The figure of Nicodemus in the Gospel of John has always intrigued me, especially during Holy Week, when we are told that he points out to the Pharisees that, under Jewish law, Jesus should be granted a hearing before He’s condemned.

He advocates for the rule of law, which is quite something seeing how the Pharisees were hell-bent on cutting corners to get their own way even going so far as handing Jesus over to the secular and political sphere, probably to quieten their conscience.

After Jesus is killed, Nicodemus brings ointments for Jesus’ burial. Benedict XVI remarks that “the quantity of the balm is extraordinary and exceeds all normal proportions. This is a royal burial.” Nicodemus seems to want to overcompensate for his cowardice earlier in his life.

Nicodemus was a man in authority, a powerful Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. Earlier in the Johannine account, he was presented as an earnest but rather timorous and somewhat confused would-be disciple. To underline this timidity, John slyly adds:  “Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus at night.” “At night” does not carry very good undertones, either in modern English or in biblical Greek.  

But Nicodemus redeems himself by flouting Roman and Jewish authorities by walking up to Golgotha to help with Jesus’s burial. In plain sight. For all to see. From a scared man he ends up as a man of courage. His name, in fact means ‘victory to the people’. To the people of courage. To those who stand up to be counted.

This week, we were regaled with the dubious confessions of another man who was in power. A politician who, like Nicodemus, saw that institutions that should have been working for the people were used to serve the interests of his inner circle instead… and did nothing.

We were told, and it was reported breathlessly, that Evarist Bartolo did try to do his bit for good governance and the rule of law and that he expressed his concerns privately because he wanted to keep his place in the party to continue to work for change. Who would have thought, eh?

Didn’t Bartolo show his hand in the most public of places by voting with Joseph Muscat’s government in parliament? Didn’t he still drink at the fountain of continuity until recently?

It is highly likely that Bartolo is actually telling the truth when he claims that he has done his bit. It is also plausible to believe his colleagues and supporters when they say that Bartolo is a man of integrity. Listen up.

If I had to choose a character from Holy Week, Mr Bartolo, Pontius Pilate is your man- Alessandra Dee Crespo

It is also very reasonable to believe Konrad Mizzi when he shrieks he has done nothing wrong by populating his assets with millions many suspect came from kickbacks from his corrupt wheeling and dealing. Shocking, right? But only to us.

Such dodgy politicians believe themselves to be honest because they have successfully repeatedly lied to themselves. And to the people. Some even applauded. Applause has a habit of drowning out that little voice in your head that tells you that you’re not as great as you think you are.

Such politicians are so adept at manipulating their beliefs to suit their own self-interest and also that of their party, one and the same in my book, that they are capable of ‘truly’ believing almost anything. That is how politicians of this stripe are able to live with themselves while defrauding the public. Bartolo might be fiscally pure but morally? His greatest talent, as we have seen, lies in selling porky-pies to his conscience and then serve it up to the public. 

Bartolo can claim that he did the right thing because he has acted in accordance with his deeply held beliefs. But deeply held beliefs can also be subject to internal manipulation when they are not firmly anchored to non-negotiable values such as good governance, the rule of law, truth and justice.

In his book The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt concludes that: “We lie, cheat and cut ethical corners quite often when we think we can get away with it and then we use our moral thinking to justify ourselves to others and manage our reputations. We believe our own post-hoc reasoning so thoroughly that we end up self-righteously convinced of our own virtue.”

When confronted with great moral issues, it is always a question of courage in the end. Or the lack of it. My experience these past years is that when we are challenged morally, we fall into three broad camps: the dissident, the silent and the actively complicit. The dissidents are the smallest group, the silent are the largest. The complicit are the worst. They usually give extensive interviews to overcompensate for their spinelessness.

Nicodemus was at the end a man of courage. If I had to choose a character from Holy Week, Mr Bartolo, Pontius Pilate is your man. Had you not repeatedly washed your hands of your political responsibility, especially during the last years of your political career, Daphne Caruana Galizia would probably still be alive.

This is also your legacy, Mr Bartolo. No matter how hard you try to repackage yourself. 

Don’t be like Evarist Bartolo. Stand up with us at tonight’s Vigil at Great Siege Square, Valletta at 6 to mark 54 months since Daphne’s assassination. Yes, it’s Holy Saturday. But justice has no season. Be like Nicodemus instead.

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