I probably should make it clear that the bunny is me and only me. I have always regarded the word as a term of endearment, which incidentally is also what my online dictionary says. Using it as I did a few weeks ago, in conjunction with ‘girl’, to describe the women who donned rabbit ears to poke fun at the Police Commissioner, I was attempting a playful use of alliterative language. Quite harmless I thought from where I was sitting – at Lisbon airport, with limited access to internet and a pressing deadline.

I’m actually glad I opted for ‘bunny girls’. Not least because I was addressing women who were bold enough to dish it out to the Police Commissioner and who would (I assumed) take it in their stride; but also because they were voicing outrage at the death of a female journalist assassinated for her views, many of which had been more flippant and furious than ‘bunny girl’. If these women and the Civil Society Network they represent had been serious about freedom without fear, then consistency would have required them to defend my own right to express myself without fear of reprisal. But that was not to be. Perhaps not all pens are equal, after all.

If calling a nameless and faceless crowd ‘bunny girls’ (many of whom are probably friends and family members, but I really wouldn’t know) qualifies as inflammatory, then I dread to think how these women would have reacted had they woken up one morning to pictures of themselves, their children or extended family splashed all over a blog, not forgetting the smears, slurs and sniping that follow.

Yes this is Catholic Malta: a place where your enemies attack and your ‘friends’ silently watch, enjoy or worse, join in. This is what sends a person over the edge or even to an early grave, especially in a close-knit community. I have heard several such stories... people on medication and suicide watch after the relentless onslaught of ad hominem blogs and commentary.

My reading is that, in these febrile times following the brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, any person breaking ranks and voicing his or her own honest opinion is especially prone to vicious attacks in the social and national media. The ‘psychology’ of this was, I thought, well captured by Cher V. Laurenti Engerer in her article ‘The Healing of a Nation’ in The Sunday Times of Malta last week. Which I suppose explains why an offhand (and not remotely vicious or even personal) remark of mine about bananas and bunnies was violently seized upon.  I accept that they are ‘hurting’ at this present time and I’m sorry for that. But we all are. And it is my belief that what used to be called freedom of speech ‘Daphne style’ is now hate speech for the rest of us.

This is Catholic Malta: a place where your enemies attack and your ‘friends’ silently watch, enjoy or worse, join in

The national situation now seems to have escalated and has reached boiling point.  Many are understandably angry at what looks like a convenient U-turn and narrowing of the goal posts.  Before we had a no-holds-barred free for all and a rather desperate situation on our hands where any attempts to curb this freedom were frowned upon and perceived as an undemocratic throwback to the 1980s; today, these people have finally woken up to the realisation that freedom of speech is not a passport to say whatever you like, whenever you like. Today that sort of thing could get you arrested.

Perhaps the point I really want to make here is that ‘freedom of expression’ is a misnomer and always has been. I have never taken advantage of such freedom and have always censored myself scrupulously, even when writing on social media, refusing to add to the communal pot of spite and malice.  I have consciously spared those I disagree with or even dislike, even when I could so easily have joined the mob ranged against them for ‘bitchy’ and vulgar posts or tweets.

I wrote about this years ago: “‘Freedom of speech’ is not unfettered licence to damage publicly and indiscriminately a person’s reputation. Neither is it licence to harass, bully, stalk or intimidate, and it certainly should not be freedom from consequence. Many hide behind the claim that they are simply ‘expressing an opinion’, regardless of the truth or the damage they may wreak.”

I remember the reactions.  I was of course dismissed as someone with an axe to grind. Now, four years later, ‘bunny girl’ has provoked the same wrath. Funny, isn’t it? Freedom of expression is marvellous until the joke is on you. Perhaps ‘freedom of expression’ really is undergoing a metamorphosis or suffering some sort of identity crisis.

Of course I am quite used to being lampooned. It has gone on for years. Nowadays if I am critical of the government or even the Opposition, I am largely ignored.  If I am critical of the ‘Civil Society Network’ and its friends, many of whom are disgruntled Nationalists now that Adrian Delia has been elected party leader, I run the gauntlet of snide remarks – a cut-and-paste of old slurs and smears, some of which are so old they are reassuringly predictable.

One such slur is my ‘sitting’ on the Valletta and Floriana Rehabilitation Committee, which no longer exists. Little do my critics realise that this was a completely unpaid position. I probably attended only half a dozen times, if at all, but I like to think I have contributed in some small way to the restoration of the Triton Fountain. At least, something to be optimistic about.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com