Daphne’s relatives have already refused to endorse the reward. “Justice, beyond criminal liability, will only be served when everything that our mother fought for – political accountability, integrity in public life and an open and free society – replaces the desperate situation we are in” – were the words of Daphne’s sons.
The government seems to believe that it can buy a clean conscience with €1 million. That million euros will not bring Daphne back. It will not reunite a grieving family. That does not count in the government scale of values though.
In fact one million euros is just about right to buy an interested family a passport for each member of the family. If they choose to rent a house to circumvent the property investment issue they might even get some change back on that million.
This is the government of the budget surplus made of questionable profits. It believes it can put a price on everything and that way everything will be solved.
There is no price for freedom.
There are crooks everywhere now. But some people will never be bought.
Justin Borg-Barthet, a Maltese citizen, is a Senior Lecturer in EU law and Private International Law at the University of Aberdeen. He is the author of The Governing Law of Companies in EU Law (Bloomsbury/Hart 2012) and severalpapers on mutual recognition in EU law.
In the Maltese Parliament yesterday, Simon Busuttil MP appealed to the international press to keep a watchful eye on Malta. Malta, he says, needs this independent and objective scrutiny more than ever now. He’s right, of course. Freedom of the press in Malta is under grave threat. Daphne Caruana Galizia was, in many ways, the last line of defence.
Her assassination completes a process begun many years ago in which the media has been systematically intimidated, weakened and bribed to the point of effective castration. Consider, for example, the eerie silence in the press in matters concerning Pilatus Bank, the Malta-based money-laundering outfit for international Politically Exposed Persons and the failure of anyone (bar Daphne) to comment on the quiet deletion and censoring of what little they dared publish. This silence from the local media appears to be a consequence of threats from the aforementioned bank of costly (but vexatious) legal action in the United States. Reportedly, Daphne too was in receipt of such heavy handed threats but stood fast to her truths.
Malta now relies on the international press to provide a truly free account of the deterioration of the rule of law and corruption of administrative practices there.
But keeping a careful eye on Malta is not only in Malta’s interest. It is in the global interest too. This is why the Treaty on European Union enables action against Member States who persistently breach the rule of law. It is not because the EU is a safety net for the Member States, but because judicial, administrative and legislative decisions of Member States have extensive external effects. Contrary to President Juncker’s recent protestations, when Simon Busuttil pleaded with the EU to cast its eye over Malta, the rule of law in a Member State is not a purely internal matter. The EU is duty bound to keep one of its own in check, for the good of the wider bloc.
While we’re on the subject of President Juncker, let’s not forget his spine-chilling defence of Joseph Muscat in the European Parliament. It is an open secret that Joseph Muscat intends to replace Donald Tusk as President of the European Council. And here is President Juncker publicly defending and enthusiastically applauding an ambitious man, a man whose connections to Azeri and Chinese corrupt dealing – particularly in the oil, gas and solar energy markets – are, at best, at arm’s length.
But back to the rule of law in Malta: Malta is an EU Member State. The Member State remains the basic unit of EU law and policy-making. The adoption of legislation requires the consent of Member States, usually achieved on the basis of consensus. This means that compromises are made to accommodate Malta’s position. Malta sometimes has formal veto rights too. The European Council, made up of heads of government of the Member States, determines general EU policy direction.
The Member States also have powers of appointment; they nominate members of the Commission, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. The gravity of a Mafia State holding such sway over the largest trading bloc in the world hardly needs explanation.
But it gets worse. The EU/EEA internal market functions, primarily, on the basis of the principle of mutual recognition. Mutual recognition essentially means that that which is lawful in Malta is presumed to be lawful elsewhere. This includes gambling services, letterbox companies, and the many other services Malta has developed since 2004 to reap the benefits of EU membership. The EU has several international trade deals, some of which enable mutual recognition in the services market. In future, Malta may well be in a position to provide passporting rights to Canada, for example. In other words, laws and administrative decisions determined by a Mafia State are automatically recognised, and their effects felt, far beyond its borders.
This is true of judgments of the Maltese courts too. The Brussels I Regulation requires judgments of courts of one EU Member State to be recognised and enforced elsewhere in the EU. There are movements towards a similar global convention to further develop the Hague Choice of Court Convention. The EU, and therefore its Member States, is party to these negotiations. Decisions to weaken judicial independence in Malta have global effects.
In other words, the assault on press freedoms in Malta concerns you directly. Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated because she exposed the crooks who have come to control an important part of EU and global governance. This is not of concern only to fewer than half a million Maltese citizens, but genuinely affects the entire globe. It is that serious.
To the international media, I have this to say: Please, for your sake and ours, do not look away.
This is not another “je suis” moment. This is a reaction to the idea that is being bandied about that the demonstrations and manifestations following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia have to be sanitised in a bubble of non-political expression. It is probably a symptom of all that has happened in the country – of a nation that has grown up in a stultified environment and using a twisted code of expression where “politics’ became a taboo word.
The risk we are running here is that we misunderstand all that is going on and transform this into a symbolic shambles – a memorial for the sake of a memorial that is taken out of context. The constant exchange of diatribes between the two parties that have monopolised our official political scene has rendered the nation’s citizens immune to the understanding of real politics. The reaction to a tragedy is mechanical and predictable. Candle-light vigils, walks, demonstrations are meant to help the mourners to cope and get their closure. No lessons are learnt.
It is not just today. We can have an explosion in a fireworks factory, we can have a terrible traffic “black spot”, we can have multiple deaths on the workplace, we can have thousands drowning outside our shores, we can have hundreds of protected birds shot out of the air in the hunting season, we can have animals living in atrocious conditions in ramshackle zoos.
We are brilliant at mourning the dead, the victims. We kid ourselves that we will show some leftover christian empathy. However as a people we will continue to be blinded and ignore the reasons for the tragedy and the lessons to be learnt so that this will not happen again. Our political establishment has for a long time benefited from the fact that we have felt sufficiently consoled by the mere expressions of sympathy. Never again. At least not until tomorrow.
This cannot go on. The education of our citizen class needs to begin in earnest and there is no better moment than now. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia happened in a context. The appeals to the population not to make it a “political issue” are misguided. What they should mean is that this is not a “partisan” issue. It is not a cause that should be taken up for the benefit of one party or another. Because politics does not exist to serve the parties.
In their effort to sanitise the manifestations of anger and empathy some people are shooting down all the messengers. This is dangerous. This is an attempt to make the new normal a permanent normal. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is political. I have no doubt that it is political. We do not know who the mandator and the murder are but we can only understand one thing: that Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed for something that she had written about or was planning to write about.
She was killed in a nation where the complete institutional breakdown aids and abets the functioning of criminal organisations. She was killed in a state where the absence of the rule of law means that the tentacles of the criminal organisations have spread deep into our society and where these can act with a feeling of impunity. She was killed in a country that has huge problems understanding the dangers and consequences of corruption. She was killed in Malta the super-economy that privileges easy money, fake jobs and no questions asked.
These are all the makings of a political murder because in order for this murder to take place the safeguards of a political society have to have broken down. That is what Daphne’s son meant when he mentioned the rule of law.
Civil society has had the ugliest of wake up calls. It has a choice before it now. Either to fall for the serenades of the old political establishment that are trying their damned hardest to abuse of the ignorance of the law, of the ignorance of the way a society should work, of the way people ignore why their commitment to changing this society is crucial. Either that or to commit to change. To understand that each and every one of us have the duty to be political, to become political and to be the agents of change in spite of the old political establishment.
We are all politicians. Every politician among us that wants to stand up and be counted should be at the demonstration at City Gate on Sunday at 4pm.
Anton Caruana Galizia sent this open appeal for publication.These are times when different people from different walks of life have been shaken into action. At this moment the reflection is on what to do and how to do it. Anton’s appeal includes that of small acts of engagement. It is definitely a first step to which all of us can subscribe.
I venture to state that it is in the little things that we find answers to the big questions that democracy asks of us. The simple act of becoming aware of truths we find unsettling. Taking the time to gather information on which we can voice a point of view. Summoning the confidence to enter into a conversation, however quietly. Discovering that others share in our perspective or cause us to shift it, (for we are none of us all-knowing). Taking that first step towards a place where we gather together. Casting a vote.
From our fictions of political life we expect soaring rhetoric from a polished podium, or a prophet to emerge ragged from the wilderness. We expect others to provide the answer that we might follow. I don’t consider that a reasonable expectation, however often we indulge in it. If it is answers we want then we must participate in finding them. We must share in their creation. I suggest that this is achieved through small acts of engagement: sharing, listening, reflecting, participating.
I urge you not to succumb to cynicism. I hold the view that the people of the Maltese islands are capable of rational discussion and reflection. That as citizens of the Republic of Malta, we can recognize an attack on the liberties we claim as fundamental to the operation of our democracy. That our claim to those liberties and our aspiration to uphold them can serve as a source of unity.
From what I observe, unity won’t simply appear by summons or appeals. It is not, to my mind, a spirit that responds to incantations and wild emotional gestures. It must be demonstrated and articulated. And for this to occur, I would suggest that there must be a broader understanding of what it is we aspire to, an understanding that it is incumbent on each of us to cultivate for ourselves and to share with others. There is hope here, for this is happening already, and has been happening for some time. I want to encourage all others involved in this enterprise to broaden their conversation. To engage more people in it.
I venture to state further, that the rational response to an attack on liberty of expression, is to make more intensive use of that liberty. And to hope and strive for justice.
Joe Bloggs (a pseudonymn) shares his thoughts on Daphne Caruana Galizia. Joe Bloggs regularly commented on the Running Commentary as well as on other online papers. Here he tries to look at what it might have been like to be on the receiving end of insults and threats.
Perhaps the worst part was the degradation, the dehumanising.
Those who saw her as being on their side would say that she could give as good as she got, she was strong. She portrayed herself as such. But she got blamed for electoral losses or close shaves, in fact the Running Commentary was born out of that.
Others called her a witch, a bile blogger, a ‘bicca blogger’, a gossiper, a slut. Partisan newspapers called for her ‘cleansing’ in editorials, a magistrate’s partner and government consultant actively posted and tweeted about wishing to consign the ‘Galizia mindset’ to history, the Government supported the setting up of an anti-Daphne blog (glennbedingfield.com) that actively degraded her with photos of her butt, the internet is literally replete with insults, edited photos and hate pages. Lord only knows what she received in her mailbox, email (which was always there on her website), mobile and comments section.
This went on for 20 odd years. 20 years of insults, threats and fickle friends.
Guess what, she was human. I recall being added out of the blue by her on LinkedIn earlier this year and found that rather odd. Months later I realised that whilst her blog posts were slowly dropping in frequency she had started sharing articles on LinkedIn, slowly building up to a mini blog. A new channel. When I pointed out that I noted that she was starting to post on LinkedIn and told her she’s right that that is an important audience, her characteristically concise reaction, “and no abuse” struck me as so weary. She often wrote about the misogyny and the insults but many took it (if I am honest with myself, to a degree I think I did too) as perhaps reinforcing her strong persona. This was a private conversation, it resonated.
Her last post, almost an outburst, about crooks everywhere and crooks denying that they are crooks was the first about that topic, the Panama Seven, in what felt like a long while. Deep in the comments section, perhaps best found on her Disqus profile (https://disqus.com/by/daphnecaruanagalizia/?) is the explanation. Besides taunting references to stories that she was yet to finish writing (Labour using Cambridge Analytica’s Psy-Op Services being one that springs readily to mind), Daphne was attuned to what her readers wanted to read and which topics would elicit a reaction, start a discussion, be shared. She called it the ‘news cycle’.
When prompted just 11 days ago as to why she was still writing about Delia and had stopped writing about the poor state of Maltese institutions and the crooks in power, she said to one commenter: “Nobody is interested right now. Certainly not my readers.” And “I have a good understanding of what people want to read and when they want to read it, and right now – wholly understandably – they want to read about the new man.” to another.
11 days later she broke the news cycle.
You lent us your mouth, so that we could speak our mind.
You lent us your ear, so that we could find solace by sharing when others would not listen.
You lent us your nose for a good story, so that we could read about that which no one else would dare write.
You tried to set us right when we were wrong.
We got lazy.
We got distracted.
We compromised and allowed ourselves to be bribed.
Those who ought to know better took advantage. First they belittled you, then they demonised you, then they isolated you, then, when few were those left looking, they erased your mouth, ears and nose.
Now the Running Commentary has stopped. Forever frozen in a deafeningly silent scream. This memory will not be erased, we will not allow it.
We must each use our own mouth, ears and nose to speak up, listen, educate and hold those that took advantage to account. We must wake people up from their slumber. We must prevent a repeat.
Rest in peace dear friend, we will continue the narrative.
The 2008 election campaign was the first one to feature blogs heavily. The Maltese blogosphere had only just really kicked off and most times it was a case of blogs being quoted in what was then referred to as the mainstream media. J’accuse (already three years young at the time) was one of the leading blogs and the comments section also served as a forum for discussion between quite a varied group of individuals. Comments were full of heated exchanges of all sorts and I remember that at the time moderation was still a controversial issue with wild accusations of censorship or appeals to the moderator to intervene when things got too heated (or offensive). One major topic on these pages at the time was the “Wasted Vote” issue as J’accuse’s editorial line developed around the need to elect a third party that breaks the hold of the major parties.
It was around this time that Daphne became one of the regular persons to comment on the blog. Daphne being Daphne, whole discussions soon turned into a Daphne versus the rest kind of match. It was thrilling, it was lively and at times it was dangerously violent – as violent as words and accusations that could fly on the net could be. Daphne’s take on the wasted vote issue was that anyone thinking of voting for a third party was immature and unable to fathom the consequences of “risking” getting the dreaded Labour party elected. We argued. Oh how we argued. I scrolled through the endless arguments in the posts of February and March of that year. Daphne is all over the place. One minute she is arguing with persons who in the future would become trademark Labour trolls, another with Raphael Vassallo, another still with Claire Bonello, Justin Borg Barthet, Fausto Majistral, David Friggieri, Kevin Ellul Bonici and so many many other regulars.
There were times when life got in the way like when I had to absent myself from the keyboard for a few days because I had booked a skiing trip and when I finally found a cybercafe’ in the middle of the Alpes de Huez I noticed that J’accuse had been inundated with comments awaiting moderation. It is so ironic for me to see the comments by Daphne jokingly telling me off to have left the blog for such a long time – when would I be back? when can the discussion resume? Little would I have known that years later I would be the one wondering why Daphne was taking an inordinately long time between one blog post and another. That damn refresh button.
The closer the election got the less patience Daphne had with being moderated by others. It was not in her nature of course to accept to be told what was out of order and what was not. We were all on a learning curve back then remember. I did my best to keep the ensure that discussions on the blog remain civil but those early days already showed the worst of some people when interacting online – and Daphne, being Daphne, managed to get the worst out of some people (and I am not in any way excusing those people). I remember being told off by Daphne for having moderated a whole discussion thread – “we are not schoolchildren here”. In the end I like to think that it was not the random insults that were bandied around that made her move on. It was the need to be in control. Daphne had seen the potential of the blog and wanted part of it.
And that was it. The adventure began. Running Commentary was here to stay. The first post on her blog was entitled (surprise, surprise) Zero tolerance for corruption. The first comment to appear on The Running Commentary? Why of course…
Why am I writing all this? It’s probably my way of coping with the grief and with the anger. 2008 seems like another world, another era. Lawrence Gonzi’s PN would win the election and the battle for constitutional reform would be postponed again. The Running Commentary would go from strength to strength shifting between punditry, cutting analysis and what seemed to me to be petty gossip-column like observations. When the “one man wiki-leaks” dimension came about first with the John Dalli scandal and then with the more recent undoings of the Labour government (first among which is Panama but the list is endless) Daphne’s blog became much larger than an online opinion column. For what it’s worth my main criticism in recent times had been that Malta could not afford to have a “one man wiki-leaks”. First of all because I felt that it is not right that one person should be the gatekeeper of such information and secondly because of the dangers that were being borne by one person.
And those dangers were brought home with the horrendous assassination. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because of the collective institutional failure. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because nobody in his right mind trusts the police. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because it was evident that the whole apparatus of government would turn onto anyone who dared go against the tide of sanitised positivism as proposed by official propaganda. We had a one man wiki-leaks because the abuse of the libel system in the courts of law afforded little comfort to everyone other than the bravest. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because because the fourth estate was an embarrassing shambles – sold out to the highest bidder or, in the case of partisan media, busy being their master’s voice. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because the system of the rule of law had broken down.
Often in her last posts since the last election, Daphne exhorted whoever could to leave the island. There was no future in Malta. The country was going to the dogs. She did say that she urged her successful sons to do so because the island had no more hope. I often wondered what stopped Daphne from leaving herself. What kept her going? Was it a sense of patriotism and some misplaced hope that one day this nation of egoists realises that it needs to think about its collective future? Really. I could never find an answer to that question until her son Matthew spoke to the Guardian. He said something very important: Daphne never gave in to cynicism. She believed she could bring about change. Her work in exposing the wrongs of the nation was all in the hope of getting people to understand why change is needed.
After last election I had given in to the cynicism. I would still be glued to the internet to follow the latest developments from home. Yes, I too would refresh my Running Commentary tab to see if there was anything new that the mainstream press was still unable to report. A few posts here and there on this blog were more the force of habit than anything else as the last shreds of hope waned. Cynicism and lack of faith in fellow citizens had almost dealt a final blow to my will to engage and work for change. Then came October 16th.
I am sad. I am angry. I am full of feelings of revulsion. I am responsible. I am helpless. I I I I. I is the word I feel most guilty of using. I needed to write something to break the blankness of the last few days. I decided to share this chronology of the beginnings of a blog that would change Malta’s history.
We are back. We want change and we will start to fight for it to happen as from today.
[3 days 8 hours] – the time for grieving is over. The time to fight has begun. For the change we all believed in – to make Malta the country we all want to live in again.
