Events are being held throughout today to mark the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The events are needed for a number of reasons.
Firstly, there needs to be justice on Daphne’s killers. Three are serving sentences. Three more are awaiting trial. Perhaps more people are involved and they have not yet seen the inside of a cell.
Secondly, the country needs to do more than recognise that Daphne died, vaguely, because of her work. Daphne was killed because of what she had discovered about the nexus that exists between organised crime and politics and business in Malta. That nexus remains undisturbed. There is no justice without change and our democracy must be liberated from the clutches of crime.
Thirdly, only memory, celebrated, explicit, fearless, can confront and hope to shake away callous indifference. Robert Abela said, justifying himself for refusing to officially remember Daphne Caruana Galizia in any way, that “it is not about anniversaries”. It never is. But that does not make anniversaries unimportant. Presumably Robert Abela does not only love his wife on her birthday. But it would be an odd marriage if he refused to mark her birthday when it comes up. We wouldn’t merely be “disrespectful” to Daphne if we ignored the anniversary of her killing, as Robert Abela would have us do. Letting this day go by unmarked is an act of violence, a renewal of the hatred that at the time for her killers and their many supporters justified her taking off.
We’ll remember Daphne Caruana Galizia today, as an icon of our desire to live in a democracy where thought is free and courage in the pursuit of truth are admired. She reminds us of our loss, not just of her journalism and her example, but also of the loss of our innocence, the shattering of the illusion that we lived in a democracy.
But we’ll also take time to remember Daphne because of the loss she suffered, her life, and with it, the love of her family, and the reward she deserved in life to see her work bring about change, to see the light of understanding hit the eyes of people who ignored her, mocked her, or slandered her.
Two years ago I posted this recording of an interview she gave when she was still starting out as a journalist. I put it up again to take a few minutes out of remembering Daphne the symbol of my aspirations for a democratic society, and remember instead Daphne’s own aspirations as she was setting out to use the rigour of her thinking and the power of her writing for the benefit of the community that would repay her with untimely death.