The other week, Tony Zarb, government consultant and former general secretary of the General Workers’ Union, said something deplorable and indecent, even obscene. But in the backlash he’s being criticised for things he didn’t say and pronounced guilty of things he didn’t commit.
Zarb sank low but the critics are wrong about why he was wrong. The real issue we should be insisting on, in the name of public decency, is being missed.
Zarb uploaded a video clip on Facebook in which he derided the people putting flowers in front of the Daphne Caruana Galizia makeshift memorial in Valletta. He concluded: “..the most important thing for our Malta is that she never returns.”
Later, Zarb said his words were taken out of context, and that he was only repeating another man’s words. He never meant that he wanted Caruana Galizia to die or be killed.
Paul Borg Olivier, the former general secretary of the Nationalist Party, had previously asked President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca to strip Zarb of his national award, the Gieħ ir-Repubblika. He said Zarb was guilty of hate speech and of legitimising the assassination. But Borg Olivier is mistaken on both counts.
Now, Zarb is clearly wrong about his words being taken out of context. No extra context justifies what he said, which he topped up with: “Good one!” He made those words his own. He didn’t just say them. He gloated.
But hate speech? That is a crime defined by law. Anyone who truly believes Zarb guilty of hate speech should be urging the police to prosecute him. If convicted, the stripping of honours can follow.
It’s not hate speech for the same reason that Zarb’s calling women protesters “whores” wasn’t. It’s indecent, contemptuous and appalling language. It’s unacceptable from a government consultant. It calls for instant dismissal. But it’s not hate speech because it does not match what the law specifies, which is hate incited against specific groups of people.
With a good lawyer, Zarb can show that what he said is protected free speech, which can be offensive, hurtful and deplorable. Let anyone who doubts this cite the law.
This is not a defence of Zarb. It’s insisting on a principle. Caruana Galizia herself was consistently accused of hate speech without ever being prosecuted. She was guilty of no such thing. Her invective may at times have been deplorable but it was protected speech.
The issue is not his freedom of expression. It’s that the government continues to be associated with him and doesn’t cut him loose
To accuse Zarb of hate speech is effectively to endorse a definition that will surely be used to curtail others who might choose to pursue the established journalistic path (with its own literary niche in countries like the UK, US and France) of blistering invective. That’s not a good result if we value an open society.
There will be those who say Zarb’s case is different. Caruana Galizia may have toasted Dom Mintoff’s death. In 2007 Christopher Hitchens looked forward to the death of the 88-year-old evangelist Billy Graham (on C-Span, a US public service station, no less). But Zarb was celebrating the death of an assassinated journalist.
Yes, there’s a difference but it’s not the salient one – and not just because Caruana Galizia also said Mintoff ‘truly deserved’ to die at the hands of a mob, like Muammar Gaddafi. (She was wrong on both counts. Mintoff was no Gaddafi and every man, no matter how depraved, has the right to due process.) It’s one thing to be glad someone’s dead; it’s another to want them killed. It’s not a subtle distinction. Thousands of fictional murder mysteries have been based on this premise: the murder victim surrounded by a dozen people all glad he is now dead; but with only one who wanted him killed.
In Zarb’s video clip, there’s plenty to suggest, despite his disavowal, that he’s glad Caruana Galizia is dead. His post-video clarification even suggests he feels he finally got back at her for toasting Mintoff’s death. But there is nothing to suggest he justified the assassination.
Where does all this reasoning leave us? With an appalling man who said something ghastly that is protected speech but deserves public opprobrium.
Why public opprobrium? Because he is a government consultant. The issue is not his freedom of expression. It’s that the government continues to be associated with him and doesn’t cut him loose, the way any other western European government or international corporation would to demonstrate its commitment to the values of decency and dignity.
The Republic’s gong is neither here nor there. Malta has only ever stripped two dictators of their Maltese honours, Gaddafi and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Zarb isn’t in their league. To take away his award would be to raise greatly the bar of good behaviour, which might be desirable although without precedent.
But there is another test to be met, which is far more reasonable and congruent. Is the government prepared to act responsibly to protect Malta’s good name?
Immediately after the assassination, Joseph Muscat and the government’s spokesmen were all insisting that the murder was not representative of the real Malta. That it said nothing of what Malta really is like as a society.
Here’s the question we should be asking: does Muscat believe that Zarb is representative of the real Malta?
Is the real Malta one where a consultant on the public payroll can publicly gloat he’s glad to see the back of an assassinated journalist?
If yes, is Muscat ready to say that next time he’s interviewed by CNN?
If not, how can Muscat retain Zarb as a consultant to the ultimate representative of Malta, the government?
By characterising what Zarb said as hate speech, the critics enable Muscat and Justice Minister Owen Bonnici to deflect from the real issue and talk like they’re Voltaire.
The focus should be on Zarb’s enablers, those giving him a platform and employment, keeping him relevant because he’s their useful idiot even while fouling Malta’s name.
ranierfsadni@europe.com
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece