How fortunate is Donald Trump’s America. There, at least, the outspoken and misspoken bruising words of the President can be scrutinised and weighed for any political responsibility Trump bears for random acts of do-it-yourself terror.

Here, by contrast, we – the public and the media – barely keep tabs on our haphazard ways of watching over free speech. Take two sets of cases, where we permit wild inconsistency of judgements.

Is severe consistent criticism expressed on the social media a form of bullying? That depends on who’s doing it.

If it’s an individual without partisan affiliation, like Daphne Caruana Galizia, then it is. It’s violent, it’s hurtful, it wounds people, it should be remembered even years after the fact.

MPs on both sides of the house, public officials, even the President should speak, if only allusively, against the ‘hate’.

But if it’s orchestrated by online groups, operating under the Labour name (or, for that matter, any political party’s name), then there is nothing like the former moral hauteur. Or even wringing of hands.

The orchestration is not denied. The partisan identification is not denied. The party leader and head of State officially announce they have withdrawn from the groups – which means they have access to what was said and are free to deny the reports.

Yet if, thanks to her relentless focus and stentorian voice, Caruana Galizia was a bully – and let’s say for the sake of argument that she was – why isn’t an online rottweiler squad a pack of bullies? And why isn’t responsibility for bullying traced up the hierarchy?

It would be nice to have someone rationalise this. So far, we permit this double standard to persist without even demanding an explanation for the inconsistency.

Take the second set of cases. When is strong criticism to be held responsible – not legally but socially – for helping to create a dangerous environment?

Once more, it depends on who’s doing it. If journalists, bloggers and civil society activists criticise the Police Commissioner for not doing his duty and dishonouring his uniform, then it would seem that we should accept that those critics should be responsible for violence against ordinary police officers doing their duty. 

Even though the critics spoke up to say the police chief should show leadership and impose the law.

But, if a public official mocks women protestors and calls them whores, then he is not deemed to have contributed towards making it acceptable to show disrespect and use violence against women in general.

If another public official uses his pulpit to make sweeping derogatory comments on Muslims, he is not deemed tohave contributed to general Islamophobia.

In both cases, we simply had a case of individual self-expression. If the government continues to keep them on the payroll, it shouldn’t in any way be deemed to be lending a pulpit to misogynists or Islamophobes.

Apparently, civil society activists wield a greater influence on public behaviour – even though on other occasions they are deemed to be just a ragbag bunch of a few individuals.

Apparently, the ground rules mean that if you’re free to criticise politicians in power, then they should be free to unleash their forces against you

But people in authority apparently have no influence, despite their pulpit, and despite the fact that to criticise them is to betray disrespect for the entire country.

Once more, the issue isn’t merely that our yardstick permits such results. It’s that we are prepared to live with being given such results without querying them.

Unless we get some reasonable answers, a prudent person would draw four conclusions from our situation.

First, there is the way politicians treat any outspoken critic who is not under any party’s control. Initially, they try to pummel them into muted submission or bully them out of the game. Hardly a single independent column – independent, that is, of any political party’s control – begun in the 1990s has survived to this day.

If a critic survives, it is likely because they give as good as they get. Daphne Caruana Galizia, for example, survived for 30 years in no small part because she grew a thick enough skin to survive the bruises, and was ready to bruise back. That doesn’t justify the times she punched down. But it does explain why she thought it was self-defence.

Bottom line: the politicians create, and we the public permit, the conduct of politics as a gladiator sport. Then we protest when a critic survives the contest by being aggressive and wounding.

Apparently, we expect independent critics and civil society activists to be pacifists in the face of the gladiators.

Second, to the one-sided criticism of independent critics must be added the general collusion of silence over the methods of political parties. The media allow orchestrated partisan trolling to masquerade as individual popular opinion.

Granted, orchestrated partisan trolling is hardly a feature exclusive to Maltese politics. Elsewhere, however, if the campaigns were traced back directly to a political party, there would be a scandal. Resignations and disavowals would follow.

Here, reports are made, textual exchanges in secret Facebook groups are quoted, people are named, some traced back to the public payroll – and hardly anything stirs. It looks like this is not simply to be expected but also accepted.

Third, there is the upending of the ground rules of free speech. These ground rules are meant to aid public scrutiny of those in power and protect critics (however unfair or misguided) from retaliation.

But here? If you’re a civil society critic and complain about insufficient protection from public bullying – either by public officials or by orchestrated campaigns against you personally – then you’re setting yourself up to be called a hypocrite.

Apparently, the ground rules mean that if you’re free to criticise politicians in power, then they should be free to unleash their forces against you. Never mind that the ground rules are actually meant to mitigate the power imbalance.

However, the criticised politician is not being a hypocrite if he or she complains about bullying tactics when critics persist in pursuing a story instead of having the good form of dropping it.

If you insist on an answer when you’re given the brush-off, then you are revealing a hidden agenda – even though the agenda was never hidden, but rather evident in the demand for answers that are never given.

Fourth, therefore, the moral is clear. Only some people are permitted to be lions. Your job is to lionise them.

Those who are not lions must be lambs, and collude in the pretence that this is a world in which lambs can lie down with lions.

If you do not accept that the only alternative is to be a lamb, then you are divisive.

If you are not prepared to be a lamb, then you must accept to be a scapegoat.

ranierfsadni@europe.com

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece