This is the third week since we gathered for the sad occasion of Daphne’s funeral, and the fifth week since we were all stunned by her shocking murder. Meanwhile, last Tuesday a man who threatened Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola was justly arraigned by the police in court – as should any other person who threatens to physically harm somebody.

I was astounded by the comment passed by his lawyer, a former Police Commissioner: “Peter Paul Zammit remarked that it was a sad day for Malta when a 66-year-old is arraigned for a Facebook threat” (Malta Independent, 21/11/2017).

I feel it is an even sadder day when a man or woman feels empowered to make this sort of threat, even if s/he does not really mean it. In a way, I was sorry for the man himself, because this sixty-six year old certainly did not think things through. He felt that he could write a threat he probably didn’t mean, because others - placed above him in the power hierarchy and who perhaps he admires - allow and even encourage this type of speech, which may have led him to believe it was normal to use it. Daphne often wrote against this kind of language, and condemned those who excused it. Places like Dar Merhba Bik are the sad testimony of how far this type of language can be taken.

There is absolutely nothing normal about publicly insulting or threatening any person, of whatever sex, in a violent or sexist way. The tendency to do so, in this country, is generally to the disadvantage of women. Both Nationalist and Labour female MPs or political candidates have been threatened – always by men – in despicable terms. The argument here is not about political colour, but about the fact that some people feel they can indulge in this kind of written or verbal threatening or offensive language without any consequences, except those of being applauded by others. The hate language that is expressed in meetings, blogs, facebook pages and newspaper comments beggars belief. Instead of taking a united front to put a stop to the propagation of this sort of language, Labour blame Nationalists, and Nationalists blame Labour, with party adherents nonchalantly using vile and violent terms. And in the process, a woman who would not succumb to any threat aimed to silence her is butchered.

Michael Farrugia, our Home Affairs Minister, has informed us that there is nothing new to tell us about Daphne’s murder … except by omission. He did not mention the FBI’s involvement in the investigation – which would imply, once again, that the Prime Minister equivocated with the truth. Farrugia is the same person who told us, days after Daphne’s assassination, that “Daphne Caruana Galizia was unlucky because the bomb [that] targeted her had managed to kill its target” (Malta Independent, 27/10/2017). For the Minister, all that is ‘unlucky’ is that the bomb that killed her actually went off!!!!

I will not comment on the obvious stupidity of the Minister’s remark. I will point out, however, that what is ’unlucky’ is the fact that someone can have the impunity to actually plant a car bomb, certainly with the conviction that s/he will not be found out. It is it is definitely ‘unlucky’ for the victim’s family that such a person can move around scot-free. Following Daphne’s death, it is ‘unlucky’, or rather ‘unacceptable’ for all law-abiding citizens of Malta and Gozo - especially those who speak out - to fear that they do not have any proper protection against such perpetrators. The Minister’s remark reminds me of the Prime Minister’s comment a few months ago, when defending the sexist Tony Zarb by attacking Roberta Metsola - our best-performing MEP in the European Parliament - rather than calling the former GWU Secretary General to task: ‘If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen’ (Times of Malta 19/6/2017). The Prime Minister may wish to know that many women have left the kitchen a long time ago, not because we cannot withstand the heat, but because we choose – and are no longer obliged because of our sex – when to go there.

Today, university academic staff will be meeting Minister Evarist Bartolo in the hope of neutralizing another potential bomb, with a much longer fuse, that is targeting the highest educational institution in Malta and, consequently, the level of education in general. I spoke last week of the way the Education Ministry is undermining the very faculty – that of Education - that it set up in the past. Today, we shall listen to the reasons that are supposed to justify why academic staff should not have much say in academic affairs, and why post-graduate study and innovative research have not even been taken into consideration in the proposed “Consultation Paper”.

The University of Malta Academic Staff Association (UMASA) has drawn up a document that clearly expresses our objections. Let us all hope that this will be a real consultation effort, and not simply a façade. The fact that only three-quarters of an hour have been allotted to discussion with, possibly, around five hundred academics in a meeting lasting in all one hour and thirty minutes does not augur much. There is no time for the Minister to really explain himself, and certainly very little for anyone to voice their views. However, it is important for all academics to be there, and rally behind the position taken by UMASA and its proposals. It is important for us all to speak up and for the Minister and the Prime Minister to listen to us. Let us hope that our politicians’ future initiatives with regard to education –a very political matter - will contradict one of Mark Twain’s famous sayings:

“ I am now quite sure that, in matters concerning […] politics, man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s”  (Mark Twain in Eruption, 1940).