Turkish riot police chased, hit and beat with truncheons a gathering of demonstrators in Istanbul last Sunday. They were marking International Women’s Day, and calling for greater rights for women in Turkey. The crowd was made up mainly of women and young people. Film footage showed the police kicking a woman in the head, among other transgressions, and spraying tear-gas directly into the faces of those before them. Representatives of the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, reacted with revulsion, and met Turkish leaders 24 hours later to express their concern. Britain, Luxembourg and the EU Commissioner for Enlargement issued a statement declaring shock at the “images of police beating women and young people” (as opposed to what – men and old people?) and at the “disproportionate force” used against the demonstrators.

The Turkish foreign minister did his best to placate the EU delegation by saying that there would be an investigation, but a spokesman for the Turkish government said later: “Sometimes demonstrators force the limits and we mustn’t be unfair to the security forces. We must show some understanding to the police.”

So far, so familiar: where did we hear that before? It was a little closer to home, when our own security forces temporarily lost their ability to control themselves when they were confronted by a group of dark-skinned people who were heavily armed with donated T-shirts and banners made of torn sheets. Then, too, we had the announcement of an investigation, cries of sympathy for the security forces, and stentorian demands that we “look at the facts” of the matter, as though there were no witnesses or film footage. In Turkey it was women, in Malta it was blacks, and so the story goes on.

The Associated Press released photographs of the Turkish police beating demonstrators. These look remarkably similar to the pictures taken here and published in The Times – but then, all such scenes are similar because human nature turns just as ugly wherever in the world you are. The picture of a man on the ground, curled up in the foetal position, trying to protect his head and face with his arms, while uniformed men stand over him going wild with truncheons, tells a universal tale. That tale now brings with it harsh opprobrium in the world’s most advanced democracies. The message from the EU to Turkey was simple: such behaviour is not acceptable if you wish to form part of a union of democratic States.

The voices of democrats in Malta some weeks ago, when similar scenes were observed, were just as loud as the voices of those who don’t even know what democracy means. It was not the beatings that shocked me so much as the opinions of those who tried to justify or excuse them, and of those who claimed that no one should hold any opinion at all until Judge Depasquale concludes his deliberations. It became demonstrably clear that many among us have not the faintest idea of the true meaning of democracy. They believe merely that it is an electoral system through which they hope to achieve the triumph of their wishes, in a national poll once every five years. A significant number of Maltese continues to cling to the authoritarian sentiments that have made Turkey what it is today. Perhaps we should not be so surprised that the advent of Norman Lowell has been met with pleasure and relief, and that even well-educated people feel they should measure him with the same yardstick they use for those who are more in tune with normality. “He has some good ideas,” they say, hastening to add, lest they are thought to be red-necked nigger-bashers, the qualifier that they don’t agree with him, “of course”. Whenever I hear someone speak this way, even if I have known them for some time and have regarded them well, I instantly begin to view them with suspicion. To say that Norman Lowell has some good ideas is tantamount to claiming that a burglar has some interesting views on personal property. You cannot assess a person’s worth, or the worth of his opinions, on a piecemeal basis – one always has to assess the total person. I am at times amazed at the lack of what is called emotional intelligence even in those who move among us in a professional and highly regarded capacity. They fail to pick up the ‘red alert’ signals about somebody’s character, and instead concentrate only on the arguments which this somebody makes, as though these arguments were written on paper for a class discussion. They made the same mistake in 1996 with You-Know-Who.

Those who feel that full democracy poses dangers to dear little old Malta could perhaps take refuge in Turkey. After all, things are only going to get more democratic here as we are dragged, howling and snivelling and protesting, into the heart of European life. They are going to have to shed all their complexes about women, blacks and those of a different religion or no religion at all. They will eventually find themselves with a black person living next door and a woman telling them what to do at work, and it might get so that Turkey will be their last refuge short of Saudi Arabia. Of course, before jumping into a boat and fleeing towards the Bosphorus they should ensure that their papers state clearly they are not Kurds, or they may be mistaken for such and find themselves locked up in some detention camp, beaten by Turkish soldiers.

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Interestingly, Luxembourg, Britain and the EU did not wait for the outcome of the investigation into this violence before condemning it unreservedly. This may come as a surprise to all those who wrote to the newspapers and called the radio stations to say that we should keep our counsel because we don’t yet know the facts of the matter. Yes, it may come as a surprise to them to find that making one’s views known in a democracy is not so much a right as a duty and a requirement of the democratic process. “Waiting for the outcome of an investigation” is nothing but a paltry excuse behind which cowards, fence-sitters and those with authoritarian sentiments take refuge. It’s too bad that this excuse is not large enough to conceal the full extent of their spinelessness and their driving wish to keep their heads well below the parapet.

It’s a national disease, of course – one among many others. Whenever you ask a Maltese person a question that may be construed as requiring him or her to take sides, the usual answer is something along the lines of: “I don’t have all the facts, so I can’t comment,” “We have to wait for the outcome of the investigation/court case,” “On the one hand I think this, but then on the other hand you have to see the other side,” “Ma’ nafx”, “You won’t know what’s going on, really.” The typical Maltese only discovers a talent for forming an opinion and making it known when the situation is one that affects him or her directly: tax, for example, the price of something or other, or the fear that nasty black people or filthy Arabs might set up shop next door and – horrors – introduce their repulsive genes into the Maltese population, as though the Maltese population is not already the result largely of North African, Middle Eastern and Jewish genes.

Our government spokesmen do not issue statements saying clearly what they think about any given situation that might have controversial implications. The only time I remember this happening was when the then prime minister made an announcement to the nation that two judges were being removed from their post, in consultation with the leader of the opposition and the President of the Republic, because police investigations revealed that they had taken money from drug-dealers who sought to influence a judgement. He did not say ‘allegedly’. He did not mince words. For this, he was criticized by some, but he won the admiration of many more, because it was such a heaven-sent relief to hear such straight talk, with no “we have to hear the outcome of the case” or “we have to withhold action until the court proceedings are over”. The proverbial bush is so often beaten about in Malta that by now it should have been reduced to a mere stump.

The most common phrase in Maltese political language (and please don’t get me started on who I believe is to blame for this grease-ball attitude) is: “Iridu nqisu l-fatti kolla.” You would think, hearing this phrase repeated so often, that the Maltese idea of democracy is of a giant court of law, through which all that happens must be processed before the rest of the country is permitted to reach conclusions. It doesn’t help that almost all the members of government are lawyers, and that the parliamentary benches on both sides of the house are teeming with them. It is a fact that many, many lawyers (and there is a disproportionate number of them, indeed) do not realise that the processes which apply inside the courtroom do not apply outside it. Even the leader of Alternattiva Demokratika is a lawyer; there is no escape. Dr Sant is not one, but he is deputised by a lawyer and a notary. Someone recently asked me what I think of the new White Paper that seeks to curb even further media coverage of court proceedings. My response was that this White Paper could only be the natural and logical result of a government and opposition made up almost exclusively of lawyers. They are bound to fight their pitch, and we are in duty bound to fight back because, in this particular case, it is the journalists who are functioning as the representatives of the people, and not the lawyer-politicians who would rather that the people didn’t know. There will be more about this next week. The fact remains that, in the whole of Europe, it is only Britain, Cyprus and Malta who have the concept of ‘contempt of court’. Cyprus and Malta have it only because they were once British colonies. It is a concept completely alien to all the other member States of the European Union. Why we should have to hug hard the negative elements of our past, instead of embracing the future, is quite beyond me. Our culture of secrecy should begin to be dissipated now that we are no longer an isolated tiny island but part of a much wider union of States. We can’t keep hiding things forever.