What does freedom of expression cost?

Norman Lowell must be having an absolutely super time. His appearance on Bondìplus a month ago initially appeared to have been a fiasco for Imperium Europa. He overdid it big time. His proposal for preserving the white race was to launch embryos into outer space the moment the world was imploding under the weight of its own folly but when Lou Bondì asked him what would happen to them our great hero brushed him off and said that he could not be bothered with details.

This is the man who opines that the rank and file of Maltese are dolts who are incapable, congenitally and educationally, of rational thought. Incredibly these same dolts are his greatest admirers. This, and more, ironically, was deemed to be very funny by the majority of viewers who expressed themselves in the media and the social websites. This is why anyone and everyone watched the programme live or afterwards on di-ve and have not stopped talking about it since, if for the wrong reasons. As I said before I must have had a sense of humour bypass. I found nothing remotely funny about any utterance Mr Lowell made; in fact I found his train of thought acutely disturbing and his beliefs particularly repellent.

In the wake of PBS being fined €1,164 (precisely Lm500 in real money) by the Broadcasting Authority for allowing the programme of May 3 to take its course and be "manifestly offensive" in the process, commentors (vide Andrew Borg Cardona's blog of June 4) seem to be missing the wood for the trees. Many are those who are screaming blue murder as they are seeing this fine as a threat to free speech which, may I assure you, it is not. At least not as far as Mr Lowell is concerned as the one carrying the can is none other but the presenter Mr Bondì who is uncomfortably placed in the middle of all this legal jiggerypokery while PBS, in its turn, is suing the BA about a Bondìplus programme that took place a week later for precisely the same amount, €1,164; Lm500 in real money!

While all this pettifogging goes on, Mr Lowell has not been prosecuted and is tranquilly churning out artistic masterpieces costing the earth to finance his nightmares about 2012. The upshot of it all was an overfull edition of Xarabank on June 4 presided not only by Peppi Azzopardi but with Mr Bondì as co-star. Again, the programme gave even more airtime and more importance to Mr Lowell; for if you believe that there is no such thing as "bad" publicity, Mr Lowell's profile must have risen to dizzy heights; this time as the object of disgust and aversion. I fear that by writing this article I may be doing the same.

Many people have been writing about freedom of speech. There are those who maintain that Mr Lowell had every right to say what he said and although I agree, I am afraid that the situation is not as simplistic as that. It just does not stop there. Yes, I, Kenneth Zammit Tabona, or as he is known, KZT (not to be confused with Kazakhstani Tenge), am free to write what I believe is right in as far as the editor in his turn thinks it is wise for his newspaper to do so, however, and here lies the crunch, both he and I must accept full legal responsibility for it. Being free to express myself does not free us from bearing the legal responsibility for what I have written.

The radical difference lies in the fact that Bondìplus on May 3 was "live" and therefore could not be edited. Although there was a certain amount of preparation and research prior to the programme, it would have been impossible to pre-empt many of Mr Lowell's more perniciously outrageous statements. If that were the case then one would then presume premeditation. In my opinion, this lets off both PBS and Where's Everybody? The responsibility for advocating infanticide and abortion in addition to denying the holocaust and inciting racial hatred lies fairly and squarely on Mr Lowell's shoulders.

Therefore, while defending Mr Lowell's right to express himself freely I am afraid that freedom of speech comes at a price and if by this same freedom Mr Lowell has manifestly offended the sentiments of the public then, if and when he is sued, he has only himself to blame. "If" and "when" being the operative words.

What I find peculiar is that the two institutions that jealously safeguard our morality according the Constitution, namely, the courts and the Church, have, as far as I know, not uttered a word about the matter. The Archbishop and the Attorney General have taken a back seat while PBS and the BA fight it out. Both revered entities seem to be oblivious of public opinion. Had the courts and the Church had their ears to the ground and evaluated the very illogical and irrational pronouncements being made in the aftermath of the most successfully followed and talked-about edition of Bondìplus to date, then by now both should have issued official pronouncements with regard to every aspect of Mr Lowells' performance that go against the Constitution and Christian morality. By not doing so, they are leaving the way open to moral speculation and it is hardly surprising that where distinguishing right from wrong is concerned, most people are unable to see the wood for the trees.