ABSTRACT
The chapter analyzes the change in perception and staging of the Turk in Maltese public festivals and the shared mentality of the Maltese with the Turk himself. A shift in the Maltese mindset can be traced through the scrutiny of the representation of Muslim characters in two public Maltese celebrations. The change occurred in replacing a Turk strongly stereotyped as the enemy of Christianity to a Turk increasingly seen as a resource for the island’s economy. The two public ceremonies are the celebration of the victory of Vienna in November 1683 and the carnival of 1721. In the first the Turks were represented through the political and military symbols of the Ottoman Empire (the crescent, the pasha) while in the carnival float of 1721 Lundi Gras, Turks represented the abundance (lavishly dressed, watchmen of alimentary sources). The importance of this shift must be connected with the crucial role of the corsair activity for the Maltese economy that imply how Maltese and Ottomans/Barbary are intimately interconnected, one being the sustenance of the other. The existence of common supra-religious codes in the Mediterranean economical system indicated that the enemy was less a stranger and understandable in the bulwark of Christianity than elsewhere.
