The statement is seared into my memory. Just weeks after her assassination, a neighbour here in Gozo argued that ‘she had gone too far’. A viewpoint I have heard repeated many times over the past two years.
I have never been able to get a satisfactory answer from him or others as to what this viewpoint meant. Did Daphne Caruana Galizia name ‘too many’ people; did she uncover ‘too many’ corrupt deals, did she annoy one ‘too many’ bigged-up men with power to wield?
What was clear in these discussions is that while murder could never be condoned, she somehow deserved what happened. She had ‘gone too far’.
As a ‘foreigner’ living and working in Malta, there is something very disturbing about the ambivalence routinely displayed by people from all walks of life about aggression and violence and their casual use. As was illustrated two years ago, that violence can be the vicious and life-shatteringcr violence of her assassination (and in the disgraceful and subsequent treatment of her family) or it can be the daily grind of a ‘slow’ but equally devastating variety as meted out to individuals, communities and even to Malta itself.
For me, sadly, Malta is now becoming increasingly violent.
At its milder levels it is to be experienced in the street brawl or in the aftermath of a road traffic accident.
At the next level, it is to be read in the daily threats made on social media to anyone who expresses dissent or in the violent verbal eruptions of the party faithful as they seek to bash the opposition into acquiescence or silence.
At another level, it is evident in the chilling sexual threats made against women who challenge the dominant macho Mediterranean male ethos (e.g. female politicians or members of the occupy movement).
At its zenith, the ‘slow violence’ that is rotting the country from the inside is to be seen in the ongoing abuse of Malta’s environment and resources. It is evident in the assumptions of many ‘important’ Maltese that the island’s common wealth is there to be plundered for personal gain and to hell with anyone standing in the way.
The islands’ common wealth is there to be plundered for personal gain and to hell with anyone standing in the way
It is to be witnessed in the utter disdain and contempt with which Maltese people are treated by appointed members of boards, by executives of key state institutions and by legal and business professionals. They serenely get on with plundering all about them while employing a form of face-to-face lying that is breathtaking.
It is viciously evident in the many ‘planning applications’ (‘plunder proposals’) pushed through almost daily with scant regard to any truth. And in the sneering public utterances and behaviours of many self-styled business and political ‘leaders’.
In Gozo, the handing out of direct orders, like confetti at a cousin’s wedding, is deemed ‘normal’ even if it violently ignores official policy and even the law.
Sadly, this pattern is by no means restricted to Gozo – it is now the new ‘normal’ for ‘getting things done’. Systemic violence is in many ways worse than public violence in its longer-term consequences.
The grind of slow violence that is diminishing life in this country is alarmingly evident in the capturing of vital state infrastructure by party ‘loyalists’ to further advance the interests and agendas (and wealth) of a handful of key people.
The manner of the plundering of core Maltese resources (think hospitals, iconic buildings and, yes, passports) for the benefit of a small local and foreign clique is violent in its intent as well as its practice.
Illegality is now rampant and no amount of reference to the past can justify it. Political life in Malta has become vicious and violent despite its evident damage to Malta and the majority of Maltese.
Billboards, contracts, employment, tenders, appointments, culture, the arts, sport, transport, taxes, fees, land, coasts, even views are subject to violent intervention. The lives of people and their communities can be up-rooted without a thought if it is in the interests of the ‘successful’.
Ultimately, this violence silences people, it makes too many afraid or reluctant, it disempowers Malta and it marginalises Maltese. It strips Malta of its democratic legacy and simply offers citizens a tiny fraction of the spoils. But, at its most menacing, it encourages people to become defenders of the utterly indefensible.
The current state of affairs should be a matter of intense and immense concern to all Maltese no matter what their tribal affiliation. By now it should have become an irresistible insistence that public and systemic violence end immediately and without equivocation.
Malta and the Maltese need and deserve nothing less than this; it is time for the country to rediscover and reassert its better self.
Colm Regan is a human rights teacher and activist.