I don’t really know you. I’ve never met you and I cannot even claim to have heard any of your radio programmes that shot you to notoriety and turned you into a household name synonymous with political mud-slinging in the days of Alfred Sant. I might have criticised your brother for his lack of political sense and his hopeless career as the 6th seat that never was and I will probably do so again since such criticism falls well within the rules of the game.
The fact that I do not really know you does not mean that I am not obliged to deal with you in the manner that any respectable citizen deserves to be treated by a columnist and blogger. However, I believe that I still owe you an apology.
I owe you an apology for having compared you to Daphne Caruana Galizia. True, Daphne is no foreigner to mud-slinging and engages daily in the “guilt by association” tactic that has been perfected to a tee by our wonderful political class. But you see, Manuel, you were not half as sophisticated in your tirades in your time. You might have tried to repeat lies to no end in the hope that the gushing followers of your rants would take your word as the gospel truth.
In fact, forgive me if I say that the similarity she bears with your style in this case is uncanny. The thing is that in your case you might have sold lies. You were just an evangelist, a propaganda peddler, eager to drum your gospel into your unquestioning flock’s psyche. Daphne goes one better. She denigrates by implication, and moves on to unhesitatingly savage even people who are remotely affiliated or connected to any of her pet hates. You might have seen your enemy as one big anonymous blue blob. But your rallying cry is nothing compared to her Facebook forays and ISP indictments. It’s all about taking a half- truth, a sweeping assumption, another desperate pigeonhole, and creatively moulding a hundred links by spurious association.
There comes a time when there need be no factual lien between her targets. Take the manner in which time and again Daphne has peddled the idea that J’accuse is somehow involved in some pro-Labour or pro-AD conspiracy. Our name is dropped in the middle of a rant against a fellow columnist simply based on the hopeless claim that J’accuse is somehow fixated on being anti-PN. I’m sorry, Manuel, but your “the enemy of my enemy” line has been worn out of all recognition. Daphne is desperate to slam the Labour/AD label on this blog without once engaging on the matters which this blog has raised time and time again. Take the “Why now?” issue…. it’s too complicated to answer, is it? Better apply some of the good old mud-slinging tactic and throw in some non-sensical statements like “remote controlled blog” (What is a remote controlled blog anyway, Manuel? Can you tell me?)
By the way, Manuel, in case you mistakenly believe that there might be more for me to apologise about : I’m not the one who compared you to Lou Bondì. You must admit that if it is style and method that we are talking about, the description fits like a tailor-made glove. However, Manuel, I did not come up with that comparison myself and I always give credit where credit is due. Lou’s another one who seems to have been perfecting your style for some time. Don’t worry, he rarely takes criticism head on so he’s bound to claim never to have read anything about this comparison. He doesn’t need to anyway, there’s always Daphne to do the business for him. You know… a sneaky message and a call here… a mud-slinging blog post there…. There must be lots of back scratching going on.
So there Manuel. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have compared you to the masters of modern day mud-slinging and grudge-bearing slurs. You were just the primitive precursor of this new politics. Your legacy however seems to be guaranteed a dark and slimy future whether or not you return to grace the radio-waves (please don’t).
So, Manuel, if you did find my comparing you to Daphne Caruana Galizia to be in any way jarring or insulting, then I take it back. In any case… she’s much better than you in doing what you used to do… but I guess you knew that already.
The Plategate saga is in the news again thanks to the testimony given in court by the accused. Here’s some J’accuse pointers that could have very well been gathered over the various posts in which we chronicled the event and questioned its motives through the past 18 months. If you are interested (really?) in previous posts then just search “Plategate” in the J’accuse search box. You risk being pleasantly entertained.
WARNING TO RUNS ENTHUSIASTS – the material in this and related posts risks damaging your brain. Proceed only under adult supervision. Yes, we have a well-groomed high horse this morning.
So here are the questions we have been asking and which we would like you to ask yourselves.
1. The court case is a defamation case. Not so surprisingly, all the grand discoveries relating to improper behaviour by a public persona were not brought to the attention of the appropriate forum. Does the Maltese legal, political and administrative system have an appropriate forum? Where does one go to with an allegation or proof of improper behaviour by a public person?
(difficulty level : Breeze)
2. The accused in the defamation case used a blog – a public means of communication – to transmit information relating to a particular person’s behaviour implying that this behaviour was unbecoming and inappropriate. This action is commendable and wins full support of J’accuse insofar as it fulfils the fourth estate’s duty of monitoring and revealing the behaviour of the other estates in order to render their operation transparent and in order to give full effect to the fourth estate’s role as a check and balance. This is a strong power of the fourth estate and should be wielded with responsibility if it is to be effective.
Do you think that in this case the Runs acted responsibly in order to fulfil the duty of the fourth estate?
3. The Crucial “Why Now?” issue. There’s no prizes guessing why a defamation case ended up being the best route of defence for the alleged victim. Defamation focuses the attention on the derogatory, cheap and sleazy language that was opted for by the blog when exposing the improper behaviour. A factual allegation such as “drugs were available at parties” differs greatly from the statement “your backside is the size of a bus”. Worse still for the accused, the motivation for bringing out the information is brought further into question by the manner in which such information was presented as well as by the timing. Here is the statement by the accused giving testimony giving reasons for her timing:
Mrs Caruana Galizia said she started writing about Magistrate Scerri Herrera because the situation had become ‘completely out of hand’. She had not written anything before because she had had pending cases before the Magistrate.
From an objective point of view journalists would do well to follow up on Caruana Galizia’s steps and monitor the behaviour of public persons – bringing them to light as soon as they have sufficient evidence. And ASKING PERTINENT QUESTIONS…
The ethics of journalism require that the wielding of this power is exercised with due diligence. That diligence includes not sitting on information for as long as convenient – only to unleash it as a weapon of hatred or spite.
Beyond Plategate the measure that could be learnt from this case is that keeping information for its (un)timely use i.e. when it hurts most is just as ethically irresponsible and dangerous as having a magistrate publicly act below the standards expected of her office.
Doing so – using information as a blackmail or bargain in some twisted ill-conceived power struggle – could deal a lethal blow to the waning confidence that the public has on journalistic integrity in this country.
Today’s J’accuse on the Malta Independent on Sunday (28.08.11)
It’s hard to concentrate when you’ve been hacked. Not physically I mean. It’s just that J’accuse, the blog − the depository of my almost daily thoughts for almost seven years − was hacked by some git supposedly based in Ukraine. Notwithstanding the valorous efforts of a number of tech-savvy comrades, the hack persisted in doing its malicious business for the past three days − said business consisting of “redirecting” visitors to Google and distributing “malware”.
This particular hack had a little “robot” planted into my site via some seemingly innocuous programming that supports a website theme. Without going into too much detail, what happened next was that at some point the “robot” decided to start redirecting anybody attempting to enter www.akkuza.com to a site hosted in Russia. Apart from being very frustrating, this “malware” − for thusly have the nerds baptised this ill of the ether − has the effect of debilitating your “street cred” on the net.
Over a short period of time, your address becomes a pariah to browser after browser because someone at the net-police in Google headquarters decided to flag your address as a potentially malicious carrier of ugly information. Before you know it, you find yourself quarantined in a virtual Lazaretto without so much as a limestone wall to carve your name on. Which is how I ended up rebuilding J’accuse from scratch on Friday night till the early hours of Saturday morning. J’accuse is running now and its net credibility has been repristinated. It’s incredible how hard a bit of Internet slagging can hit you… but hey we all know how thick J’accuse’s skin is.
Hang on
I had a dream that consisted of a crazed Muammar Gaddafi in exile travelling around “his” Africa filming little snippets with a videocam and commenting, “My people, they love me”. The theatricals of the tyrant in the last violent throes of his deposition have been starkly surreal. In the midst of all the firing and chaos, who does Gaddafi call? The Russian head of the World Chess Player Federation that’s who. He called Mr Ilyumzhinov to tell him that he was alive and well (just in case the Russian was thinking of checking in on his friend) and this call was reported in a manner that made it seem like the most normal conversations. The world, as you know it, is crumbling around you and you find time to call your chess partner? Checkmate.
Oh the irony. We normally attribute the term “checkmate” to Arabic origins. The phrase “Shah mat” is explained as meaning “the King is Dead” in common lore. Apparently, the Persian phrase Shah mat does not actually mean that the king is dead but rather that “the king is helpless”. Which makes more sense because the checkmate position in chess involves the noble realisation that your king is in an indefensible corner and that the next step is the gallant toppling of your own king in humble acceptance of the inevitability of defeat. Gaddafi will wander around “helpless” for a few more days, or maybe months – everybody but Muammar has realised the inevitability of his defeat. Shah mat.
Hold on
Gaddafi’s lessons in chess over a 10-year period do not seem to have included the noble art of accepting the inevitability of defeat. The tyrant hangs on for his dear life and his power, still backed by the die-hard rebels. He has become the latest tyrant on the run, a fugitive spitting away from a corner − just like Adolf and Saddam before him. Even the greatest foot shufflers and fence sitters have finally begun to publicly denounce the Green Leader and throw their lot in with the new leadership. Malta − or the slower part of it − has begun to realise the inevitability of having to rewrite its relationship with its southern neighbour.
While one powerful man gave us a lesson on how not to relinquish power, another man of a completely different cut was in the news this week. Steve Jobs, the famed Apple CEO, resigned from his post as CEO of what is probably one of the world’s most powerful companies. His resignation reverberated around the world of tech-nerds and stock markets. Apple shares shot down for a while − such was the confidence in this guru of marketing who had reinvented two worlds in one lifetime. Jobs, the man who re-branded Apple via snazzy computers and a music world revolution, has chosen to step aside.
Steve Jobs could not just teach us one lesson. He could have his own faculty in a university to teach us lessons in life, from business acumen to surviving illnesses after facing death in the face. If there is one lesson Jobs could teach us right now it is that of knowing when to quit: “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.” There you have it. The King is dead. Long live King Jobs.
Scraping the ethical barrel
Lastly, allow me a few words on the Julia Farrugia business. It has been intriguing for me to monitor the reaction to the decision of the Press Ethics Committee regarding MaltaToday’s reporting of the Joe Mizzi Affair. You’ll find a full review of the issue on the J’accuse post entitled “De Moribus Viator”. What I found particularly jarring was the repetition of what happened in the Plategate Affair a while back. Instead of discussing the ethics of what was done (and instead of addressing the issue of improving the ethical performance of the Maltese journalistic sector), what counts for Malta’s opinion press and opinion formers pounced on the opportunity to engage in their national sport: character assassination.
If denouncing the free manner in which any excuse is a good excuse for a slag contest makes me a speaker from a high horse then call me a cavalier. When I am accused of speaking from the “moral high ground” because I have denounced the lax standards of the gutter press, the accuser fails to realise that this IS all about morality and ethics. The moment that you make the mental choice to accept the kind of sewer-bred smear tactics that are perpetrated daily in the Maltese media you become a willing accomplice of that dirt.
Gode di Immunità
Debbie Schembri left a note on Facebook informing the world that she is happy to have been reinstated as a lawyer in the Ecclesiastical Tribunal. To people like myself, Schembri’s message is once again equivocal to say the least. I had high hopes that the likes of Schembri would survive the divorce debate to form a Civil Rights movement that would press on to reform our laws. One such important reform would be the divorce between Church and state matters − a marriage that has only harmed both parties since 1995.
Schembri had no obligation or duty to do any of this. It is disappointing to see the “bright star” of Maltese progressive politics melt into the establishment day after day. First there was no Civil Rights movement − Debbie preferred to join opportunist Labour; now there is no hurry to divorce Church from State − Debbie is quite happy to perform her duties as a church approved lawyer. Ah Tommasi di Lampedusa… how right you were.
End credits
Allow me to thank Max, Mark and Simon for their assistance in the latest ordeal for J’accuse. The blog keeps the flag flying. Expect a few more tweaks in the coming days.
www.akkuza.com is officially no longer in Google’s black books. Normal service has been resumed and the blog that has entertained you since March 2005 is back to its normal pain in the butt status.
Julia Farrugia’s “rapping” at the hands of the Press Ethics Commission (PEC) has brought the question of journalistic ethics back to the discussion arena. J’accuse has long taken the subject of journalistic ethics to heart – particularly within the context of the growth of the role of blogs and blog content in the public sphere. For some time now we have been mourning the death of investigative journalism in Malta and it has little to do with who is carrying the scythe.
In true fishpond fashion, the post-mortem analysis of the Julia Farrugia/Joseph Mizzi has been absorbed into the mainstream manner of journalism: where beyond the news item lies an opportunity to snipe at people and milk the possibility to sling mud as far as possible. This analysis of ours has nothing to do with our being faint-hearted or timid about the need to call a spade a spade. J’accuse has no claims to purity or perfection (though we do get damn close).
What we would like to see discussed is whether Julia Farrugia failed on the count of exercising journalistic discretion when faced with a possible story. In the case of that kind of examination we find that our judgement falls closer to that found on Lou Bondi’s or Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blogs than on the explanation afforded by MaltaToday journalist Matthew Vella. At the moment of receiving the information and video, Farrugia was duty bound to apply an ethical brake to the eagerness to publish a juicy video.
Matthew Vella tries to find fault with the PEC’s reasoning. In particular Vella does not agree with what he reads as a shift of moral responsibility: “it was not incumbent upon the journalist to take moral umbrage at the source’s footage. That would have been tantamount to self-censorship, on the basis of the assumed deference towards government appointees.” We may grant that the standard being applied by the PEC may not find universal acceptance (or cause difficulties in future application) – but that would be focusing on a separate problem. The focus here was on a journalist’s judgement and ethical considerations when evaluating “news value”.
Vella asks: “So does this mean from now on, when we encounter some form of embarrassing or unbecoming behaviour by a government minister or high-ranking civil servant, they should not be held to account, simply because they ridicule themselves?” I don’t think anybody would agree that this is the conclusion to be drawn. Let’s put it this way, had Julia Farrugia’s news item limited itself to reporting the fact that Mr Mizzi was filmed in a groggy state we might not be here asking questions. Instead the implications loaded behind the video, its suspect editing and the forcefulness with which it was used to bring about a political statement and result, shift it away from plain reporting and into the hazy domain of journalism driven by preconceived agendas – in which case it stops being journalism. It becomes biased reporting where “facts” are cut and paste to suit a journalist’s agenda.
Which brings me to the Daphnes and the Lous of this world. Lou Bondi has recntly taken to blogging and no longer considers the blogging world as a world of “peċluqa” (see video below) – either that or he has become one hell of a “peċluq” himself. His last two posts at the time of writing (“Julia, try a red bathing suit this time” and “When Julia went crying to daddy“) are redolent of the style perfected on the Runs (there goes the obsession). Malta’s foremost investigative journalist does not limit himself to discussing the ethical issue at stake but performs his own little foray into the world of character assassinations and guilt by association.
Daphne too chooses to deviate from the real issue and peppers her commentary with references to “il-boton” – the usual snide, taste-based, zokk u fergħa reasoning best left for PLPN bull towards the election. This is a pity really because there is no doubt that Caruana Galizia has accumulated enough expertise and networking to have the right sources and means to fill the gap that exists in investigative journalism in Malta. Instead she participates happily in fishpond peċlieq with gay abandon.
Yes, we know we can expect the tirade on J’accuse from this magnificent duo of Maltese journalistic standards but hey what’s new? Plategate may long be buried in the collective memory and might be down to the final stanzas of what has been a drawn out lament but the lessons to be learnt are still there in full view of anyone who cares to listen. Last time round – back in the heyday of Plategate – we held Lou to task for his apparent inability to assemble a proper program investigating the causes behind Plategate and the conflagration that ensued. Like Julia Farrugia, Daphne had sat on some juicy and important bits of news regarding the behaviour of members of our judiciary and their extended circles. Like Julia she had a decision on whether to go public or not. That was her moment of applying journalistic ethics.
Lou failed to ask Daphne (his dinner friend) the vital question: Why now? (as in Why then?). Julia Farrugia deserves the rapping on the knuckles for her lack of judgement in the Mizzi Affair. Daphne Caruana Galizia would still have us believe that the flush of information regarding the private lives of public individuals was triggered off by a sudden urge of public duty notwithstanding the fact that she had sat on that information (and accumulated it in true peċluqa style) for quite some time. Why did she choose the moment she chose to suddenly publish the information? Lou tried his damn best to depict Daphne as the hero and martyr when making his editorial choices for the infamous Bondiplus programme.
In J’accuse’s book the press should be reporting instances of public individuals who are caught misbehaving while on public duty. It should be uncovering these situations of public officers behaving badly and should continue to press on to ensure the transparency of such information.
What should never be done is to use such information in line with a private agenda of spite, hate, jealousy and retribution. Unfortunately it seems that Malta’s fishpond journalism is more and more prone to pick up the latter style than engage in real investigation and reporting.
So much for ethics then. Take that from Malta’s longest running peċluq.
A serialised long post intended to reassure readers that while we normally let sleeping dogs lie there is no reason to believe that we are reluctant to call a spade a spade.
N.B. To be read in doses. Reminder to Daphne-lites: You are free not to read on. On the other hand the breaking down into parts of this post is intended to facilitate cutting and pasting for better presentation while posting in other blogs’ comment sections.
I
The intellectual standards of this too-complicated-for-plebs blog do not normally allow us (the Royal We for Wankellectuals) to descend into the pits of mud-slinging that can be discovered daily in other quarters of the Maltese blogging world.
Back in 2007 J’accuse (6 on the 10th of March) had a tough time moderating the bitching and haggling in the comment section. Having realised belatedly the usefulness of the new media (thanks to the eyeopening sessions on J’accuse in mid-election campaign) some of those commentators went on to open blogs of their own… perpetuating their inimitable style developed in the comment section.
II
That was then. Meanwhile, we remained happy to discuss politics and not people, ideas and not looks, values not prejudices – all the while observing the development of the use of the new media. We continued to ask questions – in particular with regards to different parts of the Fourth Estate. Others chose what a colleague of mine called the Slash and Burn style of journalism – and got their accolades from their acolytes.
Today, I feel obliged to put up this post after a sincere demonstration of concern by readers who via e-mails and phone calls wondered whether I would ever reply to what appears to be a sudden fixation by Daphne Caruana Galizia on what she calls a “Class A Wanker” (actually she claims to have called me so several times bah… sticks, stones and girls in a playground).
III
I would normally have no time to check the lesser side of her blog – the Runs – having long abandoned any hope of finding any intelligent conversation by the various aliases. I have no problem with checking Daphne’s daily postings because I cannot honestly expect to comment on the internet news without taking into account other blogger’s points of view and slants on the news. I have no time to waste on the ramblings of the Daphne-lites in the comments section though and were it not for the signalling by J’accuse readers and a sudden mention in a post attacking an article by Saviour Balzan (but mainly based on the usual “guilt by association” approach – more on this later) I would not have noticed the revival of the DCG fixation.
It transpires that a few Daphne-lites have been stoking the columnist’s easily flammable temper by posting interesting observations about myself or my blog. It also turns out that Daphne is stupid enough to think that I would actually post on her blog with an alias. I have never hidden behind an alias and never will. What did happen – as I confirmed by using common sense and a bit of research – is that a person who commented regularly on this blog (using his first name to boot), and who is based in Luxembourg, started to do so on Daphne’s (using the same first name).
The paranoid reaction to the endless nit-picking by this particular commentator was to send him back to “his own blog” to play. Yawn-inducing paranoia had come into play.
IV
Daphne and the Daphne-lites have a fixation with the unreadability of this blog. Incredibly they also have a knack of referring to it constantly. Does that classify as irony? Sadly for the rent-a-crowd in that corner of the net J’accuse shows no signs of abating and remains a steady reference point for the more balanced approach to analysing current affairs. (Did I mention that we turn 6 on the 10th of March?).
Of course our analysis might not always fit in to the jigsaw puzzle of the World as Seen from the Runs. Here are a few (unanswered) examples:
PLATEGATE or Why Now? Part 1: J’accuse was the ONLY presence in any part of the press asking the most pertinent question in the Daphne Caruana Galizia vs Consuelo Scerri Herrera saga. If Daphne had collected such a wealth of information over a long period of time alleging inappropriate behaviour by a Magistrate … what prompted her to start blogging about it? Why did she choose that particular moment? Was it so hard to admit that it had nothing to do with civic conscience or journalistic probity? WHY NOW?
RAYMOND CARUANA or Why Now? Part 2: Almost a year passed and we had a similar situation. DCG upped the ante on Illum journalist Julia Farrugia. Suddenly more than 25 years after the actual facts DCG developed an acute sense of journalistic investigation and went on a whole trip piecing publicly available information together to develop a story. What you think about the story is irrelevant. Daphne’s timing is not. It is irresponsible to say the least. But very typical of journalism that is not at the service of the public and the truth. It is journalism at the service and use of private means and ends. I don’t buy the stories of Daphne being some poodle to RCC or some other masters bidding her to do this and that. What I do read is a very unprofessional and unethical application of journalistic skill. Why now indeed?
JPO: Funny how JPO is now accusing Daphne in court (under oath) of being a slave to political masters – ready to do some spin damage at their beck and call. J’accuse can vouch that Daphne was busy insulting anyone who dared criticise crocodile tear Jeffrey during the Mistra saga. She backed the nationalist party’s outright defence of the man even in such instances when he was given a press card to ask questions to Alfred Sant. Press decency my backside… the imperative was save Jeffrey… save the party. Especially from people who were “setting themselves up as objects of hate”… yep this was the time when Daphne heaped insults on anyone who dared propose that the PL/PN option was a blind, valueless cul-de-sac…. we would be vindicated come the divorce issue (among others).. but hey what counted was the character assassination at the time.
V
Taste. Daphne is big on guilt by association and character assassination. Who will ever forget the “zokk u fergha” campaign? Just look now at the Mintoff-Labour-Gaddafi saga as Daffers turns into a one-woman CNN of sorts reporting such great events as which flag is flying over the Libyan embassy in between harassing Graffiti poster carriers in wolf-in-sheeps’ clothing outfit.
The Saviour Balzan post referred to above was a clumsy attempt at throwing a number of perceived “nasties” together. Here’s the list of persons supposedly manning the barricades in some imagined revolution :
Salvu Balzan, Roger de Giorgio, JPO, the Prisoner of Zenda from Brussels, Matthew Vella, Al Jazeera Stagno Navarra, Choccies Benoit, Josanne Cassar, Secret Weapon Astrid, Julia tal-Guy, Charlon ta’ Albertown, xi Claire Bonello max-shag ta’ Norman Lowell, Ronnie Pellegrini, David Friggieri and Jacques Rene Zammit. Jason Micallef will man the field hospital and the Communications Coconut can be used to sneak messages below the radar across AnAmy lines. Don’t forget to take Reno Calleja with you, my dears, u xi AST ukoll ghax dak espert kbir fir-regimes. U jekk ghandkom bzonn xi covert operative, tinsewx li ghandkom il-Guy tat-Tunny Net.
Hospitals, covert operatives, regimes… jeez imagination does run wild at night doesn’t it? Oh Well, should our revolution ever need a kitchen stocked with such WMDs as crockery of the finest kind we know who to turn to don’t we?
In one fell swoop Jacques René Zammit is equal to Reno Calleja is equal to Ronnie Pellegrini is equal to Roger Degiorgio etc etc. It’s obvious. If you haven’t swallowed the “blog is unreadable” line then you might as well believe that Jacques Zammit, Reno Calleja, AST and Franco Farrugia (another one bandied around who I do not know from Adam) have one and the same objective.
Anybody who knows me or any of the above would know that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Daphne is more comfortable avoiding subjects such as Plategate or constructive criticism of the faults in our representatives operation and chooses to build on the guilt by association. The frenetic, paranoid attempt at bunching everyone who she disagrees with into one caricatured bundle is much easier on the mind of her readers anyway.
That way she can let fire with the Wanker or unmarried or nerd or whatever she perceives as the latest trendy insult…
VI
So yes. We’ve taken some time to look at why Daphne has suddenly worried our readers with a few gratuitous insults aimed our way.
Read my lips (or my characters):
Jacques René Zammit has never insulted Daphne Caruana Galizia.
I have criticised her modus operandi. I have criticised her argument but I have NEVER insulted the person.
There must be something to be read in the fact that Daphne Caruana Galizia has never replied to any of the critical arguments posited here and elsewhere. If the answer, like her friend Lou’s is that she does not read the blog… that it is boring …it still does not explain the insults. If you chose to take note of criticism then you might as well have the decency to reply with counterarguments. Insults or character attacking with guilt by association does not help.
Don’t get me wrong. Insult as much as you like.. after all it is a free world and I am fully aware of the heat and kitchen argument. It’s just that it is good for readers to know where the insults are coming from and what they are all about. It goes without saying that the level of insults, inventions and character assassination attempts will be expected to increase over the coming days.
I’ll do my damn best not to bother much with anything coming my way from that corner of the net and I kindly ask readers to do the same. J’accuse goes on with its publish and be damned approach at blogging.
This wankellectual is almost done. Now for the finale… the answer you have all been waiting for:
VI
What is the difference between John Galliano and Daphne Caruana Galizia?
One tends to dress weirdly, hurl abusive insults in what sounds like an alcoholic rage and has a funny moustache when all made up…
… the other was fired by Dior.
When they say let sleeping dogs lie… it doesn’t mean you have to allow them to twist the truth. – J’accuse 2011
ADDENDUM: Note to TYOM people. You will inevitably reproduce this post because it deals with your pet hate. I know it is useless “forbidding” you to do so because what is good for the goose is good for the gander but if you do so then also have the decency to publish this addendum:
J’accuse DOES NOT and WILL NEVER endorse, support or in any way agree with TYOM, its content or its style.This kind of site can only be a disservice to the idea of proper use of new media and to the proper development of political discussion.
Gareth Compton, Conservative councillor for Erdington in Birmingham (UK), was released on bail on the eve of Armistice Day after he was arrested for an offence under the Communications Act of 2003 on suspicion “of sending an offensive or indecent message”. Compton was questioned about the content of a Tweet of his which read: “Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”
Compton argued that this was “an ill-conceived attempt at humour in response to Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live that no politician had the right to comment on human rights abuses – even the stoning of women in Iran”. Tories and Labourites in the West Midlands joined the chorus of disapproval aimed at Compton’s ill-judged tweet and the police moved in with the charge.
In another corner of the UK, Doncaster Crown Court rejected Paul Chambers’ appeal against a Magistrates Court decision that had found him guilty of “sending a menacing electronic communication”. Chambers’ case also involved a tweet. This time the tweet was angrily directed to nearby Robin Hood Airport. With the airport shut down because of snow and Chambers’ travel plans thus thwarted, the tweeter vented his frustration to his 600-odd followers on the micro-blogging site: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”
Tough Guy (now recant)
Judge Jacqueline Davies of the Crown Court was not impressed by the defendant’s argument of “just kidding”. In her words, “We find it impossible to accept that anyone living in this country, in the current climate of terrorist threats, would not be aware of the consequences of their actions in making such a statement.” Both Compton and Chambers tried to write off the relative weight of their statement by claiming that their actions were performed in jest. There might be a substantial difference between a politician inviting people to stone a journalist on the one hand and a private individual venting his frustration in a colourful manner in another, but at the end of the day the lesson to be learnt is to be very careful when venturing into the world of mass communication. That iPhone at your fingertips can land you in deep do-do indeed.
I get the impression that Malta is still not sufficiently hooked on Twitter to provide this kind of interesting legal twist. The chronicles of court affairs are choking with the facts of intra-familial battles raging from the ballistic nose-breaking prodigies of one husband, to the wife who claimed that her husband was obsessed with an Italian late-night show over 20 years after it had gone off air. There are no tweeting offences as yet and while the Plategate saga rolls on in the background of the trendier chronicles, the battles in communication are taking place in more conventional fora – such as The Times letter pages.
When I first heard of Prime Minister Gonzi’s foray into the murky waters of The Times letter pages correspondence, I thought I’d give it a miss. Egged on by others, I finally got round to reading the prime ministerial letter – signed by the Prime Minister himself. Apparently Dr Gonzi had not liked a particular missive by a certain Bonett Balzan (BB for short) that had appeared in the pages of His Master’s Voice the previous Saturday. Dr Gonzi seemed intent on making a couple of points: firstly that he is not an “ends justifies the means” kind of guy (so no Luxol Grounds last-minute backstab on political allies from him, I guess); and secondly, he issued what I describe on the blog as a sort of fatwa from the head of our constitutionally Catholic state.
Here are his words: “I condemn all hatred expressed in all circumstances and reiterate my appeal to all concerned to keep political language within the bounds of what should be acceptable in a mature democratic society.” The question everyone (not to be confused with Everybody) was asking was: What prompted this letter?
Sure Shot
(political communication)
And you couldn’t blame “everyone” in the end. After reading Dr Gonzi’s letter, I had to look for the letter that had triggered the reaction by the head of government. Dr Gonzi had quoted from the offending letter and specified what had caused him to take offence. The Prime Minister stated that he took particular offence at the phrase “taken of the law into his own hands with fatal consequences”. Prima facie it seemed like a rather harsh phrase – one that would have any spoudaios (Gk. – average man) rushing to his desk and typing a measured response.
It all went kind of sour when I read the context from which the phrase was lifted. There was nothing remotely injurious in fact. True, BB’s letter was astonishingly similar to much of the crap that passes for intelligent discussion on blog comment boards nowadays. It was an illustration of anything but the “enlightened times” that were referred to in the letter and its author is a perfect example of conservative, ignorant bigotry that has become common fare in most discussions.
Having said that, the whole bit about the taking of judicial matters into one’s own hands with dire consequences was actually part of a description of the habitual goings on among husbands and adulterers. Bonett Balzan was simply illustrating how adulterers would have been treated a while back, before the enlightened times of this government “ably led” by “the job-creating” Dr Gonzi (BB’s words). Yes, Bonett Balzan does come out as a fervent (never a more apt term) follower of the GonziPN creed – he is, in fact, appalled at the dilution of its values by upstarts such as JPO.
Put fairly and squarely, Bonett Balzan’s letter was no less of an abuse of the freedom of expression as that exercised by the myriad liberated voices that populate Internet comment boards every day of the week. Why then had the Gonzi-radar zoomed in on this particular manifestation of not-so-illuminated literary intervention in order to vent the prime ministerial fury? There was only one explanation. Dr Gonzi might be a professed anti-divorcist, but he will not take kindly to being automatically associated with the Maltese version of redneck backwaters. It was in such a spirit that the prime ministerial letter was penned and to such a letter was appended a glorious appendix.
For the Gonzi letter ended in a blanket condemnation of hatred expressed in all circumstances, as well as an appeal to maintain a decent level of political discourse. We’d have loved to applaud this noble initiative had it not jarred with the fact that the intervention (“scendere in campo” as Berlusconi is wont to say) was too isolated and seemed to ignore other more serious and more prominent offenders who have contributed to the general debasement of political discourse. The selective lifting of dubiously offensive quotations only served to water down the import of Dr Gonzi’s letter – leading to the incredulous reaction from the nation’s cognoscenti.
Get It Together (please)
Ill communication was not monopolised by the Office of the Prime Minister. It’s getting tiring to follow the concerted practice (that’s the second anti-trust term in this paragraph) of political acolytes of the Labourite persuasion in drumming their various stories home on the basis of “fairness”. “Mhux fjer” (not fair) has been translated into a political mantra and the Labour monks are busy exposing their hurts (“wegghat”) and the levels of unfairness with every political development on the political scene.
Chief Economist Muscat led the way last week with his budget reactions. This week we had the story of the 1,000 Air Malta employees declared surplus to requirements according to a report. Tony Zarb and most PL-leaning commentators were busy preparing wailing laments for the thousand family members on whose sweat, blood and tears the success story that is Air Malta had been created, only to be given a hint of the exit (and I am not talking Safety Exits here) at this moment of economic uncertainty.
“Mhux fjer” they yelled. Who will love their children? Which is OK for a trade union leader, but not OK for a political party that should be planning our way out of whatever mess they seem to be oh so keen to highlight. If there is a mess, and I am not saying that there isn’t, the role of an opposition party is not to highlight the problem but to confidently claim and prove that it has a solution at hand.
The communication lines of the new PL seem to be built with a very short-term goal in mind. They tend to ignore the fact that once in government the exposure of the ills, pains and injustices of society will not suffice, and that people will actually expect them to deliver the goods. I quizzed some Labour supporters, asking what they would do if they found themselves at the head of a government that had just been presented with the 1,000-surplus workers report. The first reply? Ah, we would commission a report to find out who is responsible for the overstaffing of the airline. Bravo indeed. Now THAT is a great solution. Get ready for a headless government that blames its shortfalls on the 2012 version of “il-hofra”. Progressive? Bah.
Sabotage (discrimination)
And then there was the communications cock-up, which was the announcement of the new bus fares once Arriva take over. What should have been the groundwork for a much-awaited new bus system ended up in bawling and exchanges on the media about the proposal to charge tourists a higher fare. Apart from this being the most pea-brained idea since Bush decided to publish his memoirs, the clumsy handling of the aftermath and backlash was mind-boggling.
We had a ministry spokesman (one of those) declaring that charging tourists more than the Maltese does not amount to discrimination. It was a case of knowing what he intended to say but also recognising what a cock-up the actual statement was. The whole point of discrimination is of creating criteria that turns like into unlike. Here was a ministry spokesman who was claiming that charging two rates for the same trip would not be discrimination. But it is, dear spokesman. The words he was looking for was justified discrimination because under EU law there are instances where discrimination can be justified if reasonably argued.
Which is where Minister Gatt piped in with the whole notion of resident v non-resident. Residents, it seems, are eligible for a subsidised fare because they pay taxes. Non-residents (tourists) don’t. Really? What was that tax increase in the last budget? Who pays it? Residents? Or tourists? There’s no knowing when the politicians of this world will come up with the next blooper that’s the size of a BWSC contract investigation gone wrong. (Bravo Parliament incidentally).
All that the men at the Ministry of Transport had to do was look at public transport systems worldwide. Take London’s Oystercard. There is no discrimination on the basis of residence. The only discrimination is the usual justified discrimination in favour of seniors and students. Other than that you pay according to how much you use it. Most travel cards give you more benefits the longer the validity. This is based on the basic assumption that a resident (frequent user) will, more often than not, take long-term credit on his card (a one-year travel card) to benefit from the lower price that would ensue in normal offers on a normal market.
Tourists are not precluded from buying a one-year travel-card but it would not make sense economically. Instead they will probably opt for a seven- or three-day card. A resident could buy that card but it does not pay him as much as a yearly card. You see? No discrimination on the basis of residence or nationality that has to be justified on the basis of some spurious taxation excuse. Instead you have a scaled system of cards accessible to all but that actually makes sense for different categories – the only discrimination is in the consumer’s mind at the moment of purchase. Who am I kidding? I am sure the guys at Arriva know all this and will soon be showing the way on this matter.
Roots Down (travel)
Speaking of travel, I will be in Versailles this weekend – a birthday treat from my better half. In that palace lived a woman who never actually uttered the fabled words “Let them eat cake”. It’s just so unfair that sometimes it is the words that are unsaid that end up making the biggest noise.
www.akkuza.com From the Hall of Mirrors to Le Petit Trianon, all in a weekend’s work. Titles of this week’s article (barring brackets) brought to you courtesy of the great Beastie Boys album “Ill Communication” (1994).
