I let many things slide. And I would have lest slide as well the baseless accusation that this post I put up a few days ago about Rosianne Cutajar was “a violent act of gender-based abuse”, having given it a spirited response on another blog post.
Until I realised that the government agency set up by law to educate the public about domestic and gender-based violence posted on its official Facebook page the following post.
At that point, this stopped being the opinion of some people, or even of many people. It became a position taken publicly by the agency of the State that has direct competence to determine acts of gender-based violence and to denounce them.
Some friends told me to take it lightly; to take it in my stride along with other stupid things that some people say when they desperately need arguments to push back on criticism. Remember that the gender-based violence committee is composed of nominees of Rosianne Cutajar. On a personal basis, they might feel they owe it to her to take her side even if she’s had to resign in disgrace. I accept that.
But the official Facebook page of a State agency is not the place for officials to vomit their resentments. Imagine the official Facebook page of the Police saying that you killed three people. And if challenged to substantiate what they said they come up with the excuse that ‘it’s only Facebook’.
The gods of communications studies forgive me, but the medium is not the message. The message is the message. I will live with the noise generated by people keen to cancel what I have to say. But I will not bend over just because the government asks me to or because the government falsely accuses me of some new imaginary crime. It’s a different matter when that happens.
That’s why through my lawyer Eve Borg Costanzi I filed a judicial protest in court today challenging the domestic and gender violence agency for what they have said about me.