The Washington Post. Stop right there for a minute. Not In-Nazzjon. Not the Times of Malta. Not even Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Washington H Post says Malta is writing the 21st century book on how democracies fail. Of course by Malta they mean its government. And by its government they mean Joseph Muscat.
Today he stood in front of his friendly crowd and asked the masses the rally behind him.
A few days ago an online poster was going around saying Labour supporters must show up in full force at their May Day celebrations to show support for Joseph and suffocate – metaphorically for now – the surviving Caruana Galizias.
I posted this and was challenged by the usual never-learning forensic optimists to “prove” it was genuine. They said the atrocious spelling suggested it came from someone rogue. No it didn’t, you pseudo-neutral apologists.
The atrocious spelling did not suggest the poster was made by someone rogue. It suggested one of two things: that it was written in a way to be made to look like it came from someone rogue. Or alternatively, and more likely, it was written by someone sub-literate who meant it to be real but could not spell ‘atrocious’ if he was at the semi-finals of the spelling bee competition from hell where the winner gets a Cadillac, the runner up gets a set of steak knives and the rest get their nails pulled out with rusty blunt spoons.
But that discussion is now academic and of course Joseph Muscat has confirmed it to be correct. I had no doubt myself. This morning he blew the rallying horn personally.
He will have tens of thousands screaming his name in unison on May Day. They will declare their faith in his greatness. It will be loudly sung and in a foreign tongue.
But not satisfied with support he needs the crowds to do more than impress with their numbers. Like the banner he issued earlier testing the waters, he now personally issued a fatwa on his critics threatening them with “repercussions”.
He spoke of people who protest against him; of people who write about him; of people who criticised him.
And then he spoke of journalists from all over the world who dared continue the work of the journalist – Daphne Caruana Galizia – who was killed for his convenience.
They must pay.
He issued a warning that the Daphne Project must be given an answer by the crowds marching in his support on May Day. There have to be “repercussions”.
Promptly Labour trolls, who flagged and wobbled over the last 6 days since the Daphne Project stories started coming out hard and fast, felt the wind in their black sails again.
They identified leading civil society activists, transformed their photos into vicious memes and published the addresses where their parents or their children live.
Of course the targets were mostly women. Memes of someone like me are meant to be laughed at. No harm in that. Memes of women are meant to anger and mobilise the visitation of physical harm on them. We can’t know of a witches’ coven and not take out the pitch forks now, can we?
Women, journalists and most especially women journalists are warned they face the same fate of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
And we’re starting to suspect we know what that means.
The Daphne Project reports this last week included fresh evidence of corruption; fresh evidence of police neglect and political interference; fresh evidence of institutional failure.
Most strikingly they have opened a new chapter of questions that the government is refusing to answer. Summed up in simple terms the question at front and centre now is: ‘Did the Maltese state stand idly and knowingly by as it watched Daphne Caruana Galizia get killed and did not do what it could have done to save her life?’ Of course if the answer to that question is yes, the other form of asking that question is ‘Did you help kill Daphne Caruana Galizia?’
If you are unable to answer that question, no wonder you’re raising all manner of terror to stop anyone asking it.
Your angry crowd will keep people of good will in their homes. It will keep businesses as far away as possible from any implication that you might construe as displeasure. It will dampen the enthusiasm of people who may allow their reasonable fears to silence them.
But do you really think The New York Times, Le Monde, Die Ziet, La Repubblica and so on will be impressed if you have a large crowd baying out your name?
They see much worse in Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang. And there will be far more people on May Day in Red Square, Moscow.
It changes absolutely nothing.
Threaten all you will. We will face those repercussions even if we’re alone. Daphne Caruana Galizia was the last woman standing. But now many stand in her place. And we’re not afraid of you or your screaming zealots.
