One of the most heartbreaking details of the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry that did not make it to the report is that she never got to give her mother her birthday present.
While testifying before the board of inquiry, her mother said Daphne seemed particularly pensive when visiting her parents a few days before October 16, 2017 and promised her to return with the birthday present that she had forgotten to bring with her. “But she never came back. That was 40 hours before her assassination.”
One of Daphne’s sisters testified that she used to check Daphne’s website, even at night, whenever she heard that an explosion had gone off somewhere. “That was my way of checking on her.”
How many of us immediately checked Daphne’s website four years ago today when we heard that a bomb had gone off in Bidnija because, in the words of her sister, we were “shocked but not surprised” when we got wind of it? I remember driving aimlessly on that day after work and, on reaching the top of the hill overlooking Bidnija and saw the white tents and arc lights piercing the inky sky, I remember telling myself that I cannot wait to go home to see what Daphne will write about today’s events. But then it hit me that I live in a country that murders journalists.
On that day, we understood what was taken away from us. About time. Too late. Almost immediately, we felt guilty, guilty for treating Daphne’s dangerous work like spectator sport and not, as she wrote four months before she was assassinated, like “participants in a drama that is shaping your [our] life”. Some of us felt our spine stiffen, found our legs and stood up to be counted.
Did you read the public inquiry report? The archaeologist in Daphne would have revelled in it for the board of the inquiry dug, dug, dug until it arrived at the truth: that Joseph Muscat’s ‘culture of impunity’ facilitated Daphne’s assassination.
Not many people know this about Daphne because most view her as one-dimensional person, a ‘journalist’ with no interests, no personality outside journalism but Daphne also studied archaeology.
I read somewhere that Daphne read for an archaeology degree long after she became a household name with her trailblazing columns in print media because “she wanted to try her hand at something different”. I am not so sure. Archaeology is not dissimilar to investigative journalism where both the archaeologist and the journalist dig deep until they get to the proof. They both ask the questions and then dig for the answers. Then, with proof in hand, they talk about the facts.
“One woman with a blog” is how Daphne described herself during the last interview she gave just 10 days before she was killed. Her words in this interview are a chilling testimony to the climate of fear that still endures to this day. The public inquiry report also recorded Daphne’s last concerns that people were scared to speak to her about stories, that journalists were censoring themselves because of fear of retaliation and that people who might have embarked on a career in journalism “See what my life is like and say ‘No way’!” At the time of her death, Daphne hadn’t been to the beach in four years.
The noxious combo of harassment of independent journalists and its ugly sibling, impunity, still reign supreme- Alessandra Dee Crespo
But the public inquiry report is not only a detailed and painstaking record of Caruana Galizia’s dehumanisation and demonisation. The report is not only an indictment of the state. It also presents a number of recommendations so that journalists are protected and no other journalist meets with the same fate as Daphne.
Truth be told, the war on journalism is not only local. It’s a global phenomenon. Last week, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two persecuted journalists, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov. The last Nobel awarded to a working journalist was back in 1936: to a German editor, Carl von Ossietsky, when darkness was starting to creep all over Europe. You do the math, as the Americans say. The Nobel Committee did the math and, with this prize, it recognises the clear and present danger to press freedom and the impunity for crimes against journalists all over the world.
Here in Malta, the noxious combo of harassment of independent journalists and its ugly sibling, impunity, still reign supreme. We have yet to see the recommendations of the Daphne inquiry being put to good use. Sometimes, we feel disheartened but then we remember that Daphne will be killed again if we give in to the naysayers, to the complacent, to the corrupt. We owe her our resilience.
On this day four years ago, one voice was silenced forever. Or so they thought. Daphne’s stories cannot be buried. We might not hear her voice or read her words because her pen has been frozen in time. But we are her voice. We are her pen. We keep Daphne alive, every time we speak for her, when we write in her name, when we don’t toe the line, when we fight for the safety of journalists. When we show up. When we stand up to be counted. These are Daphne’s seeds and seeds have a habit of growing, of sprouting, of making themselves noticed.
We must make sure that no other relative of journalists misses their loved one’s present. Ever again.
This is Daphne’s legacy. Because truth never dies.
Join our vigil at 7.30pm today in Great Siege Square, Valletta. Make your voice heard.