Manuel Mallia last Monday, contributing to the well being of business in Valletta.
Manuel Mallia was drinking at the Queen Victoria City Pub in South Street on Monday afternoon while a protest gathered outside parliament. It didn’t seem like the protest was stopping him from indulging though it may have made it harder for him to park nearby. Harder at any rate than the missed Covid-19 locked down days.
We’ve been here before. Owen Bonnici argued in court that if “the Daphne crowd” wanted to protest her killing they should go do so somewhere in the country where no one sees them, not in the square in front of the court building. The court sent him flying and found him in breach of fundamental human rights.
That’s not going to stop Manuel Mallia repeating the mad notion that protests should happen where nobody sees them.
It’s like banning Americans from protesting at the National Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial, or British protesters from Parliament Square. When protests are banned from the physical centres of political power, the state encroaches on people’s basic freedoms. That is why you cannot open a banner in Tiananmen Square without fully expecting to vanish.
Protesters gather in front of parliament because it is inside parliament that people should be doing something about holding the government to account. Similarly, a protest in front of court is the logical place to demand justice. A protest in front of Castille is the logical place to demand government accountability.
These are not venues chosen for their pleasant air like choosing a spot for an open-air concert. These are the gatherings in the agora, the place were democracy lives and breathes, the city’s squares right in front of the buildings of power.
Is the impact on shopping and going to restaurants relevant? It is secondary but not irrelevant. But the claim made by Manuel Mallia that Monday’s protest had any negative impact on Valletta business is baseless. He obviously did not speak to many Valletta restaurateurs. Many of them have been serving empty tables every day since the lockdown was eased. Monday was their busiest day in some time and that was because protesters were among the very first people to have a reason to come to Valletta since they re-opened.
And many of them stopped for a pizza and a beer before they got home.
Restaurateurs need city life for their business. And city life, in a democracy, includes protests.
Of course we could add the fact that the theme of the protests is precisely intended to push back on what is really harming business: institutionalised corruption, the collapse of the rule of law and impunity for criminals.
The consumption of pizza and beer are not grounds for protesting but neither are they reasons not to protest.
Manuel Mallia wants protesters out because if he had one, they would be pricking his conscience for supporting and being part of a government of crooks. He should be worrying about that.
He need not worry about us. This revolution will not be conducted on an empty stomach.
