Things Fall Apart is a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. The setting is Nigeria of the 1950s. Its title is a fitting description of the current situation in Malta. Things have, truly, fallen apart. Malta has gone off the rails. The country’s institutions are in meltdown, they had their autonomy sucked out of them by the government.
And before government apologists accuse me of dramatising the situation, or of being ‘negative’ – let me spell it out: when a journalist is killed by a car bomb and the international media give it front page and headline prominence, when thousands of people take to the streets to protest and call for the Police Commissioner’s resignation, when the government refuses to suspend the parliamentary agenda to discuss a matter of national importance, then something is truly rotten in the state of Malta.
The European Parliament has convened to discuss press freedom in Malta. It was a noble gesture by the Parliament and its president, Antonio Tajani, standing with the Caruana Galizia family and the people of Malta at its darkest hour. A wife, a mother and a foremost journalist was brutally murder for doing her job: exposing Malta’s darkest secrets.
I have followed several sessions of the EU Parliament, in Strasbourg and Brussels. Press freedom was often on the agenda. But then, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and North African countries were the culprits. This time it’s us, the EU’s tiniest Member State.
Malta’s foremost investigative journalist has been executed.
Her murder was followed by a national outcry. Thousands of people took to the streets of Valletta last Sunday, demanding justice. They want the Maltese government to fire the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General. The Police Commissioner, especially, has proven incapable of taking action when faced with grave allegations of corruption which implicates government ministers and high- ranking officials within the Prime Minister’s office.
When Daphne Caruana Galizia revealed that Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri had a secret set-up in Panama, the Police Commissioner failed to investigate their dealings. He had an FIAU report which advised him, strongly, to look into the matter.
It was left, from what we understand, to gather dust in his office.
The Prime Minister is adamant in retaining his Police Commissioner – the fifth since the former took the helm in 2013. Maltese lawyers took the unprecedented step of asking members of the judiciary to refrain from sittings until the Commissioner and the Attorney General step down.
Malta is burning. People are angry, they feel let down. Daphne’s murder was an attack against us all – law-abiding citizens.
We expect that the State institutions protect us and punish the wicked. Instead, crooks are everywhere now, as the criminal underworld flourishes.
Malta has gone off the rails
Four months ago, we were promised that Malta’s best times were ahead. Today, it’s a mess.
This is not what we stand for. Our country, its people, transformed Malta into a civilised, democratic, European country. But now things have fallen apart. Our values are being constantly undermined by a government which runs Malta as though it were its fiefdom. Money talks, walks and tramples over the most basic principles of a functioning society: freedom of speech, the rule of law, functioning institutions, security and transparency. To register a ‘surplus’ government is sacrificing democracy, free speech and peace of mind.
An ‘anything goes’ culture has set in – and is now deeply ingrained. Despite criticism from the European Parliament, the government has persisted with a “cash for passports” scheme that allows rich individuals to buy access to the EU.
People have lost trust in the institutions that are meant to protect them. The rule of law is under strain. The government refuses to take responsibility for the climate in which the killing took place.
At times like these – unprecedented, foreign to us, a nation under shock, angry and let down by the country’s highest institutions, we must stand up to be counted. We already did – the Sliema vigil, the Valletta protest, the journalists who came together for a solidarity march in Valletta, social media posts – thousands of them, expressing shock, and defiance.
But that’s not the end of it, because it will be the end of us. All legitimate means must be resorted to. The government must be forced to take action – we cannot allow our country to go to the dogs.
The European Parliament has given us its backing. We expect it to be by our side at all times, especially now.
Law-abiding citizens must come together – regardless of their political beliefs. A landslide victory at the general election does not give you the right to ride roughshod over people’s rights and the basic ingredients that make a country function in a normal, democratic manner.
The government failed to protect Daphne. It failed to protect us.
Things have fallen apart. We must pick up the pieces and restore normality to a country which has gone off the rails.
Tomorrow will be too late.
Frank Psaila is a lawyer andanchors Iswed fuq l-Abjad on NET TV.