Truth is the first casualty of war, the saying goes. This is very sadly true of the situation the country is facing after the cruel and brutal slaying of Daphne Caruana Galizia. And yes – it is a war – one being waged on many fronts. The most vital of these – and the one which must be overcome if the nation is to regain a vestige of normality – is that against the unknown perpetrators of the murder. Unless the investigations lead to the person or persons who commissioned and carried out that crime, justice will never be done, compounding the abomination that is Daphne’s murder.
Because the overwhelming likelihood is that she was killed in an attempt to silence her and that was an assault on the right to freedom of expression. It is a manifestation of that right for people to speculate as to the identity and motive behind the murder. In the same way, it is a manifestation of that right to reserve judgment until that judgment can be informed by facts and evidence. Respectful and prudent silence can never be equated to condoning bloodshed.
The horror of the bombing of a ‘civilian’ (as opposed to that of ‘persons known to the police’) has led to kneejerk cries of condemnation of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police for “having blood on their hands”. Oh, not of having directly commissioned the act – people always chuck in a disclaimer.
The accusation is of having allowed a culture of lawlessness which indirectly allowed for the commission of the crime. It is a statement to the effect that the institutions are weak and ineffectual and not up to the job. And it is a condemnation of that state of affairs. There are cries for constitutional change, recognising the supremacy of Constitutional Court judgments, and parliamentary appointments approved by a two-thirds majority of MPs.
These are all laudable – actually essential – reforms to be made. The many persons whose rights have been breached, who have suffered injustices precisely because of these institutional failings along the years, can attest to this. They are the ones whose energies have been sapped, whose spirit has been broken as they have battled for their rights and institutional change. They are the ones who should have been heeded for all this time.
Calls for unity are well-founded and not to be scoffed at
But – and here is the nub of the problem – successive administrations have been quite happy to allow things to continue in the same vein for several decades. Labour and Nationalist administrations alike have retained systems where power is concentrated in the hands of the executive, where the Prime Minister reserves the right to make important appointments, where ministers can load their secretariats with ‘persons of trust’ or (alternatively) to appoint multiple over-paid consultants. Neither Labour nor Nationalist governments have ironed out the thorny problem of ensuring that judgments of the Constitutional Court as to the unconstitutionality of laws are recognised by the legislature. Neither party has felt the need to address enforcement issues relating to planning, construction or traffic.
The very same party which will uphold a measure while in government, will rail against it when in Opposition – a case in point is the billboard saga. Double standards abound. And perhaps it’s a cliché but many clichés contain a kernel of truth – but our deeply polarised, bi-partisan system has perpetuated this malaise. If any of this has to change there has to be a collective and persistent effort to come to some sort of consensus about it. Which is why calls for unity are well-founded and not to be scoffed at. Unity does not imply group think or an unquestioning acceptance of some jingoistic form of patriotism, but a unity of purpose to effect change.
Writing in The Spectator in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting massacre, columnist Rod Liddle commented about the modern day propensity to rush to judgement about events without taking the time to assess them properly. He asks, “Were we always like this? With this desperate desire to be proved completely right about everything, immediately, no grey areas, no room for discussion or nuance or anomaly? And when we can’t quite find the evidence to support our point of view, willing to fabricate it, or to buy into a patently ludicrous fabrication because it suits our political opinions?”
Liddle attributes this to the online world which calls for instantaneous reaction rather than reflection. He says that “we dive right in, anxious to be wholly justified; and no matter what fatuous opinion we hold, it will be justified because there is always a tranche of other imbeciles spewing out the same nonsense. It’s a marketplace of ideas, sure, but we are very loyal to our own brand.”
I can’t help feeling that this is another aspect compounding the tragedy of the snuffing out of human life.
drcbonello@gmail.com