Keith Schembri has still not been in­ves­tigated by the police, and the Prime Minister still defends him unquestionably.

Does it happen to you that sometimes you’re stuck in traffic for so long that everything becomes one big blur and you even forget where you are? It just becomes a series of close-up shots: the dust on your dashboard; the number plate of the car in front of you; the passenger digging their noses in the car next to you; the huge billboard lining the road on your side, and so on.

Last week, as I was tapping on the steering wheel – somewhere in Marsa, I think – willing traffic to budge, I lazily stared at the billboard in front of me: an advert of a chicken fast-food diner. I took in the words in big and bold splashed across the advert. “Real Chicken” they read.

Erm, real chicken? As opposed to what? Imitation chicken? False chicken? Fake chicken? Is there now the possibility that when you go to a chicken joint, you’re told: “Hi! Today’s special is plastic chicken! It comes with an XXXL soft drink!”

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, maybe if I go to buy a heater for this cold spell I should be asking whether it’s a real heater and not just for deco­ration. And when I buy a dress I must check if it comes with a ‘real dress’ label on it, as opposed to ‘imaginary dress’.

This chicken billboard advert is symptomatic of the surreal time we are living in, which is nothing but Orwell’s 1984.

Fictitious fabrications have become the norm, and we defend lies by constantly insinuating that “you know, truth is subjective”, and “the definition of truth is oh-so-vague”. Typical example is, of course, the President of the United States, whose lies and comments are at this point so atrocious and irresponsible that I do not know how any ambassador representing him does not want to crawl under a stone in shame.

We defend lies by constantly insinuating that ‘you know, truth is subjective’

It is happening here in Malta too. Last week, on the comments board under news reports of the MEP delegation meeting NGOs, some people were complaining that the whole thing is a sham, because “truth is a perception”.

Great. Traffic is a perception I can live with, but truth?

This ‘alternative fact’ promotion has been a long-time coming. I just chanced upon an article written in July 2009 in The Guardian by Antonio di Pietro, who today, at 4pm, will be addressing the Civil Network Society gathering in Parliament Square. Uncannily, in this article of almost a decade ago, he apolo­gised to the editor and staff of The Guardian newspaper for Silvio Berlusconi, his then Prime Minister, who had tried to gag the press.

“The Guardian does its best to keep the public informed. In Italy, this government is not accustomed to free debate, or to hearing the truth being told,” wrote di Pietro.

In his article he appealed to The Guardian and other foreign press “not to allow the spotlight to move away from Italy” and to continue “informing the public, a role that most of our media have abdicated from because they are no longer being allowed to do their job”. I had to re-read it twice, for he could have easily been talking about Malta.

I am rather intrigued by this Antonio di Pietro who started off his working life as a bricklayer, then worked his way through night school as a police officer, and then got a degree in juris­prudence. In the mid-1980s he became a magistrate, which in Italy means you’re part-detec­tive and part-prosecutor.

Using technology, di Pietro and his colleagues uncovered a national systematic corruption pattern in which people from major busi­ness companies regu­larly paid bribes to get govern­ment con­tracts. The scandal was wide­spread and revealed that corrup­tion had become “routine and institutionalised” in Italy, with virtually all the political parties taking part in an illegal payoff system.

Needless to say, di Pietro was under constant media scrutiny, and had daily threats to his life – he couldn’t go anywhere without a police escort and a bullet-proof car, which must have made him feel like a prisoner in his own private life.

He is now retired, and I hope for him that he is enjoying the little pleasures of life. However, he must occasionally look at his Italy, and sigh. Despite all his and his colleagues’ untiring work, corruption is still rife.

So does fighting corruption make a difference at all or is it like trying to find a pin in an ocean? I wonder what he has to say about that, because we are living a very similar situation.

Of course, the ‘real’ problem in our country is that it is firmly in the grip of one individual, namely the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, who has a secret company in Panama and who is named in allegations of passport sale kick­backs, among other alleged corruption issues.

And yet, Mr Schembri still has not been in­ves­tigated by the police, and the Prime Minister still defends him unquestion­ably, and was even fine with him not facing the quizzing European Parliament dele­gation last week.

To quote that billboard ad­vert, I think we have a real chicken at hand.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti