I am a citizen of Malta living in Diaspora. My parents live in Malta and they are my only biological connection to my country of origin. My native language is Maltese and it is spoken by about half a million people around the globe. Only one other person I know in New York can speak and understand this language, but I know that there are several Maltese immigrants living in the United States. Officially, I am a non-immigrant, yet I live in Diaspora. This makes me realize that I have two identities: my physical self (body-mind) and my virtual self. The virtual self is constructed through my passport, identity card, and other documentation issued by public authorities marking me as Maltese. My virtual self can also be extended to my presence in cyberspace.

With this pretext I shall examine Malta's image on the Internet. It is an image I have been trying to come to terms with for the past two years. As the Internet operations consultant for the NTOM (National Tourism Organization of Malta), it is an image I am now involved in developing.

The Internet became a domestic commodity in the Maltese Islands during the fall of 1996 when the first commercial Internet Service Providers were hooked up to the Net. Prior to that the University of Malta had access through a link with IUNet (an Italian server), and the Maltese Government had access to the Net through the MSU (Management Systems Unit), a state organization which served as a technical consultant to the government. There is an Official Maltese Government Website but as yet there is no Official Malta Home Page.

Grazio's Malta Virtuali was the first visible Maltese presence on the Internet. Before the winter of 1995/96 this website still carried the title "Malta Home Page". It appears that the site's owner/author, Maltese-American Grazio Falzon, decided to change the name for his site due to the proliferation of Malta home pages as soon as the Internet became accessible to everyone on the Maltese Islands. I am particularly interested in how Grazio's Malta Virtuali deals with notions of a national identity, emigration, and other aspects of Diaspora. Another concern is how this site deals with the different realities of place and space. My exploration will be guided by the articulation of a potential theory for the contemporary historical moment; the postmodern notion of a nostalgic longing for the past, coupled with a conservative erasure of the boundaries between past and present, which so evidently prevails in all the representations of Malta on the Internet. My observations are channeled through my intense preoccupation, as a student of performance studies, with the representation of reality. In this case the real place (Malta) and its representations in cyberspace.

All identities are filtered through the personal experiences and the emotional troubles that flow through the individual's interactions with everyday life. As Norman Denzin points out in his excellent book Images of Postmodern Society, "the new information technologies turn everyday life into a theatrical spectacle; into sites where the dramas that surround the decisive performances of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and age are staged" (8). The Internet goes beyond all other media formats in altering a person's relationship to the 'real' world of everyday life. It offers more possibilities than of any other single-medium satellite communication.

Before we go any further, I believe that it is necessary to point out that we should not think of the Internet as a homogeneous place. It is fundamentally pluralistic and embraces differing and often conflicting positions. In her introduction to the special issue of Women & Performance on Sexuality and Cyberspace (Fall 1996), Terri Senft explains the nature of the Internet very eloquently:

Properly speaking, the Internet is not a thing at all, but rather the effect of millions of performances called "packet switching." In packet switching, messages are sent out via modem from one computer to a "switching node" where they are then divided into workable units. The units are, in turn, transmitted to their destination and reassembled. Packet switching protocol requires a series of computer and telephone calculations, occurring in many different locations around the world, simultaneously. The effect of packet switching, what we call "The Internet," then, is really a series of cooperative performance gestures from multiple computer and telephone systems. The Net functions in a way that the telephone alone (because it operates on a dedicated circuit) does not. Although there is a thing called "the telephone," there is not, properly speaking, a place called the Internet. Rather, the Net's status as a place is a metaphorical hallucination, although an understandably useful one.

The Internet is a virtual space, and its nature is constantly being re-created by every person who taps into it, to impart or search for information. Surprisingly, Baudrillard maintains that "le virtuel n'est peut-être pas une forme universelle de vie mais une singularité." 1 This view works out in the context of the Internet only if we recognize that it is "a singularity" in constant flux.

In the same way that Baudrillard insists that the American nation is known, and knows itself through its representations in cinema and television,2 I propose to extend this notion to a global society which will eventually really know itself through the Internet. Baudrillard may be viewed as an inappropriate theorist of cyberspace because as he states in a recent interview with Claude Thibaut, "J'ai peu de lumières sur ce sujet. J'en suis resté au fax et au répondeur automatique. […] le Cyberspace ne m'est pas d'une grande utilité personnellement."3 However, his vision on the future configuration of identity and liberty is helpful in our consideration of the various possible encounters in the space created by virtuality. The world-wide-web is often called "the world-wild-west" due to the possibilities brought about by its general free-for-all aura. Baudrillard argues that

il n'y aura pas de politique du virtuel parce que la politique est devenue virtuelle, il n'y aura pas d'éthique du virtuel parce que l'éthique est devenue virtuelle, c'est-à-dire qu'il n'y a plus de références à un système de valeurs. Je ne fais pas là un constat nostalgique : le virtuel retranscrit tout dans son espace , les finalités humaines se volatilisent en quelque sorte dans le virtuel. Ce n'est pas un danger d'apocalypse dans le sens d'une explosion mais plutôt un passage dans un espace indéfinissable. Une sorte d'incertitude radicale. On communique mais quand à ce qui est dit on ne sait pas ce qu'il devient. Cela apparaîtra avec une telle évidence que ne se poseront même plus les problèmes de la liberté ou de l'identité.4

And yet, although we may have superseded most problems of liberty, there are still many problems of identity. Race, gender, and sexuality are often problematic in cybercommunication, and personal and cultural identity situations most often reflect on one's national cultural identity. Grazio's Malta Virtuali is certainly not the only site which reflects this predicament. I shall discuss this situation as it appears on other Malta-related websites too.

The Malta Interactive website was created by Charles Abela (a Maltese-Australian) with graphics by Andrew Glavina (a Maltese-Canadian). It is significant that one of the first hyperlinks on the index page for Malta Interactive leads to a profile of Grazio Falzon. There are pictures of his family, but he is conspicuously absent. However, there is a very revealing comment under a picture of his wife and duaghter: "Grazio prefers to remain virtual." Then comes a forward by Charles Abela, where he explains how important Grazio's Malta Virtuali (which he prefers to call Merhba) is to the Maltese community in cyberspace:

[Malta Interactive] came about when I stumbled across the Merhba page published by Grazio Falzon.
   I quite admired the way it's grown and the substantial information that it carries. Also, it proves that to have a popular page you don't have to make it look like an art gallery. As long as the information is fresh and useful, people will read it.
   Since I am in a lucky or "unlucky" position of running an Internet Service as part of the business I thought it would be worthwhile starting something similar to Merhba. Every time I look at Merhba I see "New" items popping up all over the place.
   This made me realize the difficulty of keeping something like this alive because of the input that it requires and why GF must be fully stretched out. So I hope I am not adding too much additional burden.
   In exchanging emails, Grazio made very clear that he supports us and the least I can do is to "enshrine" him as the "divine light" of this new home page. I suppose we can call him "member for life", "father figure" etc.

Abela misnames Grazio's Malta Virtuali to "Merhba" (Welcome). Why? Is this a sign of his lack of knowledge of Internet protocol, notwithstanding his "lucky or 'unlucky' position of running an Internet Service"? This may be a minor detail and I may be accused of splitting hairs. What is really remarkable is that Charles Abela acknowledges Grazio as the "divine light" of his own website. Abela clearly believes that even if his pages may look better than Grazio's they can never equal them in terms of breadth of information.

Naturally, Grazio's Malta Virtuali has a substantial number of contributing writers. They are mostly Maltese persons or people with Maltese names who are second or third generation Australians, Americans or Canadians. Grazio has a hyperlink for acknowledgments at the bottom of his main page to specifically express appreciation for the feedback he received from all who helped him enhance the home page. The list includes people from Malta, Australia, Sweden, England, France, South Africa and the United States. He gives special thanks to two computer professionals: Pierre Mizzi, who runs his own Internet Services company in Malta, and Dr. Michael Rizzo, currently teaching at the University of Malta but a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kent, England, during the time he built a guest book into Grazio's site.

On Tuesday November 19, 1996 I wrote my first email to Grazio asking him some questions related to the history of his Malta related Web pages. Here is an edited excerpt from his response:

   Way way back in 1993 (I was living in Westminster, Maryland at the time) I was already addicted to the Internet. I was disappointed not to find anything anywhere over the Internet about our mini country.
   I tested out a newsgroup and also a List focused on Malta. The response was extremely discouraging; the few surfers who contacted me then were not even Maltese. Well the projects didn't pan out and against my will I canceled both projects.
   Early 1994, I suggested the idea of starting a homepage about Malta to a dear friend from West Virginia, by the name Kathy Bilton. Kathy had already her own page at the time; she offered to help me with the mechanics of getting the site set up and going. I knew nothing then about HTML and the logistics of maintaining a website. I'm still learning... :-) I started the page with Fred.net, a provider based in Frederickstown, Maryland. I still maintain my page out there.
   For a long while I worked on my page via a LYNX browser and never saw graphically what I was doing with all my tagging etc... Over the months I revised and expanded considerably. Recently, with the help of Pierre Mizzi of LOGIX (Malta) I revamped the site. I reorganized much better the page. I plan to do further graphical and content changes.
   The Guestbook has been an enormous success. many people have told me they made new friends via the guestbook. Others wrote to thank me; they reconnected with relatives and friends they hadn't contacted in years. Those are gratifying letters to receive.
   I'm inundated with email every day. I receive a daily average of 30, 50 and even more pieces of email. It's funny: I've become sort of a clearing-house for any question relating even remotely to Malta. I try to respond to everyone who writes to me. In the process I've met fascinating people and made friends with several people from various countries.
   I spend a good 4 hours every day writing to people and trying to work on the page. It's very time-consuming but I get a tremendous kick out of this web site and what it has generated.
   I can never seem to be able to catch-up with the back-log of email. I can use a secretary or two... :-). I don't have a life anymore... I DO live virtually... :-)
   For the future I plan to add audio and video sequences to further enhance the site. As you know several Malta sites have sprouted all over the net. I've to keep updating and improving the page (which is not easy)...otherwise I'd lose my business :-) (Not that I'm making any $$$ on my site... on the contrary!)

Looking at the topics on Grazio's Malta Virtuali, one immediately recognizes how it almost has the air of being the Malta Home Page. Its table of contents includes, national symbols, government and law, tourist information, news and viewpoint. Most of the material in these sections is quoted verbatim from official sources, however, there are some pages which feature writings by Maltese emigrants on their desires for the homeland. Another section, called Maltascapes, is very significant as a site for the identification of Malta's image on the Internet. Maltascapes is a collection of impressions and reminiscences gathered from expatriates and non-Maltese who have visited the islands. Most of the entries read like pages out of private travelogues, yet there is one which stands out due a series of questions posed in it. The writer, Ronnie Micallef, who is professionally connected with the BBC Radio World Service and the University of London Institute of Education, ventilates his disappointment at

the level of engagement which we have attempted…wonderful scenes of Maltese sunsets and free-flowing wine are much appreciated. But I think that this is not what the Maltaweb should be all about. We have, here, an exciting tool which has the potential to change the way we think and relate with Malta…I am fascinated by this opportunity to get in touch and explore real issues…what about the Diaspora? What are their experiences? Who and where are they? Why do they consider themselves Maltese? Can we at last tap into the wealth of experience which Maltese emigrants have accumulated over the years? This is what I think the Web is about. Finally, we can challenge some very basic questions:

1. What is a SyberMalti (Is that spelling acceptable?!) Are we at the stage where we can claim that the Maltese race is not bound by geography? What are the religious, social, political beliefs of a SyberMalti? Eventually, will a SyberMalti be given the vote ? Why not ? I am probably more aware of what happens in Malta than many other people…

2. Is a SyberMalti any different from the rest of the clan? It seems to me that we are different already by virtue of being `enfranchised' once we have access to the Internet.

3. Can we utilise this medium more effectively for educational purposes in Malta ? I believe that we must…

4. Can we utilise this medium for more constructive social exchange ?So this is our cyberpjazza ! Our Kazin ! Property of those who feel that they belong. All Maltese Wannabees wherever you may be. Can we make an effort to ensure that the web does not became yet another piece of Maltese heritage to be exploited by the NTOM ? (I fear that we may already be hurtling down that road with some of our rather wistful writings to date). If tourists want to read about our history, culture and what-not, perhaps the NTOM can provide a purpose-designed page ? Not this one !

Micallef's observations are very well taken by those of us in Diaspora who are sensitive to the possibilities "exciting tool which has the potential to change the way we think and relate with Malta." Indeed, what would make a website the official Malta Home Page and how can the NTOM create a service which does not distort the cultural identity of the Maltese Islands?

The NTOM is about to launch its own pages (at http://www.tourism.org.mt) by the beginning of 1997. Presumably, Grazio's Malta Virtuali and all other "Malta Home Pages" sporting "Tourism Information" will replace their current material intended tourist with a hyperlink to the official NTOM site.

Regularly organized tourism creates a reality of its own. There is a great danger of cultural transvestitism with creating the official Malta (tourism) home page. Many tourist industries simulate traditions and situations to fit tourists' expectations, fulfilling a stereotypically generated cultural image rather than an actual representation of the national identity. By the same token, most Malta-related websites have been dishing out information about the Maltese Islands creating an identity which is constructed of stereotypes and predictable elements. More alarming, however, is the amount of misinformation generated by these pages either due to lack of direct contact with the everyday life on the Islands (as can be seen on the websites of those who do not live in the "homeland") or because of negligence with updates of data presented as factual. For example, Grazio's Malta Virtuali lists a "Maltese Liberation Front," an organization which does not exist in the Maltese Political scene. At the same time it does not list Alternattiva Demokratika, a very active political movement, in the politics section but only in the news section. Having lived on the Maltese Islands during all my formative years, I must say that Malta's image on the Internet gives me the feeling of the way things are really 'organized' in the physical place known as Malta.

Looking at Malta-related sites which have no ambition to be a interactive "Malta" on-line is an important exercise to acquire a broader feeling of what may be called Cyber-Melitensia, the electronic material generated about Malta. I am referring to websites which are simply personal home pages like thousand of others on the World Wide Web. For this exercise I have chosen to look at three such sites.

Noel Marshall's home page is also known as Chunky's Web Page. Marshall is a 34-year-old man Maltese man who emigrated to Australia in 1985. The following is the most relevant section in his page for this analysis. It is called "My Dreams (some of)":

• Like any other person that has left his homeland, I yearn and pray for the day that I return for a visit (hopefully in May 1997!)

• I wait impatiently for the day when I can show my children where their Mum & Dad grew up and played. Although I don't think there is much left.

• I imagine the happy faces of my parents spoiling these two grandchildren of theirs. These children that they barely know!

These sentiments are shared by many emigrants, however, such a sincere expression of desire for the "homeland" raises many questions. Do all emigrants feel this way about their "homeland"? Is a visit by the grandparents to the site of Diaspora not even considered? Does the "homeland" attract the children the way the parents assume it should? What does placing statements such as "I yearn and pray for the day that I return for a visit" mean when placed on one's Internet home page?

Another person whose home page discloses many of the sensibilities of the Maltese in Diaspora is Christine's First Page. The address for this page is http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1962, yet neither the owner/author of this web site, Christine Borg Bartolo, nor the server on which the files are hosted are in Vienna. Christine lives in the Canary Islands, and the Geocities server is in California.5 The very first sentences on her welcome page explain her intentions:

Hola! If you have found my page, you probably know me. But if you do not, my name is Christine, I am Maltese and at the moment I am living in Lanzarote. I have no particular reason for preparing this page other then to include myself with all the rest.

While you read this introductory note on your computer monitor, 'exotic' music is played automatically by your web browser, if it is set to do so. Where are we? We are in cyberspace; as far away from Malta as anyone can ever go.

Christine's First Page seems to be a relatively popular site because her on-line counter says that the site has been accessed more than 1650 times between August and December 1996.6 In her "bio" page she explains her position in relation to the "homeland":

I have now been in Lanzarote for nearly two years and I love it here. I will eventually go back to live in Malta as I still consider that my home, but for now I am happily enjoying the peace and tranquillity this island has to offer.

One can assume that being born in Malta is a good enough reason for Noel Marshall and Christine Borg Bartolo to include "Malta" on their respective home pages. Yet it is not only Maltese people living in Diaspora who create Malta related web pages. Adi's Malta Homepage is particularly interesting as a Malta-related site created by someone who is neither a Maltese citizen nor has biological connection to the Islands. Adrian Keller is the author/owner of the "one and only Malta-site in Switzerland." This is how he explains the existence of his Malta Homepage:

The people may ask themselves why a Swiss person decided to create a page about Malta. The explanation is quite easy: I wanted to learn the HTML-language (and to surf on the net with a goal). However it is a big problem to learn a programming language without any goals or projects. This problem is certainly known by every programmer. So I decided to create a site about a certain topic. First I thought I could create a page about Switzerland, but there existed already a lot of, and there is too much stuff to write as well. Well, after my visit in Malta in summer 1995 I was looking for information and news about Malta in the Web. And there was hardly anything. So, I decided to create a page containing several stuff of interest about Malta.

Keller's website raises several points which are very indicative of the national Maltese identity projected to non-Maltese persons. His pages are in English rather than one of the Swiss languages. English is arguably the lingua franca of the Internet. Together with Maltese it is also one of the two official languages of the Maltese Islands, and the main language for most tourism related matters in Malta. Adi's Malta Homepage consists mainly of hyperlinks to other known Malta-related sites including some of the ones discussed above. Nevertheless, Keller promises to develop his site with details about his experience as an English-language student in Malta and "nice pictures." Keller's site was created before the Internet became available in the Maltese Islands. One of the original for his compulsion to create a Malta home page has now become redundant. His site remains undeveloped.

There are many aspects which elicit reflection when dealing with Malta's image on the Internet. Most of my observations are informed by the way I value my roots. What happens if I use the term "roots" as Eugenio Barba proposes: "not to imply a bond with ties to a place, but an ethos which permits us to change places"? Barba uses the term "roots" for that which "represents the force which causes us to change our horizons precisely because it roots us to a center"? My analysis is certainly shaped by a revaluation of my Maltese identity. Barba continues that, "defining one's own professional identity implies overcoming ethnocentricity to the point of discovering one's own center in the 'traditions of traditions'." Is the Internet a place where the "tradition of traditions" can manifest itself? How different is the way Malta's image is structured on the Internet when compared to the representations of any other identity of communities anchored in topological places as constructed in cyberspace?

December 1996
Manhattan, NY

Sources and references:

Abela, Charles. Malta Interactive. (http://www.corpnet.com.au/corpnet/malta-miactive/2lev-index.html)

Barba, Eugenio. (1988) "Eurasian Theatre" in The Intercultural Performance Reader. (1996) Patrice Pavis, ed., New York: Routledge.

Baudrillard, Jean. (1988) America. trans. Chris Turner, London & New York: Verso.

Baudrillard, Jean. (1996) "Entretien avec Jean Baudrillard" An interview by Claude Thibaut in
Cybersphère 9: March 1996 (http://www.quelm.fr/CSphere/N9/Sommaire.html)

Borg Bartolo, Christine. Christine's First Page. (http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/1962)

Denzin, Norman K. (1991) Images of Postmodern Society. London & Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Falzon, Grazio. Grazio's Malta Virtuali. (http://www.fred.net/malta)

Keller, Adrian. Adi's Malta Homepage. (http://www.ee.ethz.ch/~aekeller/malta.html)

Marshall, Noel. Chunky's Web Page. (http://www.monash.edu.au/~noelm/)

Micallef, Ronnie. "Malta-scape 8" in Grazio's Malta Virtuali. Grazio Falzon, ed., (http://www.fred.net/malta/scape8.html)

Mitchell, William J. (1995) City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.
(http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/City_of_Bits/index.html)

Senft, Theresa. (1996) "Introduction: Performing the Digital Body -- A Ghost Story"
in Women & Performance: 17 (http://www.echonyc.com/~women/Issue17/index.html)