Maybe Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder has nothing to do with you. She was not your wife, mother, sister, aunt or friend.
Maybe her execution in broad daylight a few metres away from her family home has nothing to do with you because you never subscribed to her views or to her style of writing. Maybe her killing has nothing to do with you because you just mind your own business. Maybe her assassination has nothing to do with you because you never rocked the boat, you always kept mum, you always went about your business, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and saying nothing.
Six months on, perhaps, it’s time to reflect.
Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination has a lot to do with you, with each and every one of us. It was not just an attack on a woman with a laptop and a story to tell, but it was an attack on our fundamental human rights. It was an attack on the rule of law, on freedom of expression, on our right to protest, on our right to hold people in power to account and on our right to live in a normal country where justice is upheld.
This is why #occupyjustice was born. We are a group of activists, led by women, with normal lives, careers, families and dreams. We are neither warrior women nor sluts – although we have been called both.
What about you? You, who are reading this piece in the comfort of your home or while sipping coffee at the Sliema front or at the village local after Sunday Mass. You, who two years ago were out protesting in the streets wearing your Panama hat shocked at Daphne Caruana Galizia’s investigative revelations about the secret companies Panama belonging to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and his top minister.
We all have a stake in this young, weak democracy of ours. Together we have to stand up for it, to protect it by showing our faces
Where are you now that she is dead? What is keeping you at home? Have you succumbed to the intimidation? Are you scared to attend peaceful protests for fear of reprisals? Or have you retreated to your bubble, lulled into a false sense of security?
Six months on, please be aware that we are still living in a country where not one single person has assumed political responsibility for the assassination of a journalist, and where six months on, we still have no idea as to who commissioned her murder. This is a country where whistleblowers are harassed, vilified and denied protection by their government.
This is a country where magisterial investigations are being conducted to look into the alleged criminal activities of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and his minister of tourism, and yet the two of them, together with the Prime Minister, still hold office.
This is a country where the Prime Minister attends an alleged money-launderer’s wedding and a country which enabled this man’s escape from justice, only for Sayed Hasheminejad Ali Sadr, chairman of the Malta-based Pilatus Bank, to be arrested by another country soon after. Now he is facing up to 125 years in prison.
This is a country where some of us on Facebook have been profiled by Cambridge Analytica.
All these were stories that Daphne Caruana Galizia was working on right up to the moment she was blasted, literally, into silence.
Nothing much has changed during these last six months. Except the democracy of our country, which is now sinking under the weight of corruption, impunity and cronyism.
In the words of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, Elie Weisel: “There might be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
We all have a stake in this young, weak democracy of ours. Together we have to stand up for it, to protect it by showing our faces. By speaking up. This is our nation, this is our home, and we are the people. We expect better, we deserve better, we demand better.
And this is why we are inviting you to join us tomorrow evening for a Mass at St Francis Church in Valletta, celebrated by Archbishop Charles Scicluna at 6pm, followed by a vigil to mark the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Be there. Be the change.