There are certain events in history that are forever seared in our collective memory.  Most of us remember exactly where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001, when we heard about the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks. My mother’s generation no doubt remembers where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot on November 22, 1963. She still recounts in vivid detail where she was and what she was doing, and how she felt about it.

No doubt the news of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln had the same effect on the people who read newspaper reports. And there are plenty of other examples, both positive and negative, from the first human steps on the moon to the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. I was nearly 15 years old when the shuttle exploded, killing all on board, including the first teacher in space, Christa McCauliffe. I was stunned by the images.

I still remember the address President Ronald Reagan gave that day where he said the unforgettable lines that the crew “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God”. I am sure that when faced with the enormity of what happened, many people felt grief and helplessnessness, even anger.

I am a history documentary fiend and no matter how many times I watch footage from these events I witnessed, I still remember where I was, what I was doing and how I felt at the time. And still sometimes find myself talking about them as if they happened only yesterday. Not that I find many willing captives to listen to me speak about history.

But why do we remember not only significant events themselves, but where we were when we heard them? 

Many of us still remember actually having to attach flashbulbs to our cameras to help capture a snapshot in time. In psychology, ‘flashbulb memories’ have been described as a “distinctive type of autobiographical memory associated with personally noteworthy and memorable public events. Flashbulb memory has been examined in connection with the way we remember certain events, why we remember the events we do, how long we remember them vividly, and whether such memories are always accurate.”

A group of psychologists led by William Hirst studied flashbulb memories specifically in connection with 9/11. They define a flashbulb memory as “a memory for the circumstance in which one learned of a public event”. They note that it is characterised by its long-lasting effect – that people can describe it many years after the fact.

We still remember where we were, what we were doing and how we felt on October 16, 2017, at 3pm. We felt shock, grief, helplessness. We felt angry. Let’s not kid ourselves, some felt jubilant, even carcading, blaring their hatred on their horns. Some wrote vile things on social media and others applauded them. Others popped champagne bottles. I know.

But Daphne’s assassination did not leave anyone of us untouched, whatever one thought of her and her writing, or whatever political beliefs one espoused. Her assassination is our 9/11. A pivotal moment in our country’s history that changed our political and moral landscape forever. Some were paralysed by the shock. Others were and remained wilfully indifferent. Successive Labour governments and its supporters actively work, and still do, to erase Daphne’s memory.

Lines were drawn. Fences went up. Some crossed the lines, others sat on fences. And still do.

But some of us chose to step up. Overnight we became activists, fired up by the same flames that killed Daphne to do something, anything, but never nothing.

Overnight we became public speakers, columnists, protestors in tents- Alessandra Dee Crespo

Comparing our resolve to the fire that snuffed out the life of a vibrant woman and investigative journalist that still had so much life to live, must seem callous, self-serving even. But it depends on the perspective.

A huge number of us still refuse to look at the carnage head on, still refuse to look at the twisted, burnt-out metal of all that remained of the car Daphne was travelling in and admit that this is the result of decades-long dehumanisation of one lone truth-teller and our own inaction to protect one of our own as long as she continued with her investigative journalism and entertaining writing.

But we look at the twisted metal and refuse to feel powerless in front of the enormity of such a tragedy.

Overnight we became public speakers, columnists, protestors in tents, sleeping outside the police headquarters, going up against the well-oiled machinery of government propaganda even when placing innocuous flowers and candles in memory of Daphne. We were called unhinged groupies.

I wonder what the intrepid minister Owen Bonnici, you know the minister by day who moonlighted as a janitor by night for months, thought of HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh placing a posy at the foot of the Great Siege Memorial as a tribute to our greatest national heroine. Did his fingers twitch to phone the cleansing department? I jest but it’s no laughing matter when a prominent member of the British Royal Family shows up the prime minister of your own country, a member of the European Union, for the snivelling, man-child he truly is, by refusing to make a significant gesture of his own.

When a disparate group of people came together to do something, anything, we had no plan, but thoughts and prayers and RIP were certainly not enough for us. Much has been accomplished in the past seven years and much is left to do. Everything has been thrown at us. But we do not mind. After all, Daphne did it all before us and she was assassinated for her love of country.

At the same address following the Challenger disaster, Reagan said that the crew of the Challenger “honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives”. The same can be said of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Yes, the manner of her killing was horrific, but we are only activists because she was the first and the best activist before us all. She honoured us by the manner in which she fought for her country by speaking truth to power.

Stand with us tomorrow at Great Siege Square at 7pm. To remember the sacrifice of one, brave woman and journalist. Daphne.

Speak truth to power by your presence.

Alessandra Dee Crespo is an activist interested in human rights and social justice.