Extreme vilification

Karl Stagno Navarra and Neville Gafà are not local substitutes for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  They are as distant from journalism as they are from integrity, reliability, honesty and professionalism. Both have faced court complaints from alleged victims of their conduct. It seems that a hint of alleged fraud coupled with rampant deceit creates an ideal spokesperson for the regime and, together, they have formed a choir.

Over the past several months, they have focused on Repubblika and have been writing about it daily. Initially, one might feel flattered by all the attention. They overestimate the influence Repubblika could wield, and their obsession reveals an extremely reluctant yet undeniably fervent admiration. The best way to respond to any flattery, especially the uninvited sort, is to ignore it.

There comes a time when the strategy of indifference must be questioned. These are those times.

To begin with, if you knew Stagno Navarra and Gafà, you would not credit them with any strategic insight. They may be congenital idiots, to be sure, but their assault on Repubblika, its activists and its reputation is not driven by sheer idiocy. Nor is it solely motivated by the contagious hatred with which they are well endowed. Their campaign is part of a broader scheme that has enlisted other, less obviously ridiculous actors to deliver these lines.

Theirs is merely a more obnoxious version of Prime Minister Robert Abela’s remarks about Repubblika, which the Labour Party-owned and controlled media have repeated incessantly.

Through a daily stream of lies, Stagno Navarra and Gafà flesh out the increasingly mainstream notion that Repubblika is an “extremist organisation”, a term that has replaced “the establishment” in the discourse Labour uses for those it sees as its enemies. Accusing others of being established when the accusers have been in government for 11 years and are almost sure to remain there for the foreseeable future was never going to work.

Accusing others of holding extremist views or engaging in extremist actions is a more effective (and more malicious) strategy. They have labelled Repubblika as extremist to such an extent that challenging them to substantiate their claim with any reference to reality appears off-puttingly rhetorical.

Humour me. What has Repubblika said or done that can be described as extremist? Has it violated free expression by vandalising daily a memorial to a slain journalist? Has it imprisoned people indefinitely without suspicion of a crime aboard boats in the open ocean? Has it changed the country’s laws to ensure that criminals with political influence are guaranteed impunity? I would submit that, in a democracy that respects human rights, it is the violation of those rights that can be branded extremist, not the act of arguing in their defence.

The visual projection of extremism is not easy for those who want to support their accusations with images of any unlawful act, violence or vandalism. In recent weeks, the banging of kitchen spoons on pots and pans has been cited as evidence of Repubblika’s supposed irrationality and extremism. That is plain ridiculous. You can’t use terms that appropriately apply to the Real IRA or some other child-killing terrorist group and apply them to pot-banging protesters. Pot-banging is a time-honoured tradition for peaceful protesters anywhere in the world. The authorities here call it extremist.

Labour is promoting this discourse despite its absurdity. They endure the ridicule because they understand the impact of their lies on people. No one wants to be labelled an extremist. No one wants to see their face on a ONE TV video clip going viral across social media, where the perfectly ordinary behaviour of a committed citizen of a functioning democracy is unfavourably compared to peripheral and violent sedition.

What has Repubblika said or done that can be described as extremist?

Consider a series of false claims by Stagno Navarra and Gafà regarding Repubblika’s alleged funding sources. They recently stated that Repubblika receives money from foreign governments that “hate Malta”, intending to undermine Malta’s legitimate rulers. Beyond questioning whether grants from governments for pro-democracy activism are inherently objectionable, the simple fact is that foreign governments do not fund Repubblika. In 2022, the US embassy sponsored a conference on free speech by covering the venue cost and printing some materials. That’s all.

The motivation here is clear. They accuse governments of funding Repubblika, assuming that these governments would not deny such falsehoods. However, this serves as a warning to any private individual who might consider supporting Repubblika: they, too, will be accused of funding an extremist organisation if Stagno Navarra or Gafà discovers their actions.

Should Repubblika deny receiving funds from governments when its accounts are public, audited and regulated by a public authority?

Should Repubblika have to deny the daily ‘reports’ on ONE and on outlets run by Stagno Navarra, Gafà and others that it has made this or that decision about what happens in the Nationalist Party, of which it is daily accused of being an extremist and all-controlling wing?

If Repubblika were accused of running a secret cabal that controls the flow of power in the country, should it deny the allegation or trust the public to see through the absurdity of the claim?

There is a strategic intent behind this daily vilification: to create so much noise around Repubblika that its efforts are drowned out by the lies it is branded with. No one seriously thinks it is an extremist organisation. It is enough for people to remember that the ruling party says it is, for them to choose to stay away from Repubblika and stop listening to it.

More recently, they eviscerated a cartoonist for the crime of being sympathetic to Repubblika while drawing an unflattering cartoon of Joseph Muscat. Ever wonder why activism among artists is rare in our stunted democracy?

It is bold to compare one’s fate with Daphne Caruana Galizia’s. A car bomb can hardly murder an NGO. But the consistent vilification, the strategic isolation enabled by useful idiots and the daily fire of lies thrown at Repubblika are an awful thing we’ve seen before.

They are the actions of a political party that exists to ensure the impunity of those who treat it as their personal property. They isolate their critics and distort legitimate democratic discourse into a demonic horror that must be exorcised. They project their abused power and significant resources onto their critics, misrepresenting wooden spoons and steel bakeware as weapons of mass destruction.

In a polity where wrong is deemed right, calling it out becomes an extremist act.