This year is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is also the 40th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s seminal album The Wall. Two events that rocked their respective worlds: the political world and the artistic world. Both events symbolise mankind’s fixation with building walls.

Pink Floyd were not the only artists to do so. In his book Imperium, Ryszard Kapuscinski speaks about borders: “How many victims, how much blood and suffering, are connected with this business of borders!

“There is no end to the cemeteries of those who have been killed the world over in the defence of borders. Equally boundless are the cemeteries of the audacious who attempted to expand their borders.

“It is safe to assume that half of those who have ever walked upon our planet and lost their lives in the field of glory gave up the ghost in battles begun over a question of borders.”

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, many hoped that the world would finally move away from its wall-building mentality.

Sadly, it was a misplaced optimism. In the same book, Kapuscinski speaks of three plagues: nationalism, racism and religious fundamentalism.

It seems that we have yet to find an effective cure for these contagions. They continue to inflict pain and suffering on humankind, making us a poor shadow of what we can be, of what we ought to be.

These sicknesses are pushing us to build new walls. Physical walls like the one being built between the US and Mexico, but not just.

We have turned the Mediterranean Sea into a liquid wall, a killing wall very much like the wall where people stand to be shot at in executions. Yes, we have become spectators at very public executions of the innocent.

Recently in Malta, we have seen another wall appear: a wall of silence. Silence that is anything but golden.

Keith Schembri’s refusal to give evidence in cross examination, in a libel case that he himself instituted against the former leader of the Nationalist Party, Simon Busuttil, is one such wall.

This country cannot remain comfortably numb. We cannot allow the dream of normality to be gone

Schembri used every excuse in the book not to talk about, not to explain, the serious criminal allegations in his regard.

His latest excuse is that he couldn’t talk; he could not give evidence because of an ongoing magisterial investigation. The very same investigation that Schembri repeatedly tried to halt.

Way back, a Labour spokesman said that Schembri continues to deny any wrongdoings and filed libel proceedings to clear his name. What is the same party spokesperson saying now that Schembri has dropped his own libel case? That Schembri no longer feels libelled by the accusations made in his regard?

The reality is that Schembri has painted himself into a corner he can no longer get out of, because his fear of giving evidence on the serious accusations made against him is greater than any desire, if he ever had it, of attempting to clear his name. The fact that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat insists on retaining Schembri as his chief of staff is now more than just an insult to all good-standing people in Malta.

Someone described his refusal to leave as an incestuous affair, an abuse in a relationship that should be based on trust. That trust is now all gone and Schembri should do the honourable thing and let go.

He should defend his name, as a private person, and not as a holder of one of the most influential public offices. Many have resigned for much lesser accusations than the one he is facing. Many have taken the honourable route for allegations that were far less serious.

But Schembri refuses to go and Muscat refuses to sack him.

The implications of this transcend politics. It impinges on Malta’s already badly-damaged reputation. It has serious repercussions on our financial services and troubled banking sector.

Which brings me to another silence: silence by the operators, by the professionals in this field who know full well how big the fallout can be if Schembri continues to enjoy the impunity he has.

The Moneyval report spoke of high-profile cases going unpunished. This is partly the reason why Malta is facing blacklisting.

This week the government showed it has no intention of addressing this point.

With this kind of attitude, Malta has no way of escaping blacklisting. I urge all those who need to, who should speak up, to do so now, before it’s too late. 

I also appeal to people within the Labour ranks, people with solid, unblemished reputations who, as things stand, can be guilty by association. If you do not speak out for your country’s sake, do it to retain your personal integrity.

Civil society, the independent media and the Opposition are doing their bit. But we need everyone to join in this fight, to challenge this dangerous status quo, this unnatural state of being.

This country cannot remain comfortably numb.

We cannot allow the dream of normality to be gone. Let it not be said of us that we should have talked more often than we did. Let us bring down this wall of silence.

Mario de Marco is a former minister and a PN MP.