Editor, 21, questioned by police

The police have called in the 21-year-old editor of a student newspaper for questioning, after his publication was banned from the University because one of the articles was deemed obscene.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that it was the University chaplain who first flagged the article to the University authorities for action to be taken.

“I read it and I thought it was really obscene stuff. But I didn’t get involved much. I passed it on to the University to take a decision. It wasn’t my decision to take, it’s not my area,” Chaplain Michael Bugeja said.

The article, a short story by Alex Vella Gera, 36, caused a ruckus because of its vulgar colloquial language, pornographic descriptions and degrading portrayal of women. The story, Li Tkisser Sewwi (fix what you break) was published in Ir-Realtà, a small non-profit left-wing monthly newspaper published by students.

“I think we can come up with stuff that is more appropriate for a University setting. This is not a language one should use in articles or newspapers. The law itself does not permit such vulgarity,” Fr Bugeja said.

He said he was “completely put off” after reading the first few lines of the story and immediately felt it was vulgar and degrading. He added the Chaplaincy welcomed debates on campus but felt such language did not need to be used to spark it.

Meanwhile, the University did not reply to questions about how many complaints it received and whether the administration felt criminal action should be taken against the student publishers.

In a press statement the University had said it deemed the content of the article to be discriminatory to women and to have broken the law since it was illegal to distribute obscene material.

It added that no permission was requested to distribute the newspaper, although other publications and objects were never stopped from being distributed because they had no permission.

The newspaper copies, which are distributed freely on Campus, were removed and thrown away by University cleaners in the past couple of weeks.

Mr Vella Gera, who lives in Brussels, has published two novels that do not employ the same style used in the short story, namely Żewġ and Lil-Hinn Minn Jien.

Editor and history student Mark Camilleri said he was not informed about the case by Rector Juanito Camilleri but by University Students’ Council (KSU) president Carl Grech who said the police had turned up at the University to speak to him.

Mr Camilleri felt that although the law did state it was illegal to distribute obscenities the article used poetic licence to reflect a brutish mentality of many Maltese men who believed women were objects. The article had a clear message against such a mentality, he said.

“In fact, the language such people use is much worse than that in the article. You hear them all the time, even how they speak to their children,” he said.

“We don’t agree with it. We just wanted to reflect this ugly reality that we all know exists. You might not like it, but you cannot negate it.”

He said that in the law there was no definition of the word obscenity, and such laws were created ages ago and never really enforced.

He feels that if this article could be banned, several books in the library should also be banned for using a similar style, namely Henry Miller, Marquis de Sade and Maltese acclaimed author Ġuże Stagno.

He believes there is an ulterior motive behind the ban since his organisation had often been seen as a nuisance for its political agenda.

Mr Camilleri also complained about the lack of support from KSU, saying it was clear they also had a right-wing agenda.

When contacted, the KSU president said he would not be commenting on the issue while the police were investigating. He admitted he had not yet read the article.

Ir-Realtà is still preparing for its forthcoming edition which Mr Camilleri promised would make “no compromises”.

The author’s point of view

“I never imagined the article would create such an extreme reaction,” Alex Vella Gera said last night.

“I was sure it would raise some eyebrows, obviously, but I expected a more intelligent reaction from some people. That is why I published it at University, where I thought the largest concentration of intelligent and discerning individuals on the island could be found.

“I never dreamed Ir-Realtà would be banned. To be fair to everyone, the reactions have been pretty much 50/50, with an equal number of people liking and absolutely hating the story. I’m OK with that, but banning Ir-Realtà and seeking to prosecute me and the editor is definitely an overreaction.

“I have been contacted by the police, but everything is tentative so far. I don’t know what they’re planning to do as yet.

“My intention was to aim for a very subtle approach. I know, this may sound crazy after you’ve read the piece, but let me explain.

“The narrator, the protagonist so to speak, relates his “adventures” from an entirely subjective point of view, his own as would be expected since the story is related in the first person. My aim was to drop hints, very subtly, that leak through that subjective onslaught of vulgarity and crudeness.

“These hints show the narrator for the pathetic individual he is. For instance he claims he loves a certain woman, but the way he describes his actions with her hardly denotes love. So my aim was to reveal the truth beneath the words.

“I used these words because it was necessary, for authenticity mostly, and to create an effect, through the continuous repetition of certain words, that devalues their shock effect.

“The fact that reactions have been so strong shows that it’s time for the Maltese reader to grow up.

“These controversies about four letter words were solved in the UK and the US almost 50 years ago (Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Tropic of Cancer ­trials).”

cperegin@timesofmalta.com