Malta appears in Damiri as the European country closest to Libya — geographically and historically — and as a missed strategic opportunity. Abdalla Kablan (EP 19) made it his base and built his argument around it.
Abdalla studied and later lectured at the University of Malta. He founded Wiser, a fintech company, from the island. His arrival in Europe had been through Bradford, England — a culture shock that recalibrated his expectations of the West. Malta offered something different: a small, navigable country with outsized ambitions in fintech, gaming, and digital services.
He argued that Libya had missed a strategic opportunity with Malta. The two countries are geographically closer than most Libyans realise. Malta had built itself into a regulatory and technology hub. Libya could have used that proximity for technology transfer, education pipelines, and institutional learning. Instead, the relationship was reduced to transactions. "We saw everything as money," he said, "and missed the value."
See: Malta as Springboard
Malta hosted a significant Libyan community during the 1980s and 1990s — families of dissidents, students on government scholarships, and businesspeople using the island as a gateway to Europe. The connection predates the 2011 revolution. For many Libyans, Malta was the first European country they encountered.
Ibrahim Shebani (EP 17) passed through Malta during his post-revolution displacement. His family moved through Tunisia, Malta, and Egypt before he reached Florence. Malta was a waypoint — close enough to Libya to feel like an extension of home, European enough to offer a foothold.
Kablan's case for Malta was not nostalgic. It was strategic: small countries can punch above their weight if they specialise. Malta did. Libya, with far greater resources, did not. The proximity that could have been an asset became an irrelevance because Libya never thought in terms of value — only money.