Some friendly advice given to me as the Repubblika vice-president by someone who, presumably, means well has made me ponder about why we do what we do with such doggedness or, some might argue, with a touch of a messianic complex.
After the umpteenth court application, this fellow citizen, who is in the legal profession, helpfully told me that we pick on the minutest detail and we should let some things slide because it would be more appealing to some people still sitting on various fences.
What this person meant was that, by not looking like a bunch of good governance and rule of law obsessives, we would attract more support likely from those who refuse to take a principled stand on anything consequential.
I spluttered into my coffee. To let things slide is not why Repubblika was formed in the aftermath of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. The last time we, as a country, let things slide, Daphne was assassinated, precisely because she refused to let things slide. She was assassinated because, although many of us were appalled at the corruption she uncovered, we chose to treat her work as spectator sport. We refused to engage.
When a series of decisions taken by people in power or by people in authority serving the interests of the people in power rather than the country left Daphne alone and exposed, we still stood aside and watched. Daphne was killed on our watch too, her readers and supporters. The public inquiry found the state directly responsible for Daphne’s assassination, that it “should bear the responsibility for the assassination by creating a climate of impunity”.
The state is not some abstract notion whereby everyone is responsible but no one is accountable. In other words, when you’re the police commissioner who prefers Inter to international crime happening under your nose; when you’re the attorney general writing a memo in May 2016 to the police to halt the Panama Papers investigation; when you’re the head of the Economic Crimes Unit who obeys this “Murder Memo” as described by Matthew Caruana Galizia after his mother was killed; when you’re an MP who repeatedly endorses the government with your votes of confidence; when you’re the prime minister who insists on defending one’s friends rather than denounce them, then the lone journalist holding power to account is assassinated.
There are no do overs for public officials who chose not to do their duty. They can’t be allowed to ride off into the sunset with consultancies, reputation laundering interviews and sportswashing.
They want us to forget.
But we cannot forget because we were there on the sidelines watching. This is why we won’t let things slide. This is why we doggedly pursue truth and justice in our courts and in our streets.
Because if bad decisions led to the assassination of a journalist, it is also our resolve to repeatedly take the good decisions to keep filing that application in court, to organise yet another protest, to hold yet another vigil, to place yet another candle in Great Siege Square or in Bidnija, to not yield an inch or else the people who took over from Lawrence Cutajar, Peter Grech, Ian Abdilla and Joseph Muscat will continue to try to take a mile.
They want us to forget- Alessandra Dee Crespo
Probably the most pervasive false belief that most of us harbour is the fallacy that only some superhuman act would have the power to put this country back on the road to good governance and the rule of law.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Life is cumulative. Whatever results we’ve obtained since we collectively decided not to let things slide are the accumulation of a host of small decisions we’ve made as individuals, as a family, as a community, as a society and as a country.
Yes, there are people who occupy the great offices of state who still routinely ignore the recommendations of the public inquiry and the conclusions of a major magisterial inquiry. That’s on them. But what’s on us is to continue to call them out on the dereliction of their duty.
“Everybody can speak as I do. They just don’t want to,” wrote Daphne once. There was a time when we didn’t want to. We were also part of the state when we chose to remain detached from Daphne’s work. I consider this one of the low points of my life as a citizen of this country. When I chose anonymity on Daphne’s blog, just happy to see my nom de plume on her site or thrilled when she replied to one of my comments, or e-mails.
We are also part of the state today. Every single day when we choose to stand up to be counted in public, when we choose to fight for it, on the frontline, using our name, showing our faces. By making these choices every day we are regaining our dignity as worthy citizens of this country. It’s our chance for a do over. And we’re grabbing it with both hands.
You see, dear legal eagle, we can only live with ourselves when we won’t let things slide. So, watch us keep filing those pesky challenges in court, watch us sit in draughty halls, probably being pitied by people who want us to get a life, and watch us protest in the streets. Because we will never, ever want to say to our children one day that we didn’t do any of it because we wanted to be popular.
Because we remember.
Alessandra Dee Crespo is vice-president of Repubblika.