In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay titled ‘Why I write’. He outlined four great motives for writing. First, sheer egoism – “a desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death”. The second is aesthetic enthusiasm – “the pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose”. The third is historical impulse – “a desire to find out true facts and store them”. But the fourth and most crucial is political purpose – “a desire to push the world in a certain direction” without which any writing is “lifeless”.
In an opinion piece in The Sunday Times of Malta (August 14), Aleks Farrugia, former ONE journalist and It-Torċa editor, accused me of a long list of sins – “a sense of self-styled moral superiority”, “latently racist”, “belonging to a superior breed” and “condescending”. But he also questioned why I write. “I am still trying to figure out what utility this narrative might have,” he commented. At the risk of giving his piece more exposure than it merits, I will help him figure it out.
For a start, some things that are definitely not the reasons why I write: I write not to curry favour with any political party, least of all the ruling party. I write not to improve my personal finances.
Neither do I write to become chair of the Media Literacy Development Board. I don’t write to snuff out criticism and dissenting opinions. I certainly don’t write to defend the indefensible – rampant corruption, intense government secrecy, complete lack of transparency, illegal secret MOUs and contracts signed behind our back, the abuse of public funds to reward party loyalists and donors.
“As a rule of thumb, one should never trust the media reporting on statistics, more so opinion writers,” Farrugia kicked off his piece. What one should never trust is former It-Torċa editors, especially when they engage in frontal attacks on the free press and independent media. What one should never trust is the outright lies and warped reporting by ONE and its sister media outlet TVM, Labour’s servile mouthpiece. No attempt to ridicule and undermine unpalatable EU statistics will diminish their value and veracity.
Farrugia’s piece rapidly descended into the bizarre. “European values,” he insisted “are a myth.” Europe, he argued, cannot possibly claim to aspire to any values because Europeans were colonisers, they invented concentration camps and carpet bombing and because they created Fascism and Nazism.
“The idea of shared European values is simply a myth propagated by European imperialists to justify their colonial ambitions and then by the EU to justify its continued existence,” Farrugia declared. Which century is Farrugia living in? Deep down, Labour never embraced EU membership.
Like Labour’s most prominent MEPs, Joseph Muscat and Alfred Sant, who worked so hard to deny us access to EU membership, rights and values, Farrugia still harbours deep-seated anti-EU sentiments. Even now, years after Labour’s screeching U-turn and its Damascene conversion to the EU dream, prominent Labour figures still vilify and disparage European values.
Those values are not a myth. The EU is founded on values, real values, a concept alien to Farrugia. Those values are clearly laid out in article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty. They’re engraved in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. They are the inviolable values of human dignity, freedom of thought, assembly, expression and information, the value of democracy, equal rights and the rule of law. And non-discrimination on grounds of political opinion. Finally, the key rule that all EU countries yield final jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice.
Prominent Labour figures still vilify and disparage European values- Kevin Cassar
Some of us value our EU citizenship because, no matter the intimidation, the threats, the libel suits by Labour’s MEPs and MPs, threatening legal letters from Labour’s collaborators like Ram Tumuluri, the anonymous letters deposited in our personal letter boxes and our workplaces, our freedom is guaranteed not by our own government but through our EU membership.
Those values are not a myth. They are a reality. They are as much a reality as Malta’s greylisting, or Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination, or the responsibility of the state for her death, or Pilatus, or the illegalities of Labour’s corrupt mega-contracts – Vitals, Electrogas, SOCAR, Mozura. Or the thousands of euros Accutor paid into Muscat’s BOV account.
Far more disturbing is Farrugia’s claim that, since Malta’s history is one of “poverty and want”, the Maltese should put “profit before protection of values”. Farrugia’s message is that trading in our liberty and democracy for the essentials – food and comfort – is worth it. That’s what the Maltese know, he argues, because they’re used to poverty.
“Amoral unEuropean” Maltese citizens, he implies, are right to take the money and give up their freedom. Because, according to Farrugia, freedom is overrated. He contends that freedom is nothing but a weapon used by countries hostile to Russia to beat “everything that Russia represents”. Besides, he argues, nobody really agrees what freedom is.
We certainly know what freedom is not. Getting imprisoned for calling the war in Ukraine a war is not freedom. Closing down all independent media organisations isn’t freedom either. Killing adversaries with Polonium or poisoning your critics with the nerve agent Novichok in foreign jurisdictions isn’t freedom either.
Attempting to kill the opposition leader and then jailing him on trumped-up charges is not freedom. Shooting journalists dead is not freedom. Blowing them up with car bombs isn’t freedom either. Neither is refuting every FOI request.
Unlike Farrugia, some of us believe in values and cherish our freedom and will jealously protect our hard-earned EU rights.
“The utility of the narrative” is simple – it’s to forge a better country, based on values, human dignity, freedom, equality and the rule of law. It’s to foster a healthy thriving democracy, not a sham. It’s to make sure nobody coerces us into relinquishing our “sublime” rights and freedoms for empty promises of the “mundane” and “price stability”.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.