That pretty much sums up what what one suspended policeman, reinstated by the previous Labour administration, had to say about the murder of journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia.
If someone feels hurt or irritated and does not feel they have appropriate legal remedy, they may take the law into their own hands, said an ex-Labour Minister a couple of days ago.
Three days on, the Police Commissioner has been conspicuous by his absence, and a magistrate (also appointed by a Labour administration) takes 24 hours to take a decision to abstain from taking over the inquiry, a period long enough to make even people within the police force seriously question how this would impact the inquiry.
So is it any wonder, therefore, that Matthew Caruana Galizia, the son of the journalist, should lay the blame for her murder squarely on the government’s shoulders?
And the more the newly-elected Labour administration tries to close ranks, the more it finds itself under the international spotlight, a European government damned with blood on its hands.
Suddenly stories which were pooh-poohed as the fantasy of a rabid anti-Labour mind are re-examined, and questions are once more being asked, but not on a local level. This time it is the international forum that is showing an interest.
The murder of a person who, when referred to at all, was referred to as ‘biċċa blogger’, is front page news around the world.
Matthew is, of course, right in blaming this, and the previous, administration for this horrible tragic murder.
But I do not think he went far enough.
He should have gone ahead and blamed all of us for his mother’s death as we stood back and did nothing.
He should blame our representatives of both parties in parliament who have ruled this country since independence for giving us institutions so weakly structured that they were all too easily corrupted by the next person in power.
He should blame the professionals, lawyers, contractors, businessmen who were happy to look after their own personal short-term gains, while shafting this country and the next two or three, maybe even four generations, through crooked deals, kickbacks and an ‘I’m alright, f*ck you’ attitude.
He should blame all those of us who at the last election did their sums and said, well yes, there may be a bit of corruption, maybe even a lot, and there may be some criminal connections in high places and the institutions, and the rule of law may be going to the dogs – with cronies, and ‘persons of trust’ positions for those on the inside, so if some things get hushed up and some people have to leave the island in a hurry, well, wasn’t there always corruption, and besides the economy and I are both doing well, so why rock the boat? Why change things? Perhaps later on down the road, yes, perhaps there will be a price to pay.
Guess what, it looks like later down the road came sooner than expected.
And finally, there is us. The ones who refused to raise our heads above the parapet, because ‘everyone has to earn a living’, ‘I have a family’, ‘I’m too busy’, ‘because I work for a political party or union media which does not seek to tell the truth but spout the political agenda’, and ‘I’m too tired to think, besides I always voted for this or that party’. So we left one journalist, on her own, an easy target to silence, to fight the good fight, while we went about our daily life.
Well, we’re on our own now.
So I have a simple question to ask. Are we now going to organise a few vigils and protests and then go back to our normal routine, you know, buying Christmas presents, enjoying our weekends with friends, living the famously relaxed Maltese lifestyle? Will the shock slowly give way to ennui and then a shrug of the shoulders and numbness? Are we happy to allow the administration and the institutions to wait out the current storm?
Or are we finally going to turn round to our taskmasters and tell them who really has it coming?