural right for “full administrative and political autonomy” at a local level.

Sciberras withdrew his resolution as he wanted the assembly to be unanimous in its demands, and only Augustus Bartolo – the editor and owner of the Daily Malta Chronicle – objected to the second resolution due to its criticism at the British government. Nonetheless, the resolution was passed through and the Assembly adjourned till a reply was received from the government.

The British eventually instructed Metheun – whose term as Governor was ending soon – to tell the Assembly that his successor would arrive in Malta with the instructions to see that where possible the Maltese would be given more of a in the administration of the islands without prejudice to the interests of the imperial garrison on which the island’s prosperity depended on.

The National Assembly set its next meeting for 7 June 1919 to discuss the reply. The Maltese delegates noted that the reply did not accede to the Assembly’s request for responsible government and, as a result, a resolution was put forward making it clear that the response was not satisfactory. A resolution for the appointment of a 14-man Commission under the presidency of Sciberras that would meet the new governor to discuss a new constitution was passed unanimously – but before anything else could be discussed, the meeting was adjourned suddenly after an angry crowd broke into the room carrying wounded people above their heads.

The riots unfold

Karmenu Abela

Guzeppi Bajada

Manwel Attard

Wenzu Dyer

A large crowd similar to that from the previous February had gathered in Valletta as the Assembly met.

One of the main differences however, was that this time, members of the crowd had gone with the intention of protesting against the ever-deteriorating economic situation that the islands were facing.

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The scene at the National Assembly meeting on 7 June 1919, captured by Gianni Vella in watercolour. Vella was present at the meeting when the wounded were hauled in.

The government was seen as one of the main enemies, and therefore any showing of British sentiment was pounced upon by the crowd. Members of the crowd for instance broke into the A la Ville de Londres to remove a Union Jack that it was flying, whilst the Union Club and Officer’s Club were also targeted.

However, the brunt of the riots was in fact directed at those who were perceived to be in cahoots with the British. The house of Cikku Azzopardi, a politician who had already had a flurry of eggs thrown at him by University students following his refusal to resign from the Council of Government, was ransacked as was the Daily Malta Chronicle which had opposed the dockyard workers strike in 1917. It would not be until 3 July 1920 that the Daily Malta Chronicle published its next newspaper.

Rioters turned to the island’s three leading milling families – the Cassar Torreggianis, the Francias, and the Farrugias – with the house of the former being ransacked as well. It was at this point that 64 soldiers under the command of one Lieutenant Shields were sent in to quell the riots. They split up across the aforementioned sites, but were subject to a tirade of insults and a shower of rocks. Shields, who somewhat lacked experience, panicked and gave the order to open fire.

The official report into the incidents reads that a shot was

heard from inside the Cassar Torreggiani house; giving the impression that it was the Maltese who opened fire first. However, eyewitnesses stated that one of the British soldiers shot into the crowd near the house. That shot hit 26 year old Manwel Attard, who hailed from Sliema, killing him instantly.

Panic broke out and another shot was fired, killing Gozitan Guzeppi Bajada as well.

Meanwhile, at the printing press, the soldiers were trapped inside and with a smell of gas coming from within the building. Being blocked by the crowd at the door, the troop’s commanding officer gave the order to fire low, at the floor, to make the crowd disperse. Lorenzo Dyer, from Birgu, however, was hit and grievously injured. He was carried out to the Palace where he died shortly after.

It was at this point that the wounded were carried into the Giovine Malta by the frantic crowd, interrupting the otherwise oblivious National Assembly. The Assembly appealed for the violence to stop, and succeeded in calming the situation and dispersing the crowd.

However the disturbances continued the day after, with the house of Colonel John Lewis Francia, another prominent flour merchant, being attacked by rioters. This time, 140 marines were sent to disperse the crowd.

Karmenu Abela was on a street corner calling for his son, when he was arrested by two marines.

People gather to pay tribute to Wenzu Dyer in St. George’s Square, Valleta.

When he resisted arrest, one of the marines ran a bayonet through his stomach. Abela died on 16 June, becoming the fourth casualty of the uprisings.

The crowd once again dispersed but this time moved outside of Valletta, to Hamrun where Francia’s flour mill was destroyed and then to Qormi where the flour mill of Farrugia & Sons – now Farsons – was razed to the ground as well.

The St. George Mills in Marsa, belonging to Cassar Torreggiani, were however spared. Cassar Torregiani himself later described in a letter that his staff had put on a successful defence using crowbars and bayonets and that the diplomacy of the mill’s manager – one W. Chetcuti – who told the crowd that they would not have any bread at all if they burnt the mill down, saved the building.

Workers leave flowers at the site where Manwel Attard and Guzeppi Bajada were killed in Old Bakery Street, Valletta.

In the aftermath of the riots, censorship was re-instated so to “ensure the public safety and defence of these islands”. The Malta Herald in response wrote in its paper that they would cease to publish until the censorship was relaxed or repealed. A military court meanwhile was opened on 16 June to investigate the uprising with 32 people being investigated for their involvement.

The new Governor – Lord Herbert Plumer – intensified discussions for a new constitution and met with the National Assembly’s subcommittee, which then drew up a draft constitution which they sent to Lewis Amery of the Colonial Office. He subsequently visited Malta in September and announced that a constitution which was largely based on the Assembly’s demands was to be given to the

Maltese.

The Amery-Milner constitution, ensuring autonomy in internal affairs with a diarchic system of government – self government, essentially – was implemented on April 30 1921. Elections were held with Panzavecchia’s Unione Politica Maltese winning 14 seats while the Labour Party and Constitutional Party both won 7 seats. The Partito Democratico Nazionalista, led by Nerik Mizzi, won four seats. Panzavecchia handed the reins of his party to Joseph Howard, and the party merged with Mizzi’s party in 1926 to create the Nationalist Party, which still exists today.

7 June was declared a national holiday in 1986 and a monument commemorating the uprising was unveiled in Palace Square, Valletta, a square where it still stands.

The National Assembly in August 1919: The picture was taken at the Belvedere Monument in Lija after the assembly met at Villa Goujon to draft a constitutional proposal.

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SETTE GIUGNO THROUGH THE EYES OF THE MEDIA The Sette Giugno story has been told and re-told by many over the years. However by looking back to the media of the time and to how they were reporting both the build-up to the riots and the aftermath, one can delve into and get an idea of the national sentiment. To do this, The Malta Independent looked into five different newspapers and as to how they reported that period in 1919. The newspapers looked at were the pro-Maltese Malta Taghna, the Comitato Patriottico organ Il Voce Del Popolo, the perceived to be British-leaning Daily Malta Chronicle, the satirical Il Hmar, and The Malta Herald. What is presented in this two-page feature is naturally only a selection of what was found, but in many ways it captures some of the national sentiments of the period across various classes of people. MORE ON PAGE 8»

BY ALBERT GALEA & GIULIA MAGRI Source: National Library of Malta The National Assembly met for the first time on 25 February 1919, passing a resolution to seek political and administrative autonomy for the Maltese.

The Voce Del Popolo – the media organ of the Comitato Patriottico – summed up the date as being one which “will remain written in gold letters in the Annals of our national struggle”.

Public hostility was not just directed at the British government; figures who were perceived as being political collaborators with them and also prominent flour millers, who the public felt were over-charging them for bread for personal gain, were also victims of the people’s discontent. Cikku Azzopardi fell in with the former. The politician and council of government member was favoured by the British – something which irritated the Maltese. Azzopardi irritated the Maltese so much that University students taking part in a demonstration pelted him with eggs; a humiliation captured by this edition of Il-Hmar from 31 May 1919.

On 7 June 1919, the day of the second meeting of the National Assembly, Malta Taghna came out with a rallying cry, calling on Maltese to go out and show their will for liberty.

Between February and June, discontent continued to fester as the economic situation on the islands continued to deteriorate.

Malta Taghna carried a number of anti-government articles on its front page lambasting the British for the economic and political situation the island. This article, dated 29 March 1919, asks what murder the Maltese have committed to deserve such treatment.

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The papers on 14 June 1919 also carried two messages; both Il-Hmar and Malta Taghna carried a letter which Panzavecchia wrote addressed to the Maltese people, where he appealed for calm, while The Malta Herald carried a proclamation from newly arrived Governor Herbert Plumer who spoke of his disappointment at the situation and of his regret that there had been no general expression of protest or disapproval of the “outrages” that were the protests.

Immediately after the demonstrations, press censorship was reinstated. The notice is here seen published in The Malta Herald on 10 June 1919, with the editor of the paper writing that until the censorship is repealed or at least relaxed, the newspaper will not be published.

Despite the censorship notice, Malta Taghna’s front page on 14 June 1919 – their first published newspaper since the riots – carried an obituary of the three victims who died on 7 June – Wenzu Dyer, Manwel Attard, and Guze Bajada – describing them as patriots who had sacrificed their lives for the country.

Over a year later, on 3 July 1920, the Daily Malta Chronicle publishes its first newspaper since its printing press was attacked during the riots. The newspaper’s editorial speaks of the “enormous difficulties” that they had gone through to obtain what is needed to set up a new plant. The editorial describes the events of 7 June as “sudden and tragic” and “deplorable”, and quotes Augustus Bartolo in saying that they were “but a dim and distant reflex” of “the general unrest throughout the whole world”.

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UPCOMING BOOK ON THE SETTE GIUGNO EVENTS: AN EXTRACT Professor HENRY FRENDO, who lectures Modern History at the University of Malta, shared an extract from his forthcoming book ‘The Sette Giugno in Maltese History’, published by Midsea, with The Malta Independent. The book is due to be launched at San Anton palace on 25 June, and also features contributions by Andre’ Debattista, Tonio Borg, Paul Bartolo and Charles Xuereb

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fter the popular armed insurrection of 2 September 1798 against French rule, in which thousands died in the fighting or from other causes, leading to the British takeover in 1800, the other bloody incidents of a national character in colonial times were those which have come down to us as the Sette Giugno in 1919.

1919 was the year that was. The Great War was supposed to be a quick settlement of scores and a war to end all wars (sic). In fact it was a cataclysm which saw new methods of warfare, such as tanks, trenches, poison gas and U-boats; the collapse of three empires; millions dead, maimed or wounded; and a destabilized Europe which would see the rise of totalitarian states and, soon enough, another world war in which, this time round, parts of Malta would be razed to the ground. The playing of the Last Post at the Menin Gate every evening at sunset remains to this day a sobering recollection of the devastation in Flanders and its forest of graves.

Malta became ‘Nurse of the Mediterranean’ by taking in and caring, heroically and dramatically, for tens of thousands of wounded from Gallipoli, Salonika and elsewhere in makeshift hospitals; but actually several hundred Maltese served in regiments and at sea, as may be seen for example from the fatalities in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916.

Although no bombs were dropped on the Island, communications were disrupted and there was a very great strain on resources, human, physical and financial.

As happened elsewhere in the empire, understandably the end of hostilities in 1918 was marked by expectations of social and political improvements. These,

however, were not so readily visible or available. On the contrary, the British Empire in particular was itself reacting to widespread challenges to its power right across the globe. The Treaty of Versailles did not victors (such as Italy) or losers (such as Germany). Expectations of freedom from colonial rule had already been germinating during the war, as shown, for example, by the Easter rising in Dublin and the unilateral declaration of independence from the steps of the Post Office in 1916.

Reactionary iron-fisted British moves intended to calm the flames and reassert control often had the opposite effect. Such reactions, as in Ireland, changed the popular mood altogether, to Britain’s disadvantage, strengthening Sinn Fein and leading to a war of independence with the I.R.A. from 1919.

In Egypt the exile to Malta of Saad Zaghlul, leader of the Wafd, in April 1919, further infuriated the nationalists, who were demanding independence. Zaghlul also reached out to the Copts, had inter-class support, and was very much a national figure, and increasingly so, in spite of being exiled again in 1921. By 1922 both Ireland and Egypt had obtained a good measure of independence.

In India, in April 1919, hundreds of

unarmed Indians were shot dead during a Sikh festival in a walled public garden in Amritsar, in the Punjab, on orders from an English colonel, Reginald Dyer, who was grossly mistaken if he thought he was defending and protecting the empire.

Hindus and Muslims joined forces in their resentment of British rule. Dyer would be relieved of his command but no serious disciplinary action was taken for mass murder. Indeed some in England were prone to regard him as a hero!

Another hot spot after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was Palestine. As Jewish (read Zionist) immigration to Palestine increased, the first Palestinian national congress convened in Jerusalem at about the same time as the Paris peace conference: in this climate was ‘British’ Palestine born. This would be a disastrous occupation born largely of the arrogance of powers who thought they could simply dispose and dispense of inhabited lands by treaties and mandates. A Jewish millionaire having delivered his arms, the British duly delivered ‘their’ land’.

In Italy there was the question of Fiume and Gabriele D’Annunzio’s annexation of this territory on the pretext of an irredentist patriotism. D’Annunzio was a charismatic

poet and bon viveur who would be evicted from Fiume, claimed by Yugoslavia, by the Italian army itself. Malta had no say in this but passions were inflamed in the wake of World War One and Italy’s ‘vittoria mutilata’.

In Malta post-war discontent mainly took the form of the Sette Giugno, a mass manifestation of unrest which was violently suppressed by British troops just as a national congress was demanding selfgovernment. The first meeting at the Giovine Malta in Valletta was in February 1919. By the time of the second meeting, due in June, crowds assembled in larger numbers and angrily thronged the streets of the capital attacking anyone associated with the colonial regime, from millers to the imperialist press. A few union jacks were torn or set on fire.

The war had led to scarcities of food, particularly bread, the staple food of the population; typically it had also seen a black market, and large-scale redundancies and discharges and a growing fear of them especially from the royal dockyard.

Armistice celebrations were boycotted as hundreds sought to emigrate. Many had died, and the war was won, but what did Malta have to show for it?

In Malta post-war discontent mainly took the form of the Sette Giugno, a mass manifestation of unrest which was violently suppressed by British troops just as a national congress was demanding self-government. The first meeting at the Giovine Malta in Valletta was in February 1919. By the time of the second meeting, due in June, crowds assembled in larger numbers and angrily thronged the streets of the capital attacking anyone associated with the colonial regime, from millers to the imperialist press. A few union jacks were torn or set on fire.

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PHARMACIST GIUSE LINK WITH THE SETT

Pharmacist Giuseppe Agius was one of the many students who took to the streets during the Sette senior lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Malta, spoke with Giuseppe’s sons,

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harmacist Giuseppe Agius was a wellknown figure because of the help he gave to many poor individuals who lived in Paola, particularly during the firsthalf of the 20th century. Few know, however, that this man – short in stature - is linked to events of the Sette Giugno.

In Paola they called him is-Sur Agius. Few know that Giuseppe Agius ended up a pharmacist as a result of the Sette Giugno.

He enrolled at University to read medicine and graduated as a doctor. He was doing well and like many students in those days took an active part in students’ activities. He also had no problem to openly express his political leanings which were anti-colonial and in favour of the Nationalist Party.

Son of a Dockyard worker

His mother’s family was from Żurrieq. On his father’s side, the family hailed originally from Għajnsielem in Gozo.

Later on the family moved to Malta and lived in Lija.

However, Giuseppe’s father, Giovanni was employed at the Dockyard and lived in Birgu where Giuseppe was born.

When Giuseppe was four, the family moved to Paola where they had bought a house in the main square which belonged to an Englishman. When they lived in Lija, the family was known as Tal-Abjad or White. It was the time when villagers who owned herds sold milk from door to door. During Lent or days of abstinence, the herdsmen did not cry out the milkman is here but instead

said Tal-abjad or white is here.

During periods of abstinence, milk was consumed only by those who were sick, old or children. They had a special dispensation and could drink milk.

The Imperial administrators were not keen to have a son of one of their Dockyard employees associated with a party that was anti-British.

This disturbed them as well as many Maltese who supported the English.

Student riots and Sette Giugno

Shortly before the Sette Giugno rebellion, the University students protested in the streets of Valletta against the proposed University reforms being introduced by the Imperial Government. The leader of the

students ’ union, which was called Commitato Permanente Universitario (CPU), was Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, known as l-Gross. Together with other students he had been accused of insulting Francesco Azzopardi, former Leader of the Nationalist Party.

Mifsud Bonnici had been exonerated. But few are aware that l-Gross’s brother Wenżinu and Giuseppe Agius failed their exams in this same period.

While l-Gross was reading law, Wenzinu and Giuseppe were doing medicine.

Giuseppe Agius had taken part in the Sette Giugno rebellion. He had protested with the students and on June 7 he was in Valletta. When the soldiers fired the first shots, he was with many other students in St Paul’s Street. After thesee days of insurrection, many Maltese who had taken part never spoke about having participated. There were also those who feared being associated with them. As Mr. Giuseppe Agius was once stated, it was only during the 1960s that people were no longer afraid to talk about this uprising. Many had feared the reprisals of the English. Agius had been one the victims of such reprisal.

John, Giuseppe Agius’ son, told me that when his father failed his exams, he asked for a revision of his paper. The person responsible for this procedure informed him that it was pointless making such a request. It would be a waste of money because his professors would meet, smoke a cigar and would uphold the original result. Nonetheless, Agius still went ahead and requested it.

Upon being informed that the results were reconfirmed, he was granted the right to have a look at his paper. When he saw the initials, R.B, which stood for Professor Roger Busuttil on his paper, he realized who had flunked him.

Up to the day of his death, Agius maintained that being failed was the greatest sorrow in his life.

Wenzinu Mifsud Bonnici continued with his studies in Naples where he studied under Giuseppe Moscati who was later to become a famous doctor and a saint. On the other hand, Giuseppe Agius did not have the means to carry on studying abroad. But it was God’s will that he had already qualified as a pharmacist. His cousin, Giuseppe Agius Muscat from Zabbar, urged him to open a pharmacy and work as a pharmacist. In fact, he helped him set up the first pharmacy in Żabbar’s, Church Street.

After Zabbar, the pharmacist

opened a pharmacy in Paola where the Polyclinic stand today, corner with Ditch Street.

At the time the property was a coach room and formed part of the complex built by the Knights of St John. Later on, Agius took on the shop bang opposite which many of us, including myself, still remember this pharmacy.

The first pregnant teacher in Malta at a time when being pregnant and upholding a job was still taboo

After the first elections in 1932, won by Nationalist Party, Giuseppe Agius Muscat became Minister of Health.

During that legislature, Enrico Mizzi was appointed Minister of Education after the previous incumbent Enrico Dandria had died shortly after taking up the post. In 1933, Agius married Margherita Dalli who was headmistress at the Luqa school. This was the time when female teachers lost their job once they married. It so happened that she had been one of the students who had gone to England to further her studies. This was also a period when those who went to the U.K., were appointed as head of school. However, Government imposed one condition; they would have to teach for a minimum of five years. In this manner Government was forcing women not to get married.

If they married, they would have to pay back the sum of money spent on them.

When Margherita Dalli was getting married, the Director of Education Albert Laferla asked her to relinquish her post.

Giuseppe Agius was foursquare behind his fiancée and backed her to remain in her job.

Enrico Mizzi had come to their defence. Laferla had not approved Margherita’s request to carry on teaching. However, on someone’s advice she referred her request to the Minister for Education who at that time was called Minister for Public Instruction – a translation from the Italian Ministro per l’istruzione pubblica.

The Minister for Education, Enrico Mizzi accepted her request and granted her the possibility to continue teaching for a further period of three years instead of five.

However, Margherita Dalli was not only to enter history for being the first woman to have kept her post after getting married. She also became the first woman to become pregnant while holding down her job as teacher and Headmistress! I recall my father

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PPE AGIUS AND HIS TE GIUGNO EVENTS Giugno rebellion. Historian Dr Simon Mercieca, regarding their father’s extraordinary life recounting that this had created quite a scandal at the time.

Many did not accept the fact that a married woman and pregnant to boot appeared in front of children. In fact, she was expecting twins; one of them was the late lamented Fr Mario Agius.

The trap

Before the WWII, Mr Agius was pro Italy and supported Enrico Mizzi. He had also joined the Fascist Party in Malta. He even became secretary of the Nationalist Party Club in Paola, which was the first Nationalist Party Club that ever opened in Malta. Mr Agius’ son, Father Mario told me that that when his father was in the first pharmacy, he had opened in Paola; the English tried trapping him in order to close down the pharmacy. It was 1931. At the time politics was a hot issue on the island. A man had entered the pharmacy and wanted to sell him some medicines that had been stolen from the Admiralty’s Dockyard. Mr Agius maintained that this man had been sent by another pharmacist who had very close ties with the Dockyard. When this incident happened Agius had just lost his sister Inez. Her death, at a very young age, had greatly upset the family and

particularly Mr Agius who after her death was no longer keen on taking snapshots. At one point, Mr Agius heard his sister telling not to have anything to do with that man. Suddenly, Mr Agius in angry tone told the man to get out of his pharmacy. This was totally out of character for him to react with such anger because he was a person who enjoyed listening. He was a good listener. As soon as this phony salesman left the pharmacy, the police walked in telling him they had instructions to search his premises for medicines stolen from the Naval Dockyard. Had he been caught with any stolen medicinal, his pharmacy would have been closed down. Mr Agius’ son Alfred still has the letter that his father received from the Governor who had politely written to him informing him that the case was now closed.

Pharmacist of the poor

Mr Agius, the pharmacist is still mentioned in Paola for his warm heart and love for the poor. He was as well informed as any doctor since he had completed the course of medicine. Nobody knows how often he gave advice free of charge and used natural medicinal especially for

children to save his working clients expenses. Among other things, he used to give for free the crumbs of rusks known as the Malta rusks. The rusks were turned into powder mixed with milk for the infant to drink to help it go to sleep The rusks were bought from the bakery in Sacred Heart Street also known as GanTon. It was a time when pharmacists literally had to prepare the medicinal. Children use to go to him with skinks or a gecko because they were used in medicine. Often enough Agius bought them simply to give some coins to the children.

Medical samples he distributed for free to those who could not afford to pay for medicines from which others would charge. Mr Agius use to sell medicines at a cheaper price so much so that at one point pharmacists formed a cartel and the supplier no longer

wanted to supply Agius if he carried on lowering his retail prices. However, Agius was not afraid. He stuck to his guns; his principles were not for sale.

In his days there was no fixed closing time for pharmacies they would remain open till late at night and sometimes even during the night after closing, people would turn up and he would go round and open for them as it was urgent.

Another story that Alfred Agius told me is that his father left the keys in the units and allowed customers to go behind the counter to take whatever they needed and then pay when they could. The only key that was not in situ was the one containing dangerous drugs that were always under lock and key, according to law.

One time, someone had whispered in his ear that a person had taken some medicines without paying for

them. My Agius’ immediate reply was “Since he has taken them means he needed them”.

After WWII, from being a Mizzi supporter who he admired for his integrity, Agius became a staunch supporter of Dom Mintoff. He openly backed him even during the crises in the 1960s. In Mintoff he saw a man who could fight for the worker. Often enough knowing of the pharmacist’s popularity, Mintoff would send over Anton Buttigieg to try and persuade Agius to join the Labour Party.

However, Agius always refused out of respect for his son Mario, who was a priest.

According to his son, Alfred: “My father was not a turncoat.

My father always backed those politicians who shared his own principles. Eventually, after Mintoff became Prime Minister he did not agree with everything. He always stuck to his beliefs.”

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SETTE GIUGNO IN MALTESE HISTORY, 100 YEARS LATER

Sette Giugno is a much-discussed event in Malta’s history, but many have found difficulty in quantifying the effect that the riots had on Maltese history as a whole. The Malta Independent asked Professor DOMINIC FENECH who, besides being a renowned historian, is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and the head of the Department of History at the University of Malta, about the significance of Sette Giugno in Maltese history and how we can reflect upon it today, 100 years later.

T

hat we officially accord the Sette Giugno great significance today cannot be gainsaid. It’s one of our five national days, placed on the same platform of nationally defining moments as Independence, Freedom Day, Republic Day and the Great Siege victory. That’s the official view, held since 1988, when our House of Representatives decided to do away with the folly of changing national days with each change of government. Beyond perhaps the fact that a handful of men died from British fire, I doubt however how many people really are familiar with the circumstances, effects and meaning of the events that took place on that warm afternoon of Saturday, 7 June 1919 and the following day.

Even officially I much suspect that knowledge is insufficient, if not deliberately selective. To take a random example, here’s a snippet from a speech by the Speaker to the House of Representatives some years ago: “The Sette Giugno remained engraved in the memory of the Maltese as it was a defining moment of national unity between all social classes at the time to achieve the political rights of our people, of the Maltese nation.”

For one thing, the reference to “unity of all social classes” positively defies the fact that the riot was at least as much an act of class warfare as it was nationalistic. It became an eminently “national” event only after the fact, because British soldiers spilled Maltese blood. And “memory” suggests some clear recollection, even if in our collective memory the narrative has been befuddled by romantics and politicians wishing to take ownership. Consider that at the timeeverybody was too shell-shocked, besides scared of ending up courtmarshaled, to claim ownership of the riots.

It was in the mid-1920s, when the dust had well settled, that political parties embraced the event as a nationally defining one. The Labour Partydeclared the date as its foundation day on the grounds that it was working men who gave their lives for their nation. Concurrently the Nationalist government erected a monument on the grave of the victims with the inscription la Patria Riconoscente (your country is grateful). The imperialist Constitutional Party continued to regard the riots as an almost shameful event, best forgotten. Even today, every so often, the remnants of imperialist opinion in Malta attempt to disparage the event as nothing worth commemorating. It’s an opinion like any other, hence legitimate, but one suspects an agenda there too.

The significance of the Sette Giugno is in part constructed by what came later,

“The Sette Giugno remained engraved in the memory of the Maltese as it was a defining moment of national unity between all social classes at the time to achieve the political rights of our people, of the Maltese nation.” notably the anti-colonial and post-colonial narratives that emerged after the Second World War. Nothing wrong with that in itself. The meaning of events often is shaped by hindsight. But whereas hindsight clarifies a story by giving it perspective, preconception distorts it, such as with the suggestion that the Maltese rose to achieve autonomy, or even independence. That is more like the narrative of the Easter Rising of 1916 – where Irish nationalists knowingly

(and suicidaly) rose to start a process that would overthrow British rule – than what happened here. In Malta it was a riot in which social class grievances mingled with anti-British resentment, and where the most that rioters could have hoped for was an end to arbitrary and irresponsible administration. The riot did make the British stop to think about the neglect of their administration in Malta, and arguably accelerated a process that led to the first

self-government constitution two years later. But even that needs qualification.

First, some form of new constitution was coming anyway. Secondly, it was the dire socio-economic straits Malta was in, the unreadiness of the British Treasury to subsidize Malta, and the imperative of having a compliant population that ultimately persuaded the British to pass on to the Maltese the responsibility to find their own solutions to their problems.

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