It’s been a while since I have written for Times of Malta. Reports on my demise have been greatly exaggerated, to quote Mark Twain, who preferred the company of dogs over humans, which is excusable seeing what human beings are capable of doing to other human beings.

We have just marked the sixth anniversary of the heinous and cowardly assassination of the investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Yes, I keep writing about her.

When I was asked to write for this paper my remit was to write about theology and culture. I sometimes wrote about other things, but only rarely, so I return to writing about the decline and degradation of a once proud country and a proud people. Because we bleed for our country on paper.

How could I not? I live in a country where a journalist’s blood was actually spilt for uncovering corruption and telling us about it; I live in a country where people still cheer her killing; I live in a country where successive police commissioners refuse to go after hot shot politicians; I live in a country where the attorney general strikes deals with criminals who shot a barrage of bullets on the police during a bank robbery; I live in a country where Joseph Muscat, the architect, with others, of the road map that has changed our country forever, in every sense, still thinks he can bully us by summoning us to appear in court in a case he instituted to remove the magistrate on the inquiry Repubblika instituted in November 2018 regarding the hospitals heist.

I live in a country where two major rackets (who knows what else is there) are orchestrated from the Office of the Prime Minister; I live in a country where the prime minster defends one of his ministers whose customer care officials within Ian Borg’s secretariat are only ‘helping people’ and ‘he is only doing his job’. A typical case of brazen political gaslighting.

I live in a country where the police choose to go after Robert Aquilina for holding a press conference in the foyer of Television Malta to highlight the relentless Labour propaganda on the national broadcaster, while censuring any dissenting voices or outright suppressing stories that put the party in government in bad light, instead of sending for Mark Sammut, the chief executive of PBS, for his involvement in the disgraceful driving test racket.

The government is also very adept at deflecting. People are now talking about 16-year-old mayors!

That’s their modus operandi. The government wants us to forget. Including the government’s chief protector, erm commissioner himself. Seeing that like everything else, nothing happens to the big fish, Repubblika has written to the police commissioner and asked him to press charges against seven people who contacted Transport Malta’s Clint Mansueto to pressure him into helping specific driving test candidates.

Six years ago people decided to use their voices, be they journalists, activists, artists or the public- Alessandra Dee Crespon

The seven are all government officials, ranging from the chairperson of Malta’s national broadcaster to customer care officials within Ian Borg’s secretariat or the Office of the Prime Minister.

Repubblika believes all seven should be charged with trading in influence, forming part of a criminal conspiracy and promoting an organisation with a view to commit crimes.

The entire Labour Party should be charged, to be honest, since wherever you look on social media or traditional media, one sees each and every one of them defending the indefensible, including Minister for Justice Jonathan Attard. Yes, really, the one person in the entire cabinet, besides the prime minister whose one job, literally, is to uphold the rule of law.

You really can’t make this stuff up. It practically writes itself. Only sadly, this is not satire.

But thankfully, I also live in a country where six years ago people decided to use their voices, be they journalists, activists, artists, the public.

I also live in a country where the family of a slain journalist show us how to live with the heaviest burden of all with grace and dignity.

Thankfully, I also live in a country where the mother of a young man who was killed on a dodgy construction site refuses to be satisfied with “thoughts and prayers” but managed to mobilise an entire country and force the prime minister to make one of his spectacular U-turns.

I live in a country where a small but determined group of teachers in schools encourage students to take part in our Responsible Citizenship Campaign despite the fierce resistance from their peers, and worse, superiors.

Thankfully I live in a country where an 11-year-old boy pens a heartfelt letter to Matthew, Andrew and Paul Caruana Galizia with eloquence and sensitivity in spite of what he observes around him, or maybe because of it.

There is an old saying that describes how humans figure out what their position is on any issue: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

These past six years we have repeated the expression ‘Stand up to be counted’. Some have yet to do so.

You will only manage to stand if your seating companions are not busy handing you pens to sign lucrative agreements with the government, if you do not sit companionably with people who are greedy, corrupt and then conspire with them to bully those among us who have been fighting in the arena for the past six years.

One woman did it all before us. Daphne stood tall. And so will we. When will you?

Alessandra Dee Crespo is the vice president of Repubblika.