The strategists who are planning these military style arson attacks, such as the one on Saviour Balzan’s house and on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s house and family, have now shown how ineffective they are where strategy is concerned.

For instead of getting anywhere near their objective, they have united journalists and people in the media far more than we have ever been united in the past.

We admit it – we are fractious, possibly opinionated, deeply competitive, split into two competing journalist associations, (no less!) and sometimes – many times – not averse to a conflict or two (not necessarily due to the media we work for). And, of course, since this is Malta and this is a highly-partisan country, we are split into two political camps, even those among us who want to be considered as independent.

But these attacks have brought us together like nothing else could have done. For we all have homes, we all have front or back doors, we all have families. And we all reason: it could have been me.

This is not the time or place to talk about police competence or incompetence, but in reality if there is a group of people who are determined to get their target – this being the Malta in which we have grown up – they will get it. No amount of police investigation, or vigilance or self-protection can defend journalists, or voluntary workers or anybody else. We are all, even those who are not journalists or voluntary workers, at the mercy of the arsonists. We will always be at their mercy.

Yes, they can burn doors, or houses, possibly hurt or maim or even kill people. They can scare some, or many, off into incoherent mumbling and a media without teeth.

But they will not shut our mouths, or still our voices. On the contrary, this current crisis will separate the men from the boys, the leaders from the followers, and the media which has an opinion from the media without an opinion.

The arsonists are “clever” – at least, that’s what they think. They have shifted away from targeting voluntary workers, since they are mostly unknowns, and they have quite clearly decided not to target politicians, since they perceive that an attack on a politician will bring about massive retaliation from the rest of that person’s party.

So they are now targeting media personalities, who have a higher profile in the country, aided and abetted by the other perception that the media collectively and media personalities individually do not have that high a standing in the population.

This is also the media’s own fault, for it has become mercenary and has allowed its own standards to slip to an extraordinarily bad extent.

That is exactly why this is now the media’s best hour, when, under the unpredictable attacks of the arsonists, it is its duty to give itself a good shake-up and stop squabbling and sniping and come together to defend one and all: touche pas mon pôte. Do not touch my colleague.

It is equally clear that all this has nothing, or almost nothing, to do with the issues at stake. As this paper said last Sunday, this is precisely where the arsonists have gone wrong and have allowed the impunity they somehow enjoy while planning and executing their attacks to go to their heads: for instead of aiming for and obtaining wider popular support, such actions are pushing them relentlessly into illegality and home-made terrorism, for which the State does not at present have any counter-measures but against which it will increasingly will have, from telephone-tapping to roadblocks. (Anyone can find out when certain organisations will have a gathering, so what’s stopping the police from manning a roadblock or two? Or will we begin to suspect that the forces of law and order are riddled through and through with supporters of the arsonists?)

Increasingly, this will irk and anger the free and easy lives of the Maltese, and many will not thank the arsonists for that.

This whole illegal immigrant crisis is no longer pitting Maltese against foreigner, but now Maltese against Maltese. The illegal immigrant issue is thus an excuse for undermining democracy as we know it and forcing the State to initiate repression and push the Maltese towards a revolution they do not want.

This is no longer an issue of whether or not we like or love illegal immigrants, but whether or not we can continue to enjoy democracy as we have known it. Attacks such as yesterday’s will only heighten people’s awareness of where it is the arsonists want to push us to.