Deeper insights from an 'exiled' Maltese anthropologist

by Matthew Vella for MaltaToday on 13/04/2003

Paul Sant-Cassia regaled the University of Malta with an anthropology department. Pondering on his own reasons to pursue an anthropology degree, MATTHEW VELLA meets up with the man to get his views on tribal politics in Malta

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Sant-Cassia’s abode in Mdina is undergoing major changes. Still standing in the silent city since the 1600s, Paul Sant-Cassia, anthropologist and temporary exile, has returned to the island, supervising the dusty works that have claimed the ground floors of his house.

"I’m planning to have an art gallery here," he notes about the ongoing works in the immediate entrance to his house. From downstairs, an unknown figure is tinkering away, sounds of busy work emerging from the basement.

Sant-Cassia is preparing Greek coffee for this instant brew worshipper, informing me that ‘I will very much like this.’ Coffee is big in the world of anthropology. Almost second to having a drawled voice and delicate manners, the distinctive aroma of the bean to an anthropologist is akin to our tell-tale signs of the tourist from hell, such as the American twang, British tattoos, Russian sex and Maastricht’s eurotrash.

Every land’s coffee carries within it the taste of its life and people.

The rest of his dwelling falls within the confines of the anthropologist’s aesthetics. His extensive ethnographical work on Cyprus is brandished on his kitchen wall, a jumble of black-and-white photographs of stereotypical rural figures, orthodox priests, large moustaches and coffee bars.

A former anthropology student myself, we briefly talk about the disappointment of a second upper, and those figures whose knowledge was bestowed upon me and in previous times, passed down to them from him.

But Sant-Cassia rarely figured in my university days as an actual person. His name was plastered over chapter titles, research conducted on Cypriot division and Maltese ghana amongst others. His was a credible reference for some fancy and impressive quote maybe. The only other signal of his absence seems to lie in his irregular correspondence with some Maltese weekly from the cold, northerly town of Durham, the seat of his lectureship.

And he is of course the man responsible for the Anthropology Department at the University of Malta.

"There was a lot of resistance to establishing the teaching of anthropology in the early eighties," he records. "However towards the late eighties, the university was given to some extent greater authority. The rector, Dr Xuereb, had the interest of the university very much at heart, and he managed to convince the government that it ought to open up a bit more.

"He had asked me to come over to start teaching some anthropology in 1985. When the government changed, things became easier, and I came here in 1992 to set up the anthropology programme, which took around two years."

The department has come a long way since then. Its lecturers have conducted extensive ethnographic research in Malta, Africa and Europe, with frequent visiting lecturers delivering their latest research to its students.

In 2002, around 14 graduates completed the B.A. (Hons) programme, possibly one of the highest turnouts for the department. How many young graduates ultimately find an employer that takes them in for what they are really worth is however another matter.

Those who believe their knowledge should be taken further into the world they operate have already planted their roots in the world of social work, for one.

Others are furthering their education away from Malta and in foreign universities. Upon return however, they might still find a society not yet accommodating of students whose pursuit of non-‘hands-on’ disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, or sociology, are just fancy words denoting eccentric pastimes.

"If I had stayed here," Sant-Cassia says, "I would have seen to anthropology being inputted into three areas. One of them is work in museums and the arts.

"The other is anthropology and social work, especially since in the future we are going to have more diverse and multicultural problems, whether or not we join the EU.

"And the other area I would like to see anthropologists working in is in planning. I think one of the biggest problems facing our society is that a lot of the models of planning that we adopted were from the metropolis. And we adopted them from Britain.

"Now actually, there are many other models of planning and many other models of engagement of the public. The British model does not work at all, and nobody looks over to other models such as Italy or to France and other alternatives.

"So if one had to get anthropology into planning, to get it out of the hands of formalist architects who have no links with the public, this would be a very important step for the study of anthropology."

Sant-Cassia notes the problem many anthropology graduates ultimately have in integrating their studies with a job that fully recognises their qualifications and talents.

"I think that is also partly a problem of increasing professionalism. A lot of academic subjects are very keen to have their own particular qualifications, such as social work and planning itself. I think how that could change was if we had a change at university level and in recruiting policy. Anthropologists work in national parks, with development agencies and immigration authorities.

"They also work with people asking for political asylum. Over here there’s nobody working on this basis for people asking for political asylum, and anthropologists would be helpful in deciphering such cases."

Sant-Cassia is looking over to new work abroad once again, this time landing in south-west France, to shift focus onto something different than inter-ethnic violence, and look at the elite of Peznas, not far from Montpellier, looking at the discourses of this elite.

Shifting focus onto his corpus of studies, we talk about violence, part of his work having been focused on violence in the modern nation state by using examples of inter-ethnic violence in Cyprus. We land the issue of violence fifteen years back in time, location Malta, and the turbulence of the eighties.

Being a time that experienced unprecedented degrees of violence in post-independence Malta, I ask Sant-Cassia if he can dig down to the roots of this distinct chapter in the island’s late history. I curiously ponder whether ‘intra-ethnic’ violence is part of any post-colonial state’s historical destiny.

"I think you have to put in some political context. I quite agree there was a degree of political violence in the eighties. However, I never heard of anybody asking for political asylum abroad.

"So in other words, as bad as the situation was, you can’t really compare it to any other place in the world. One admits there was a pretty heavy-handed government, but there were no political refugees, and we never reached that stage."

The climate of these beleaguered times lends much to the notion of a divided society rooted in tribal factions. The power wielded by the two main political parties, strengthening the political divide, has also augmented the cultural division along which common Maltese polarities reside: North and South, pulit and hamallu, those not part of the working class and those who are, Nationalists and Labourites.

"There’s a great deal of hegemony of the political parties and it has increased also. A lot of the patterns of Mintoff’s socialist government in the seventies and eighties followed a sort of third-world populism. It was quite an interesting pattern.

"People talk about civil society and government talks about devolution of power. But the question is not how much government devolves power. The question is how much people exert their own views. Again there is a hint of paternalism in saying that ‘we are going to devolve power.’

"None of the political parties has had the guts to tackle the issues which are potential vote-losers, such as the Armier boathouse-owners or the rent laws. So they are enthralled very much to their views of what they consider their political programme and I don’t think they have very much courage to push through certain decisions which would be unpopular with certain sectors of the population."

Civil society in Malta is truly deserted of all power unless it falls within the parameters of big party agendas. The amalgamation of power and capital has made it all the more difficult for people to demand their due from the powers that be who, backed by big business and contractor moguls, have commodified the island into one big development zone.

"My view is that the more pluralistic the system the better is. I can’t understand how a society that pretends to be modern has to have this sort of political see-saw where there’s hardly any consensus at all.

"It is impossible for a modern society for people just to have very fixed views on everything and also for these views to be determined by the political parties. Cyprus has around ten political parties just on the Greek side.

"So you can’t say that a small-scale society requires just two parties. Well, if that were the case, then the best system is one that had just one party or even no party at all. One of the advantages of having more than two political parties is that firstly, they are more on their feet and have to be more responsive to people’s views. Secondly, it doesn’t encourage a certain arrogance that manifests itself once in power, with power stretching over five years. And finally, there’s a chance that coalitions themselves will reflect a greater degree of public opinion and public views."

Wishful thinking I muse, with 2003’s general elections having seen nothing but the crowning of big party politics and father-life figures brandishing their will. I wouldn’t hold my breath.