It took British journalist Chris Mullin 16 years to succeed in having the Birmingham Six freed from prison. In 1975, they were found guilty of bombing two pubs in Birmingham which killed 21 people and injured hundreds of others
Sixteen years later, in March 1991, their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal.
In January 1972, the British army shot, killed or maimed scores of demonstrators in Northern Ireland. Campaigners had to wait until 2010 for the Saville Inquiry to declare that what happened on Bloody Sunday was a massacre by the British army.
It took a full 38 years of campaigning but they got there at the end.
What was true for the campaigners in the case of the Birmingham Six and the Bloody Sunday Massacre is also valid for the truth and justice we all wish to triumph following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, days away from her fifth anniversary.
We will only succeed if we learn from the experiences of others and if we implement the right lessons.
Lesson one: never be discouraged
The first lesson to draw is that campaigning for justice is generally long and protracted. This is not a struggle for the fainthearted or the armchair critics or those of little faith. One needs a strong heart, a mountain of perseverance and a gargantuan craving for justice to keep up the struggle. Campaigners must combat the apparatus of the state, the fire from sections of the media and, many times, also the bile of swathes of the population.
For one reason or another, some lost courage along the way and have now become the harbingers of despair and deprecation of all that is Maltese. Fortunately, others still offer hope, a hope emanating from their deep belief that truth and justice will prevail.
Lesson two: hound corrupt businessmen and corrupt politicians
The following appeal of Pope Francis said during his Angelus address on September 18 will lead on to the second lesson.
“In our world today, there are stories of corruption like in the Gospel: dishonest conduct, unfair policies, selfishness that dominate the choices of individuals and institutions and many other murky situations. But we Christians are not allowed to become discouraged or, worse, to let go of things, remaining indifferent.”
A reading of the writings of Caruana Galizia leads us to the second lesson. Hound corrupt politicians but with equal vehemence hound corrupt businessmen.
One needs a strong heart, a mountain of perseverance and a gargantuan craving for justice to keep up the struggle- Fr Joe Borg
They are like two sides of the same coin. One does not live without the other. Many believe that Electrogas, The Quad, the kitchen project at San Vincenz and a whole litany of cases are the result of a tandem between both. It is not only oligarchs and big moneyed bullies who are corrupt but smaller businessmen down the line. Theirs are not multimillion projects but are corrupt just the same.
Lesson three: be inclusive, build bridges
Not everyone feels the same way as activists who are on the front line do. This is understandable and to be expected. Reach out to and communicate with all bona fide people. In a country where the number of poor or in the risk of poverty is on the increase many would consider bread and butter issues more important than ‘saltna tad-dritt’ (I hate this phrase), truth and justice, corruption as well as ‘justice for Daphne’ arguments.
The communication strategy becomes more difficult as it has now become very difficult for any organisation with an agenda different from government to communicate its position. The government controls Malta’s two most popular TV station and uses loads of money in all sorts of advertising on the social networks and the traditional media.
The communication strategy must show that there is no irreconcilable difference between the strategy on bread-and-butter issues and the strategy on truth and justice issues. It has to be communicated that the righting of all the wrongs that Daphne pointed out means doing justice for all of us and that corruption is the worst form of thievery, particularly of the poor.
Pope Francis once more shows the way. During a homily at Santa Martha in June 2014 he said that corruption is “is paid by the poor”.
“Paid by hospitals without medicine, by patients without treatment, by children without education. These are the ones who pay the corruption of the powerful.”
Being inclusive means shunning the arrogant belief that one has the whole truth and that everyone else is either in bad faith, or a coward or an imbecile. Being inclusive means building bridges not rubbishing individuals or organisations – including political parties – which may naturally and legitimately have a different perspective from civil society.
Lesson four: fight for a free media
For a free media one needs an enabling legal and financial environment. But more important it needs free spirits with free minds. It needs journalists who are ready to crash barriers and to courageously speak truth to power, as Daphne always did.
Following the report of the public inquiry we are in the process of a government-initiated reform of journalism. Ironically, a public inquiry is being followed by a committee holding its meetings in secret and reporting to the government in confidence.
The Institute of Maltese Journalists should not accept this. It should immediately publish the report that had been sent to the government and hold public consultation talks about these and other reforms. Politicians will only respect journalists who stand up to them. I will not go as far as Jeremy Paxman and say that journalists should respect politicians in the same way that dogs respect lampposts. But that’s how the government is treating journalists.
Daphne is more than a person. She is a prime mover for a process of radical changes which can be achieved. Yes, we can.