As a woman and as a feminist, I did not find the short story, Li Tkisser Sewwi, published in the newspaper Ir-Realta discriminating. I did find the content to be crude, but vulgarity, as distasteful as it is, is not discrimination. There exists no scale against which language is measured; bad taste is highly subjective and the law is unclear on what exactly constitutes obscenity. The article was distributed to adults and I therefore have no qualms in defending its publication. There are no minors to protect, just competent, intelligent individuals capable of being critical human beings.
The story is a young man's personal account of his voracious appetite for sex - all this is expressed using vocabulary that is as unpleasant as he is. He is a character who views women only as a means to satiate his sexual desires and unashamedly expresses a preference for young girls. He is, to put it mildly, not someone you would take home to meet your mother.
People are perhaps shocked because although the piece appears to be fictional, it is not beyond the realms of imagination to concede that this type of character could and probably does exist in real life. The type of people who call for censorship are often people who are terrified of facing the idea that the world is not all high and true and fine and fluffy.
There are many men and women who use manipulation tactics to get laid - who pursue it aggressively like a sport. It is not a prerequisite in life to be a decent person before having sex and it should not be a requirement for a fictitious character either. We are not here to judge the morality of this character and it is irrelevant whether we sympathise with his actions or abhor him to the core. He would not be the vile character he is if his language of choice was sanitised and wholesome.
Does it follow that unpleasant things should not be expressed simply because they are unpleasant? Should we ban Vladamir Nabokov's Lolita for its portrayal of the self-destructive pedophilic character Humbert Humbert? It is a study on erotomania, but more than that, it also tackles the myth of childhood innocence in a way that is very relevant to today's provocative and seductive media. If writing about something automatically endorses it rather than examines it, then the libraries should get out their kindling and burn their books.
What makes me most sad is that this has been banned by the rector of the University of Malta. As head of an institution responsible for the opening of minds, it is his job to provide an environment where ideas can be created, debated, and criticised without fear of censorship or repression - rights clearly articulated in article 15 and article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights respectively.
I am also curious at KSU's silence, because as student representatives they should have been the first to defend the right to freedom of expression and speech. If they will not stand up for such vital freedoms then they are nothing but a waste of office space.
Ir-Realta claim that their story was meant in an ironic sense, that it was meant to highlight discrimination rather than endorse it - but even if it was not, should it matter? The right to publication should not have to be dependent on meaning or a social message. It should be able to exist on its own terms, for no other purpose than its right to be said.
In this highly politically correct age, we are all so frightened of writing or saying anything that might potentially offend someone that we do not say what we mean or believe to be true - we have become the worst kind of hypocrites. It is not only the right of the author to speak and be heard, but it follows that it is the right of the public to listen to his words. The silencing of someone will forever make you a prisoner of your own actions.
This is about more than the right to publish a sordid, badly written article, it is the culmination of pent up frustration at the suffocation of our right to free speech and expression of ideas. It is all the plays that some obscure board has decided on our behalf that we cannot watch, the plastic dummies in shop windows that have been dragged away for exposing all their naughty plastic bits and the carnival costumes that will never be worn because religion has become untouchable.
As John Stuart Mill opined, if all in society agreed on the truth, beauty, and value of one proposition - all except one person - it would be most important that that one heretic be heard. It is dangerous to take refuge in the false security of consensus and we must continue to question what we know, even if we profess certainty in that knowledge.
If the Rector, Prof. Juanito Camilleri, really believes that Ir-Realta should be banned from the University of Malta, then I challenge him to stand firm in his beliefs and ban Lolita from our University library.
Katie Micallef is a former editor of The Insiter and a graduate in Communications from the University of Malta.