The last hours of planning for tonight’s protest march have been eventful. As organisers we have been teased to react to developments. This political party coming along. The other political party coming along but promising to make the first party uncomfortable. This NGO saying it agrees with the protest but would rather stay away. Those other NGOs who should know better saying nothing at all.
Do we have thoughts and feelings about all this? Yes. Does any of that matter now? No.
The only feelings that matter are the ones the crooks that rule our country get while their heart sinks as they see us, 25 months into a relentless campaign for truth and justice, still at it with no mind to stop. Not until we see truth told and justice served.
Pay no heed to your qualms about who else is going to be there with you. If you agree on your opposition to corruption that’s a good reason to make alliances. Your allies don’t need to be your friends. And you absolutely don’t need to agree on everything.
Believe me – and if you read this blog you will – I know some people we’ll come across tonight should be holding up a mirror to themselves. But for tonight keep your eyes on the prize.
What’s the prize? Is it a puritanical utopia and the sun rising on a communist nirvana? Would be nice but not going to happen. The prize is squeezing the truth about Daphne’s assassination out of the sullen rock of silence we have been beating against for so long. The prize is drawing justice out of the padded cell of impunity they locked us in.
The prize is bringing closure to the scandals Daphne revealed. We are governed by people who planned the kickbacks they were going to collect before they considered if there would be any public benefit to their projects.
They hogged a harbour with a gas tanker that becomes a hazard when it gets windy. They built a power station that charges us more for electricity than what we could buy over an undersea cable nobody sees.
They gave away three public hospitals, including the only one in Gozo spending millions of public money every week in exchange of a lick of paint.
They let Lilliputian property magnates run riot without our countryside, our landscape, our towns and villages, our very lives. They sacked Malta converting ill-gotten profits into concrete nightmares.
We have spent 25 months fighting following on Daphne’s lifetime of campaigning for good sense and decency. And we often felt there were crooks everywhere. And the situation felt desperate.
We could let it crush us into submission. Or we could stand up and fight. Don’t walk into this battle alone. Tonight, keep your eyes on the prize.