I consider myself a calm, reasonable, timid, doddering old man: even a bit of a coward. I hate confrontation and I detest making a scene.
So what was I doing, sitting in the middle of the road outside the side-door of Auberge de Castille on a wintry December day? I had no right to sit there: I was breaking the law and being a nuisance.
It was also cold, so my behind froze – apart from getting sore. I’m also not as flexible or agile as those sitting next to me. A few minutes after the photograph was taken, we were also drenched by rain while still outside Castille.
Why did I not stay at home or in a cosy coffee shop: in warmth and comfort, reading or just having a jolly good time?
Why – at my age – bother?
Why, in fact, should anyone bother? Isn’t it easier to not get involved and let others get cold and drenched and form part of the angry movement?
While I sat there, a strong-willed group – led by Graffitti – were inside Castille staging a sit-in, demanding justice, clamouring for Joseph Muscat to resign immediately, not in January 2020.
Graffitti is a group of activists – mainly young leftists – who see life as we all should: in an ideal way, hankering for a better life, a life where no one suffers and where justice is equal for everyone; and where there is no impunity for anyone in high authority, where no one is persecuted for their beliefs and where no journalist is murdered and where journalists are protected and given enough space to be there to point out the misdeeds perpetuated by anyone.
Graffitti wants to change the world. Yet its ideals, centred as they are on justice and social justice, are pure commonsense.
They could – and can – not accept that Malta has come to this scary stage; can, or rather should, anyone accept this horror we are living in? A horror where a Prime Minister and a few other criminals have hijacked the entire democratic and institutional process; where the Police Commissioner and the Attorney-General are led a merry dance, rendering them worse than sorry puppets in this whole tragic situation – a situation which is destroying the whole fabric of Malta’s adherence to the rule of law.
Graffitti was staging its sit-in peacefully in the heart of government: a heart that should be seen as a guardian and shield of our basic liberties. But inside this heart Keith Schembri, with the full approval and cognisance of Joseph Muscat, held sway. And while holding sway, he was in discussions and preparations for the worst crime in Malta’s history.
No other crime can ever come close to the execution – most probably paid for, in part, by the state – of Daphne Caruana Galizia. No government official – definitely not as high as a Chief of Staff of a Prime Minister – has ever been caught concocting such heinousness. Beyond the assassination, they were then caught doing their utmost to cover up all the horrors behind the crime.
Up until a few days before Keith Schembri resigned, the Prime Minister was saying that Schembri was a man of integrity – the integrity of criminals, or a Mafia. It is worth noting that Joseph Muscat has not fired – or had the guts to fire – Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi or Chris Cardona. They resigned or, in the case of Cardona, just temporarily suspended himself for a few days.
How can Graffitti not stage sit-ins? How can we all not feel outrage and shame that these crooks have done this – and more – to our institutions, our way of life and our future?
I was there at Castille, getting a sore ass as a small token of respect and support for the group locked inside Castille demanding that good governance and sanity are brought back to this country – and to repeat that, without the immediate sacking or resignation and investigation of Joseph Muscat, there can be no return to political stability.
What Graffitti, Repubblika and Occupy Justice have demanded is not tied to politics but to a new dawn: a dawn away from political parties that concentrates on well-being.
I was there – and will be there, fighting in my own little way – to support all the forces of good against the forces of darkness that think that economic success is the be-all and end-all of our lives. We have – or a few of us have – realised that life is not just what money gives you. Life, to really be lived well, needs values which no amount of money, fly-overs, road-widenings, or towers, can replace.
These values are what I fought for that day in December. I do it for my own well-being and for that of all Maltese people and future generations.
I was advised not to obstruct the flow of traffic to Valletta. The small nuisance I caused was, I hope, part of a bigger chain of events, protests and happenings which pile pressure on an intransigent Prime Minister and his gang who do not represent us and who have usurped power in the worst of ways.
If all of us do our bit, the whole edifice of lies and corruption that has taken over the Government will crumble: and we will be part of the change that Malta needs. If I need to sit on the ground again, I will do it for our future, for the sake of liberty. I will do it for the sake of Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was right: who is right.