Editorial : rationed bread, and such : the transformation of Malta : 1960-2020

Abstract

During the Second World War, every family in Malta had its own ration book, issued by the Food Distribution Office. This office issued permits to grocers to provide the customer with such essential commodities as bread, pasta, flour, sugar, coffee, matches, laundry soap, lard and/ or margarine, tinned milk, edible oil, corned beef, tomato paste and kerosene. This quota system was necessary to ensure a fair distribution, given the limited availability of such resources that were deemed essential. The ration book persisted a couple of decades after the end of the War, and those born in Malta in the 1960s would remember buying rationed bread (hobz tar-raxin). The eventual demise of the ration book was a harbinger of the changing quality of life of the people of the Maltese Islands. Hence, the proposition of a different kind of book. Here is a scholarly text: one that charts this momentous and unique transition in the history of this small country, while at the same time celebrating the life and work of Edward Zammit, a labour sociologist who saw this transformation happen and unfold around him. Professor Zammit is well known for his critical observations on work, social class and labour movements in Malta, and how these were impacted by the 'colonial inheritance' - the title of what is possibly Zammit's major oeuvre - which is a condition that this text dwells upon. [Excerpt]