As I stood in the cold looking up at the hulk of what remains of Miriam Pace’s family home last Tuesday evening, I couldn’t help recalling the image of the remains of the car Daphne Caruana Galizia was driving and the seconds it took for her to be assassinated as she went about her daily life.

This is a tale of two women in Malta who stood in the way of people who are enriching themselves at our expense.

Both women were devoured in the maw of impunity and lawlessness that have become the manner of operation of our government. Miriam and Daphne probably never met but their destinies are remarkably and heartbreakingly similar.

They were also roughly the same age when they were killed.  They were women in the prime of life, who, in their own way, enriched the lives of people around them by dedicating themselves to their families while also meaningfully contributing to society – Miriam by being actively involved in the Cana Movement, and Daphne through her journalism and publishing.

Some bright sparks think that Daphne ‘asked for it’ for not looking the other way at the systematic and institutional corruption eating away at the very soul of our country. So, in their puny minds, Daphne probably deserved it.

If we had to adopt this twisted logic to Miriam’s fate even for a second, what was her ‘fault’ that  led her to be killed? By simply breathing? By having the temerity to live in her family home? By expecting to enjoy the fruit of her and her husband’s hard work until her natural end, surrounded by the grandchildren she yearned for but which she, like Daphne, will never meet?

We don’t want another board of investigations, prime minister! We want resignations

In one of his statements to the press, Prime Minister Robert Abela said: “It is clear something failed, and that whatever failed resulted in the collapse of a house and in the death of a person enjoying the peace of her own home. We need a mechanism to make sure that what happened does not happen again”.

You don’t say! Let me tell you what failed, prime minister! The state failed. The state fails to protect its own citizens because, as Sandro Chetcuti, the doyen of development on steroids, once bragged, you all won’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So the state kills its citizens in their cars and in their homes instead.

We all know by now that Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed for having hopes and dreams for her country and daring to write about them. We all know that the state colluded to kill her because people in government wanted to keep their grubby hands on the loot they are stealing from us.

In Miriam’s case, the government colluded with developers so that they will continue to enrich themselves off the roof over our heads. We don’t want you to pull populist stunts at funerals of victims of this bad marriage between the political class and the construction industry by giving up your reserved seat to stand with the people. The moment to stand with the people is to sit in your chair in Castille and take the truly hard decisions for us all.

We don’t want another board of investigations, prime minister! We want resignations. This government is very adept at appointing people, but fails miserably at dismissing them. Where is the resignation of Ian Borg, prime minister?

Miriam Pace woke up on that Monday morning thinking that her whole life was ahead of her. Caruana Galizia woke up on that black Monday in October 2017 thinking how she will continue to fight for a better country.

The only flaw in their plans was that they lived in an abnormal country. In a few seconds, both Miriam and Daphne were gone, and with them all their plans for the future.

This is a cruel country. This is no country for people with hopes and dreams. Their killings are not tragedies. They are crimes. Crimes of the state. We must never let the dust settle on their stories. If we do that, we would be burying them both again.

So sit in your chair, prime minister, and do your job.

Alessandra Dee Crespo is Repubblika executive committee member