In one of the lectures related to Journalism and Democracy which I give at the University of Malta, I ask students to take a few minutes to recall instances when they may have been shocked or offended by an image that they encountered in the media. I ask them to reflect on the experience and to recall their immediate reaction at the time.

Then, I also ask students whether: 1. They wished they had not seen the image in question; 2. Whether there are people who they would want or not want to show the image to; and finally 3. Whether they think that the image should not have been published.

What often emerges through the ensuing discussion is that usually our instinctive reaction to being shocked by a visual image is to wish that we did not see it, and consequently to wish that other people do not see it either, and that, no, that image should not have been published.

But what is interesting is that as the discussion develops, students start to realise that these answers do not necessarily follow from each other, that is, that sometimes even when images shock or offend us, there may still be very strong arguments to support the publishing of those images. Often students surprise themselves by stating that even though they were shocked, they still feel that the offending image should not be censored or suppressed.

It so happened that just a few hours after I had given the above lecture, last week, I stumbled upon an image making the rounds in the local social media, which both shocked and offended me deeply.

What was so shocking and offensive about the image was that it juxtaposed the moment of impact of the recent tourist bus tragedy with the jubilant slogan of “Oh my Malta!”

The utter contrast on all levels bet­ween the horrific tragedy and any form of celebration instinctively strikes one as being in revoltingly bad taste. The cartoonish style as well as the colours chosen by the artist seem to do their best to add to the offensiveness of the image.

Given the fact that we are all still shocked by this tragedy and thinking of the victims and their families, my immediate reaction was the obligatory: “WTF”, in which the W immediately turned from “What” to the accusatory “Who”.

A quick scan through the long list of comments enforced my reaction, with the huge majority calling the image and the artist shameful, and demanding that the image be removed or reported.

What the picture forces us to question is, how honest is our hospitality if this amounts to placing our guests in danger of such horrific tragedies?

Lost among this barrage was a sprinkling of more restrained reactions in which commentators tried to find some redeeming factor but still generally concluded that the image was in utter bad taste, and that the artist had misjudged in terms of appropriate timing or the sensitivity of Maltese audience, particularly its preparedness for such ‘dark humour’. Other commentators stated that, try as they may, they could not find “anything funny” in the image. Most emphasised that the image violated the dignity of the victims and added to the suffering of their loved ones.

Instinctively, I agreed with most of these sentiments, but as the evening wore on I could not help dwelling further on these comments and the image itself.

As I reflected, it started to dawn on me that this image draws its shocking power partly by the way it picks on and highlights an objective fact: the fact that within the same timeframe we are both shocked by the bus tragedy and at the same time jubilant about the rave reviews promoting the ‘hospitable’ and ‘pleasant’ character of the Maltese people.

It is an undeniably tragic (and also very inconvenient) fact that at the very same time that we are applauding our welcoming national character, such a horrific tragedy had to befall our guests. The image highlights, in an insightful and powerful way, the huge irony of the temporal juxtaposition of the tragic event with our self-congratulatory, jubilant national mood.

It is easy to write off this ironic temporal proximity as accidental and unfortunate and to insist on compartmentalising the two events as wholly unconnected. This separation is, in fact, what is indirectly demanded by the screams of “Shame!” reacting to the image. “How dare the artist connect a jubilatory moment with such a tragic moment in such a vulgar style?”

But this image forces us not to compartmentalise – it forces us to look at what is going on around us in one picture. What it forces us to question is, how honest is our hospitality if this amounts to placing our guests in danger of such horrific tragedies?

I suspect that part of what is so shocking and offensive about this image is that it stops us from writing off such tragedies as unfortunate accidents. Without going into the merits of this particular case, we must accept that for this tragedy to be possible, somewhere there must have been some flaw or failure within the system. Something failed. Whether this is to be attributed to a single person or a whole system or authority is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that what made this tragedy possible was a failure, and whether we have the guts to admit it or not, it is a Maltese failure. This failure, which killed and maimed our guests, is as Maltese as the ‘hospitality’ and the ‘welcoming charac­ter’ we are all screaming about.

Do we need such offensive images executed in vulgar taste to force us to face the fact that our systems killed our guests and that, as one astute commentator said, “we have blood on our hands”?

I think that if we place all this within the context of other tragedies in which it was evident that our abysmal lack of knowledge of or respect for safety standards played a part, then we would start to realise that, shocking and offensive as they may be, such ‘artworks’ may actually demand honest engagement rather than vilification.

Maybe what this offensive image really tells us is that we should grow up and start facing our responsibilities and failures maturely rather than screaming “shame” at anything that disturbs our sensitivity or places our self-image in question.

Clive Zammit is course director, Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences, University of Malta.