From Mr F. Sammut

Daphne’s interminable excursus ranging from the celebrated Rostropovich affair to her own right (sic) to ridicule the Gift of Life Movement (TMIS, 6 May) proves at least one point. Your columnist will spare no effort to claim freedom of expression when she chooses to rap the knuckles of any person, movement, social group or whoever might have better things to do than support her ego trip in the local newspapers.

Without any sort of provocation on my part, other than having exercised my supposedly equal right for freedom of expression to offer an opinion regarding the national language, she accused me of writing “a bad book”. She never actually bothered to make use of her much-flaunted freedom of expression to point out which of my numerous books she was referring to, let alone whether she had taken the trouble to attempt perusing it before passing judgment.

The stance she reiterates in her latest foray is the following: you can say or write whatever comes to your mind, even if this happens to infringe upon the rights of others, then if they drag you to court and the court finds against you, fret not, appeal first to a higher court, eventually to the Constitutional Court, carelessly advertising all along that unless the national courts find in your favour you will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In the same article purportedly aimed at belittling the efforts expended by your correspondents from “Sliema, Hamrun and Xewkija” who are, she presumes, “egged on by the Gift of Life Movement” she admits she sued “the now Labour MEP Joseph Muscat” for including her in a book about the P2. The court then found in her favour and all was well with the world. What if the courts, God forefend, find in somebody else’s favour? Well, the lady who presumes she can savage your correspondents with impunity will not take it lying down. She threatens the entire judicial system with revenge in “higher places”. I am not sure how the Gift of Life Movement et al will take her uncalled for attack, but I, for one, would not fear her livid efforts at intimidation.

As a matter of fact, I would be tempted to tell her what I think about connections with the shady world described by MEP Joseph Muscat. What keeps me back is my respect for the Law Courts. Nothing on earth would induce me to fall foul of these higher institutions of the land or show the slightest contempt in their regard. They so decided. And so be it. It is only people of your columnist’s ilk who rush in where angels fear to tread. But there is nothing to keep me from bringing to her attention what the editor of another newspaper recently wrote by way of proffering his definition of a real journalist:

“Real journalists involve themselves purely in news and do not have part-time jobs in advertising or marketing, or apply for tenders to win lucrative government projects. None of them get involved in commercial ventures which eventually cloud their value judgment.”

Last year, when your columnist decided to unleash

an attack on Maltese

citizens who still embrace Christianity, I joined the fray (to quote a book reviewer in another section of the press) and made her belt up in no time. Several readers asked why a novelist not usually involved in religious polemics, should publish a volume on a book most sensible people would not give two hoots about.

The reason was simply this: I could not stomach the appalling vilifications your columnist aimed at Christians who felt insulted by that stupid piece of pulp fiction billed as The Da Vinci Code. The book, masquerading as a detective story supposedly in the highly intellectual genre started by Umberto Eco (though not an echo thereof, not by a long chalk!), was an insult to the history of religion, the history of art and a mockery of the genre itself. Unbeknown to most observers, I embarked on my exercise of literary criticism primarily to show your columnist how abysmal her knowledge in the aforementioned areas and disciplines really was.

But of course, there was more to my literary efforts than that. As an author and, particularly an educator, I took offence at the supercilious attitude assumed by ill-informed people regarding the basic tenets of Christianity, the rudimentary knowledge of history of art and the fundamental difference between history, myth and legend.

Realising I had wrong-footed her and perhaps secretly admitting her sheer ineptitude regarding the subject-matter she had rushed in to comment upon, she withdrew in silence and uttered not another word on the Da Vinci debacle. Fair enough. When the high and mighty (sic) are laid low you pause and sheathe your sword, unless you are what cowpokes called a “low down critter”. I too left the matter there and moved on.

It would not, nevertheless, be amiss to point out that her silence, following the publication of first my missive to the press and subsequently my parallel text book, was in sharp contrast to the rumbustious way in which she had formerly lashed out at her victims. These had inadvertently indulged in the folly of publicly exhibiting the offence taken without asking her permission as the (self-appointed) keeper of the right of free expression on these islands.

This time round I would not mind informing her that if she persists in hounding the Gift of Life Movement, I too would find time to enter the fray and use my freedom of expression and … may the best man (I mean person) win.

Frans Sammut

ZEBBUG