On Sunday, several newspapers (including this newspaper’s sister) published an opinion piece by the President of the Republic in which she urged everyone to condemn ‘social violence’. However, when you see what she has in mind, the reasons for refusing to join in just pile up.
What President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca means by ‘social violence’ is ‘the use of social communication tools’ to invade people’s privacy and ‘shatter’ (a word she uses again and again) their lives and that of their families.
She doesn’t specify what she means by people’s ‘privacy’. But, given that she refers to exposure that (in her words) humiliates, ridicules, intimidates and discredits individuals and families, one must assume she is talking mainly about sexual lives and, implicitly, sexual blackmail. What else could it be?
‘Social communication tools’ is a very broad term that includes, among others, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. But something tells me she has blogs particularly in mind (more on whose later).
Why else would she talk of a ‘strategy’ to shatter private lives or insist that ‘political parties and other public bodies’ do not offer ‘protection’?
She makes it clear that she is not talking about curtailing the legal limits to the fundamental right of freedom of expression. She’s talking about ethical limits.
If we don’t follow her in condemning ‘social violence’, she says, the consequences will be catastrophic. The social fabric of society will be undermined. We will have a culture of hatred and psychological violence. Our children will grow up with ‘the belief that freedom of expression has no limits or rules’.
Given all this, on what groundscould one possibly object to following the President?
The short answer is that argument is implausible from start to finish. To endorse it publicly is to ensure we remain blinded by myth and distracted by side-issues, instead of facing up to the real causes of our undoubtedly increasing political polarisation.
Simplifying, and reading the broad hints between the lines, the President is effectively saying that our major real problems – a weakened social fabric and the lack of understanding of the ethical foundations of a functioning democracy – would be reduced to a significant degree if the most popular blogs in the country – Daphne Caruana Galizia’s and Glenn Bedingfield’s (who else?) – were to stop offering nuggets of information as well as gossip about the sexual landscape.
To go along with a condemnation of a ‘social violence’, which somehow is permitted by human rights law, is to collude in the obfuscation of our rights as guaranteed in our Constitution
Still keeping it short, here’s what’s wrong with the argument. Just suppose that, as of tomorrow, Bedingfield channels his inner Socrates and Caruana Galizia begins to run her blog like the salon of Madame de Staël. Would you expect the current climate of mutual political derision and vituperation to cool down in any significant way?
Of course not. It wouldn’t cool down at all. The people who believe this government is made up of crooks, liars, crude opportunists and sycophants will continue to say so privately and in the social media. And the people who believe the Opposition is little better, if not worse, will continue to say so, too.
In fact, the mutual suspicion and contempt, while greatly exacerbated by Panamagate, has far longer roots. Till today, many supporters of both major political parties blame the other for the violence of the 1980s (as a perusal of both Caruana Galizia’s and Bedingfield’s blogs will show).
But why not anyway agree to condemn social violence, even if it won’t do much good? Here’s five reasons why.
Firstly, despite what she says, what the President has in mind is not ‘violence’ and does not undermine ‘human dignity’ in general. If it were real violence, it would not be protected by human rights law, which, while permitting speech that gives offence, does not permit intimidation.
Nor do the laws of the country permit hate speech or the invasion of the privacy of private citizens.
So, to go along with a condemnation of a ‘social violence’, which somehow is permitted by human rights law, is actually to collude in the obfuscation of our rights as guaranteed in our Constitution.
If anything, it’s such collusion that would confuse our children about freedom of speech, which has well-established limits at law.
Second, since the lives of private individuals are already legally protected, what we’re really talking about are the sexual lives of public figures.
There is a perennial debate here about the balancing of public and private interests and it’s a debate we should have.
My own view is that both Caruana Galizia and Bedingfield have, sometimes, given more detail about the private lives of public figures (or figures justifiably in the public eye) than was justified by the public interest. But to call it violence serves to trivialise the issues raised by real violence, physical and psychological.
Third, the President restricts her usage of ‘social violence’ to intrusion into private lives. But what about pornographic innuendo and physical disparagement of public figures, especially women? Bedingfield has uploaded readers’ comments of that variety more than once and Caruana Galizia has, occasionally, lapsed too.
Such comments do not intrude into private lives. They do not shatter families. They are more likely to draw support. But they are despicable. Why join any condemnation that leaves such muck out?
Fourth, invasion of privacy is hardly the principal occupation of either blog. It blows things out of all proportion to blame the blogs, or invasion of privacy, for the undermining of the social fabric.
We should rather focus on the various factors eroding public trust in almost all our institutions.
Fifth, to go along with the condemnation is to accept a canard, that these blogs are somehow the responsibility of political parties – the two public bodies identified by the President.
Bedingfield is not a Labour Party employee; he’s an official serving in the Office of the Prime Minister, with his blog having the blessing of the Prime Minister.
So, if the President wants us to call things by their name, she should call on the Prime Minister to withdraw his blessing.
Of course, she can’t, since the moment she does this she would have interfered in the political process.
Even to hint that Caruana Galizia has the ‘protection’ of the Nationalist Party is to wade even deeper into the partisan quagmire. The idea that she is a PN strategist is a claim made by the PN’s adversaries. Otherwise, it is deeply implausible.
If it were true, all the PN leaders would deserve to be shot at dawn – twice.
In 2011, perhaps the most difficult year of the last PN government, Caruana Galizia opposed Lawrence Gonzi’s line on the two most critical issues: Libya and divorce. She even said his position as prime minister was untenable after the Yes vote won the divorce referendum. And she hasn’t held back from publicly criticising the party’s choices over the last three years, either.
She is therefore clearly not under the PN’s control or ‘protection’, directly or indirectly. It takes a feeble mind to think so.
And to suggest that a political party of government should condemn the blog of a freelance journalist is to show more misunderstanding of the principle of freedom of speech than a President, bound to protect it, should ever show.
So, join a condemnation that misidentifies the issues and skirts by the real ethical problems undermining our institutions and social fabric? No, Madam President.