Zoto, a defining moment

The court reports regarding the violent death, while in detention, of Mali national Mamadou Kamara, 32, make for some very disturbing reading indeed. The issue of individual criminal responsibility is a matter for the courts and the courts alone to decide. The bigger picture, however, is a matter that concerns us all. Nobody, not one of us, can exempt her/himself from the obligation to consider the bigger picture.

... tragic events such as these are defining moments, especially for a small country such as ours- Mario Vella

I am referring to moral, political obligation and, yes, even to cultural obligation.

We owe it to ourselves as citizens of this country. All too often with excessive flourishes of rhetoric, we declare ourselves heirs of the values of European civilisation. Let’s, provisionally, put aside the plausible possibility that excessive rhetoric about cultural identity – not to speak of the rhetoric of ethnic identity, whatever that may be in our case – is typical of those that are actually profoundly uncertain about their identity, whereby this rhetoric – rhetoric in the classic sense of a tactic of persuasion – is really aimed at quelling our unspeakable doubts about our own cultural identity. Let’s also provisionally put aside the very real possibility that many of us would be at a loss for words if they were to be asked what these values are and in what sense they are specifically European.

Having put aside these not unimportant issues, there remains the fact that we are members of the European Union and bound to observe certain core values that define it.

Article 2 of the Treaty states: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the member states in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail”.

As a member state, therefore, Malta is bound to ensure on its territory such values as respect for human dignity, the rule of law and respect for human right, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.

You will remind me that, after all, our own Constitution declares that “every person in Malta is entitled to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, that is to say, the right, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinions, colour, creed or sex” and that this includes the right of the individual to “life, liberty, security of the person” and “the protection of the law” (article 32).

Yes, this should really be an adequate basis for the protection of these rights but I seem to recall that one important reason for joining the EU was precisely to strengthen these rights.

The point is that we cannot, on the one hand, declare our pride in “being European” and then be satisfied with suggestions that Mamadou Kamara asked for it and that, if this were the case, he somehow put himself outside the scope of our Constitution and of the fundamental values of the Union that we so cheerfully joined in 2004.

We may not fully know what we are talking about when we spew platitudes about the values of European civilisation and our fundamental “Europeaness” (one overriding reason why the EU was told that Malta should be welcomed into the Union) but we should at least be concerned about the explicit black-on-white commitments we entered into upon joining the club.

Above, I referred to the cultural obligation of each one of us to look at the broader implications of what happened on June 29, 2012 and continues to happen when we speak about that terrible June 29 with acquaintances, colleagues, friends and family – especially our children and, for those of us who teach, our students – and when we blog, post comments, write.

I was thinking of the implications for each one of us and for those that will inherit this country from us when we are gone. What I mean by this is that tragic events such as these are defining moments, especially for a small country such as ours. They have an impact on what we are, on what we think and say we are.

I began by saying that the court reports are very disturbing. As if the facts were not disturbing enough (“A post mortem examination revealed that he had died due to severe blows to his lower abdominal area”, July 11), the language, especially the metaphors, were even more disturbing.

Even more disturbing are many of the online comments that are increasingly substituting the actual reports as the real attraction for many of the readers of our newspapers’ online versions.

I have no doubt that many of those that are not disturbed by the facts about which there seems to be some certainty would react with anger and indignation if one were to suggest that they do not qualify as legitimate heirs of the European civilisation they genuinely identify with. They would certainly cry scandal if one were to suggest that they don’t quite deserve being referred to as Europeans.

Of course, we need to go beyond a discussion of European culture. The killing of Zoto should also make us reflect on the European material resources that we need to cope with immigrants – and not only in detention centres – with the dignity and solidarity they deserve. And on the need of European solidarity to tackle an issue that we cannot, as things stand, cope with alone.

We should also reflect on how we have failed to provide our citizens, not least our citizens in uniform, with the education and, in the case of the latter, also the material means necessary to cope with situations that find them unprepared.

Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .