THE MALTESE RACE

The original, prehistoric inhabitants of Malta probably reached the island from Sicily; the earliest recorded settlers were the Neolithic inhabitants of 5000BC. History shows us that the Phoenicians colonized Malta in about 800BC. A Semitic race, they occupied the islands until their successors, the Carthaginians (same race) were ousted by the Romans in 216 BC. The Semitic people, a Caucasian group, included the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Amorites (ancestors of the Phoenicians), Nabateans, Arameans, Hebrews, Arabians and Abyssianians; they all at one time or another inhabited the fertile crescent (region forming an arc between the head of the Persian Gulf and the Southeastern Corner of the Mediterranean Sea). The term Semitic is derived from the name of Shem, the son of Noah and ancestor of Abraham who was himself probably an Amorite and who many scholars believe lived between the years 2000and 1900 BC. The Amorites migrated into the Fertile Crescent in about 2500BC. They came from the northern fringe of the Syrian Desert and they gave the famous law-giving king, Hammurabi. The component elements of this tribe were the Canaanites who occupied Western Syria and Palestine after 2500BC and the coastal people called Phoenicians by the Greeks. Various tribes from the Arabian Peninsula also migrated into the Fertile Crescent over the centuries but the mass migration occurred in the 7th. Century AD under the banner of Islam in the course of which they not only entered the fertile crescent but also Egypt, N.Africa including Byzantine Carthage, Spain, Malta (869AD), Sicily etc. To many authorities the term Semitic has more linguistic than ethnological implications; they regard the Assyrio-Babylonian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, South Arabic, Ethiopic and Arabic languages as dialects developing out of one common tongue the Ursemitisch. Hence the similarity Maltese bears to Arabic, derived as it does from Phoenician, a Semitic language. This however does not make the Maltese, Arabs. Indeed, Phoenician together with Hebrew and Aramaic belongs to a different subdivision of the Hamito- Semitic family of languages (Northwest Semitic) than does Arabic, which with Ethiopic and Amharic belongs to the Southwest Semitic subdivision. Like many Mediterranean countries, the Maltese islands were once under Arab domination. The period of Arab occupation ranged from 200 years in Malta and Gozo and 400 years in Sicily and parts of Italy while the longest occupation was 800 years in Spain. The Normans started to rule Malta in 1090. The Arabs left their mark in the place names and the language. This was to be expected since the original Maltese language derived from Phoenician was, like Arabic, a Semitic language. Prior to the 200 years of Arab domination, Malta had been Roman (later part of the Eastern Empire) from 216B.C. to 869 AD-just short of 11 centuries. Contrary to popular belief, the Arabs, wherever they occupied were on the whole fairly benign; they did not go in for mass slaughter of their defeated foes (which is more than can be said for many 'Christian' European powers); people who refused to convert to Islam were subjected to a special tax. When the Arabs expelled the Byzantine rulers they did not put the Maltese population to the sword or in any way try to deport them from the islands. It is true that they tried to convert as many as possible to Islam; the degree of this conversion has still to be definitely ascertained. The view that the entire Byzantine population simply deserted the islands allowing the Arabs to move in does not stand up to historical scrutiny; the islands were far too strategically important to be simply abandoned to a hostile power. From the advent of the Normans up to 1530, Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily; thus from 1091 to 1530 when the Order of St. John came to Malta, the original Italic and Byzantine population from the Roman period was further reinforced by other European elements-a period of 440 years. It also bears stating that the island of Malta under Moslem rule had a very tiny population; the population of the island grew under the Norman rule which started in 1090AD; this was followed by a steady migration of people from Sicily and the European mainland over the ensuing centuries. The Euro-ethnicity of the Maltese race stands out even from a cursory perusal of the island's telephone directory! In culture and tradition the Maltese are European and Christian; thus for example Heraldry, a concept totally alien to the Arab world, is deeply rooted in the Maltese islands. The Maltese can also boast of an old and illustrious nobility deeply rooted in the traditions of European chivalry. It is in Europe that Malta's roots and destiny lie.