If ever there was a year that failed to live up to expectations, it was 2020. Of course, 20/20 usually applies to optimum ‘normal’ eyesight but this year has been anything but normal and it has certainly offered no clarity of vision.
It was, if you like, the ultimate ‘whodunnit’, a year of plot twists that have kept us on the edges of our seats. If 2020 were a marriage, it might be like the one depicted in The Undoing, a six-part, psychological thriller exploring the deeply disturbing question of whether it is possible to be married to someone and not know that person in any way.
Perhaps I’m being slightly hard on 2020. I actually don’t think it was quite as bad as it’s cracked up to be. Yet, history (and our collective memory) will still not judge it favourably. The year will be remembered as an annus horribilis. And, yet, there remains a fundamental paradox right at its very centre: for while we may have been feeling our way in the dark, we have still had our eyes opened. The year 2020 has probably taught us a hell of a lot more about life (and the world we inhabit) than the previous decade combined.
Today, the government will start rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine, beginning with key health workers. Not a moment too soon. The last seven months, like everywhere else, have been like our Maltese summer sun – scorching, relentless and indiscriminate. But all suns must set and we can but hope that the pandemic will follow suit.
The virus has taught us that human beings will adapt to anything, from handwashing, social distancing and wearing masks to death itself. Even so, governments have a crucial role in managing people’s fears and perceptions, not to mention the listlessness of lockdown.
Think back to March, April and May, when 10 new cases of coronavirus in a day (and not a single recorded fatality) triggered a panic that sent people into a tizzy of bulk-buying and transformed Malta into a ghost town. Now compare it with the situation today, when we are facing as many recorded deaths in a single day as there once were new cases. Seven months down the line, we’ve become inured to it (perhaps taking our cue from the government itself and its agencies). A day without death, or with new cases only in double figures, is now headline news and brings relief and hope.
Yet, how can we not forget those early and very earnest daily briefings? Days when, ironically, the situation really was under control and there were constant reminders to stay vigilant and prevent a tsunami of infection? Today, the daily average of 130 recorded cases and five to 10 fatalities is arguably a tsunami; yet, it seems par for the course and ‘under control’.
It’s an interesting phenomenon: the more extreme and ever-present something is, the less shocked we are. We become desensitised and learn to turn a blind eye. I’ve noticed it many times about so many things.
The last seven months have been like our Maltese summer sun – scorching, relentless and indiscriminate- Michela Spiteri
This is the last article I’ll be writing this year. I’ll, therefore, seize the opportunity to address yet another desensitised ‘blind spot’ (one all too apparent both on and off social media). The topic is ‘freedom of speech’, that somewhat overrated and very misunderstood constitutional right which people are very keen to advocate for just as long as they’re doing the talking. It’s an issue I feel strongly about and one I’ve tackled before, when I felt mine was a lone voice in the wilderness.
Seven years ago, I wrote that free speech in Malta was in tatters and that the whole subject was mired in confusion. I insisted that this was not an absolute right and that, like all freedoms, it ended when it infringed the freedoms of others. At the time, libellous, obscene and harassing online commentary photographic images (thinly veiled as ‘right to an opinion’) were concentrated mainly in a single dominant blog. Today, with that blog no longer active, much of this sort of discourse has found its way on to news portals, twitter and, of course, Facebook.
The difference now is that people no longer accept an absolutist interpretation of freedom of speech. They’re generally more inclined to threaten legal action, while regarding their own version of free speech as pristine and beyond reproach.
I am always shocked at the way people think it’s perfectly OK to be cruel and vitriolic online. Calling someone a rat, a piece of sh**, żibel (trash) or corrupt has become commonplace.
People who endorse such commentary by sharing or liking invective posts are, to my mind, almost worse than the originators. Disliking someone or their politics does not give you, or anyone else, the right to humiliate them publicly. There is nothing ‘free’ about that sort of speech and a useful test is to imagine how you would feel if people suddenly started making the same insinuations about you or members of your family.
Indeed, trolls and those who use social media to execrate and embarrass their foes are always mortified when they find themselves on the receiving end. When that happens, their reaction is to be implacably intolerant: ‘How dare these people hurl insults at me? How dare they suggest that I’m in someone’s pocket?’
It’s almost as if the name-calling exists only for people lower down the food chain, the ‘little people’ who alone must bear the brunt of abusive (aka free) speech with good grace. The minute these mere mortals step out of line and talk back, it’s game over.
Meanwhile, we all have our genuine struggles, which we deal with largely from our own separate corners. Life is tough enough as it is. All the more reason, therefore, to be kinder to one another – both on and offline.
Even the happy ending of a Christmas panto tells us that. The Christmas Story itself, far more so. Here’s hoping 2021 will be kinder.