“In Malta there are a greater number of villages and inhabitants than one would expect, considering the quality of the land,” observed Jean Quintin when he visited Malta 493 years ago.

He learned that there were eight parishes with a total population of 20,000 and expressed surprise that the island with such poor natural resources could support such a large population.

Quintin noticed that the island was very dry, irrigated only with springs and that it had to import its corn from Sicily which he described as “very fertile in all kinds of grain, [and] lies nearby and is for the inhabitants as good as a granary, where otherwise they would die of hunger”.

Consequently, the Maltese faced hunger and misery whenever grain could not come from Sicily because of storms, bad harvests or quarantines because of the plague.

The rocky and rough landscape made Quintin wonder how anything could grow in the shallow soil of Malta. The only consolation was that it was excellent for growing cotton. It was held superior to that grown in Sicily, Calabria, Spain, Egypt and North Africa. Quintin observed that “from it [the cotton] are here made hut-coverings and women’s clothes, and so now we need not marvel at Indian woollen trees and cotton clothes. It is also very useful and much sought for ships’ sails.”

In his description of Malta, he described some sweet-smelling orchards of palm trees. He praised the local honey produced from thyme, violet and other flowers. But he paid no compliments to the local wine saying that the Maltese grapes tasted better when eaten than when drunk as wine.

He was struck by the frugal lifestyle of the Maltese. “The inhabitants make use of certain kinds of thistles instead of wood, which together with dried cows’ dung, is used for the baker’s oven… the people also feed on other thistles; not those which we, along with the Italians, now eat with so much relish (although they have a great abundance also of these) but these are much more sour. The water is salty and sedimentary…”

What would Quintin say now if he were to revisit us? He would find a population of over 516,000, 25 times larger than when he came, making Malta the ninth most densely populated country of 235 countries/territories in the world. He would find that Malta has come a long way.

Out of 189 countries Malta is ranked in 28th  place in the Human Development Index compiled by the United Nations and used to quantify a country’s “average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living”.

Quintin described the Maltese as having ‘a Sicilian character with a mixture of African’- Evarist Bartolo

Quintin would also notice how overbuilt Malta has become. In 1530, he saw that “there are many troglodytes in Malta: they dig caves, and these are their houses”. The rest of the Maltese lived in very poor houses and huts. “The houses are breached and falling into ruins, with walls crumbling and unfinished, on weak foundations; they are buildings without attics; the roofs, roughly made, are covered either with tiles or reeds: frightening indeed. What shall I say? Apart from the city and some houses in the suburbs, one would take all the rest for African huts.”

A liveable country?

Quintin described the Maltese as having “a Sicilian character with a mixture of African”. He said that for centuries Maltese men had a reputation for not being strong enough for, nor adapted to fighting wars. “The women are not at all ugly, but live very much as if they were uncivilised; they do not mix with other people; they go out covered in a veil, as if to see a woman is here the same as to violate her.”

Quintin visited Malta six months before the Knights of St John arrived to turn the island into their headquarters and base for the next 268 years. The island would eventually become synonymous with the Knights. But when Quintin came to the island, it still had the reputation of being “always known as a place where pirates had their bases”.

The Knights cut Malta’s umbilical cord with Sicily. Malta moved from being a remote barren outpost of the Sicilian archipelago and embarked on a new destiny of its own.

Emperor Charles V’s donation of Malta to the Knights catapulted Malta from a medieval milieu to a late renaissance environment. The Knights were focused exclusively on making Malta their home.

For the first time in many centuries crucial decisions about Malta were taken in Malta itself and people who took those decisions had to live

with the consequences of their decisions. They built the islands’ infrastructure and institutions to serve them here, not some power centre on the continent.

Since 1530 we have moved forward beyond recognition. But we cannot afford to be complacent. We have become too overcrowded: too many people, too many cars, too many buildings. By 2050 our population is expected to reach 668,000. How many more people, buildings, cars and the corresponding increase in schools, hospitals and general infrastructure can we cater for without collapsing? In the Number Index made up of quality of life, purchasing power, safety, health, cost of living, property prices, trafficking commuting time, pollution and climate we are ranked a lowly 62 out of 87 countries.

Since 1530 we have had to reinvent ourselves over and over again to ensure that we can survive. The geopolitical and geo-economic global landscape is changing. Business will never be the same again for Malta and the rest of the world.

We need to reinvent our business model. Global tax, regulatory and environmental changes will impact our services sector. We cannot depend only on local trade, construction and tourism sectors to generate enough jobs and revenue to sustain a strong welfare state, public services and a liveable country.

Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour foreign and education minister.

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