The motion for the removal of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s memorial left me puzzled. Glenn Bedingfield thinks it is a “monument by the select few for the select few”.
The unruly debate at the Valletta local council meeting was baffling. Why all this attitude when confronted with a simple, human expression of grief, disbelief and a call for justice?
It is a memorial and not a monument. The placing of Daphne’s photo, flowers and candles in Valletta is an expression of grief and self- or State analysis.
It is the expression of grief by members of the public and also their call for action to address injustice.
The memorial will be as permanent as people’s desire to continue to commemorate Daphne’s values and as long as the call for justice lasts. It is also undefined in that it is an action that lies outside of formal settings or parameters.
Daphne’s assassination was the murder of a journalist who actively demanded inquisitiveness from her readers. She was connected to the public. Following her assassination people no longer had her blog to relate to and so spontaneously and naturally set up a memorial.
It’s a very simple memorial reflecting people’s search for justice and for what is right. Its significance lies more in its being right in front of a court than in the number of flowers or candles laid.
Following her assassination, people no longer had her blog to relate to and so spontaneously and naturally set up a memorial
I dare say that this call for justice, which reflects both a call to find the person who ordered her assassination as well as a call to all politicians to get on the track of good governance, is what is stirring up tribal battles.
Even if you do not participate in laying flowers when you pass by that memorial it stirs within you two questions. Will we ever know who ordered her assassination? Will we ever master the high levels of democracy she expected?
This tribal call to battle against those members of the public who identify with the memorial is sadly a reflection of a deep, seething mentality that keeps tearing Maltese society apart and that continues to threaten the little social cohesion we still enjoy today.
It is the negative adoption of the ‘all for one’ attitude, where all those who pledge allegiance to a party feel obliged to passionately argue and fight all those who dare criticise or dampen the image of the party, or even question it.
If Daphne’s assassination taught us something it should have preferably been to adopt the ‘one for all’ mentality, where political parties (the ‘one’) and those with power would focus on the public interest (the ‘all’) – on ensuring justice and entr-enching higher levels of democracy and good governance.
Only then would a memorial, the expression of public grief and public expectation, not worry us.
Only then would we as a country be able to claim that we have a mature and vibrant democracy in which we do not look at people’s political allegiance but at their human needs and expression and answer these with humane action.
Should we not have learnt that dehumanising people hurts all of society? Politicians dehumanised her. People accepted this. It’s about time we realise she was a human person like each one of us and yes, she made her voice heard.
I am not ashamed that I too received the criticism of her pen. I can never agree with the removal of a memorial that signifies grief and a call for justice.
I can never agree with a mentality that dehumanises and demonises, least of all a mentality that dehumanises journalists.
Therese Comodini Cachia is a Nationalist Party MP.