I have made it a habit of following Justice Minister Owen Bonnici’s articles and blogs. You should do so too. His writing is transparent and limpid as an unmitigated insult from the mouth of babes. Through his articles you can see the most hidden thoughts of the government he belongs to and though behind the smiles you find a chilling picture from Hieronymus Bosch, it is good to know just what cynical ugliness has taken hold of our country.
The general over-arching theme of his pieces is that the dark philistine days of the Nationalists have been replaced by a cultural sunrise that first shone five years ago and in which true patriots bask.
The highest point of this renaissance was reached when the Malta Philharmonic, a provincial oompah band, now looked up with sodden eyes of envy by the Chicago, Royal Concertgebouw and Vienna Symphony orchestras, dedicated an evening to music of the choice of the great leader himself.
“A Hero’s Life” was the fawning thematic choice of that possessive moment of the desert of our collective mind.
In a commentary on that incident of history that will be remembered fondly by future generations like the day Dom Mintoff fell off his horse, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici promised Gozo its independence, and Alfred Sant called us all small fry, Bonnici built a thick wall separating those who were ecstatic about celebrating Joseph Muscat’s heroic life and those who were not.
The first set he described as “us: the real Malta”. The rest is ‘them’: by inference a false Malta that exists outside the space of justice and rights that he is tasked to protect as Minister of Justice and to represent as Minister for Culture, for he is both.
This shows how Bonnici is transparently representative of the government he belongs to. His joint responsibility for culture and justice obliges him, in theory, to pursue the common interests that unite our community, not split it in tribes.
And yet over the last six months these two areas of responsibility with, perhaps home affairs, have been so utterly divisive and so viciously tribal in their administration, that it would seem Bonnici finds himself only responsible for his tribe rather than his country.
He finds himself heir to the glorious transformation of our capital city, a product of generations of investment and the funding and support of EU membership he personally fought so hard to resist. He sits in authority in a Parliament building he described as a cheese grater when it was but a twinkle in the architect’s eyes.
Owen Bonnici finds himself only responsible for his tribe rather than his country
He glories in the restored churches and fortifications, the palaces, a car-free St George’s Square fronting the majestic Grand Master’s Palace, De Valette Square, pedestrianised streets, the new Barrakka lift, the breakwater bridge, the new Stock Exchange, the Siege Bell Memorial, the Cruise liner Terminal, the Valletta Waterfront, a restored St Elmo and the converted hotels, all of which were completed when he was still dusty in the trenches of opposition.
That would be fine if he had the decency to acknowledge continuity. He not only does not do that but he speaks of that cultural heritage as exclusive to his supporters. His detractors are not even Maltese, in the cultural sense of the world. ‘They’ are not us.
‘They’ are mourning Daphne Caruana Galizia while ‘we’ are basking in the glory of the great Joseph.
That is merely symptomatic of a long-held prejudice. When Bonnici prided himself of reforming libel laws to remove precautionary garnishee orders, he made it a point of excepting Caruana Galizia from benefitting from that reform, the only one to ever actually suffer from that particular indecency in our own laws.
“She is a hate blogger,” he had answered when asked if he felt the garnishee orders against her should no longer apply if the law was abolishing them anyway.
For our Minister of Justice laws do not apply to those not screaming in Josephmania, and they are not eligible to justice. With such an extreme philosophical grounding, is anyone surprised Bonnici considers his cultural programme open only to those happy to applaud his “Hero’s Life”?
Why is this wrong?
Because it reinforces unfairness in our society. Because it cements cultural barriers that should not even be there. Because it seeks to disenfranchise culturally, and politically, a segment of the population: a minority of whatever size.
Because it projects a picture of Malta to the world of a stratified society where a top caste of party loyalists sit on top of other segments in order of distance from the great leader from the oblivious on top to the resistance at the very bottom.
Because justice that discriminates on the basis of loyalty to power is unjust and therefore not justice at all.
Because a culture that ignores the killing of one of its own is inferior to the hominins who first buried their dead 100,000 years ago.
Because it is barbaric to even think that Valletta and its treasures, and this nation and its culture belong only to the supporters of Joseph.
Whatever Bonnici may believe.