On 14 December 2012, Adam Lanza shot 26 people dead at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, USA. 20 of them were six or seven year old children. The rest were adult staff members.
That massacre was horrific. But what followed was far worse. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Infowars, insisted that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, that it never happened. He claimed grieving families were just actors hired as part of a plot to rob Americans of their right to carry guns. In court, parents and siblings of those murdered children testified how for years they were threatened and harassed by people who believed Jones’ lies. Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abuse at them on social media.
The daughter of the murdered school principal was mailed rape threats. Mark Barden told how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his seven-year-old son Daniel and threatened to dig up his coffin.
Alex Jones was found guilty and ordered to pay 965 million dollars in damages to the victims’ families. During the trial Jones acknowledged he was wrong. The shooting was real, he said. But outside the courtroom he remained defiant. He claimed the court proceedings were a political conspiracy to silence him. “We’re not going away - and we are not going to stop”, he threatened.
Those distraught families have the small consolation that Jones was held accountable, forced to admit the truth and pay the price for his denial of reality.
Malta has witnessed its own gruesome assassination 5 years ago. But the nation has also witnessed the subsequent cruelty levelled at the family of the victim. Even on the fifth anniversary of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s brutal assassination, the Labour party’s official newspaper, Kullhadd and the GWU’s it-Torca continue to deny the reality of Caruana Galizia’s brutal assassination. ‘Kullhadd’ made practically no mention at all of the journalist except to report, on page 6, the sentencing of the Degiorgio brothers. The GWU’s ‘It-Torca’ was worse. It didn’t mention her name at all. Their front page ironically carried Robert Abela’s address to the European Socialists in Berlin where he “insisted on a just, sustainable and sensitive society”.
‘Kulhadd’ and ‘It-Torca’ take their cue from Abela. While foreign heads of states and prime ministers paid their respects to Caruana Galizia, Abela refused to participate in activities held in her honour. He organised a partisan political event in Zebbug on the 5th anniversary of her assassination.
“How much longer will government wait before erecting a monument to honour the journalist?”, he was asked. “I already explained that our respect for Daphne Caruana Galizia is in the respect we show to her family - that is how we should remember her,” he commented.
Where is the respect? Is it in completely ignoring the heartfelt pleas of her grieving parents to conduct proper public consultation instead of ramming through deficient legislation drafted in secrecy? Is it in cynically organising a partisan political activity on the anniversary of her murder? Is it through failing to publish the report of his own media expert committee for months instead of within 10 days as he promised? Is it in his utter disdain and hostility towards the Board of Inquiry and its report? Is it in the absolute failure to implement any of the multiple recommendations in that report? Is it in his outright refusal to accept to meet international media organisations or to accept their offer of technical support? Is it in his dogged refusal to answer basic questions? Or maybe it’s in his strategy to continue to harass and impede journalists from doing their job by mounting multiple vexatious legal challenges to the rulings of the Data Commissioner? Robert Abela has not had the decency to pay a single visit to her memorial or to the site of her assassination. That is not respect. That is contempt.
The day after several activities were held to mark the 5th anniversary of Daphne’s assassination, Labour’s official newspaper ‘L-Orizzont’ made absolutely no mention of them. No mention of the Archbishop celebrating mass in Bidnija. No report of the vigil at the site of her assassination. No reference to the silent march in Valletta and the speeches that followed. Maria Falcone, the sister of murdered anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, Barrister Caolfhionn Gallagher, Sarah Clarke from Article 19, Reporters without Borders’ Pavol Szalai, investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr all spoke movingly at the event. But for Labour nothing happened. No photos, no report, no mention. Like Alex Jones, Labour denies reality.
Of all the Kulhadd contributors - Joe Brincat, Alicia Bugeja Said, Victor Vella, Frans Ghirxi, Julia Farrugia Portelli, Alison Zerafa Civelli, Anthony Agius Decelis, Evarist Bartolo - none had the courage to mention her name on her 5th anniversary. How can lessons be learnt if Labour assiduously extinguishes her memory? How can justice be served if Labour systematically blots her out?
Alex Jones’ denials triggered the most wicked and callous torment of the victims’ families. Labour’s denial of Caruana Galizia does the same. It incites hatred and loathing. One Labour supporter voiced that malice in Mark Laurence’s Vox Pop. She called attempts to honour the journalist “teatrini” (pantomimes) and “kummiedji” (comedies). “They kill so many people abroad, why all this fuss about one person?” she asked, “All this show, even on Facebook, it’s just disgusting (iqazzuk)” she commented viciously.
This is the ‘respect’ Labour’s and Abela’s denials of the tragedy elicit. Those are the sentiments amongst Labour’s core voters. It is the product of years of open hostility throughout her life and abuse, offence and humiliation after her death. Labour hasn’t condemned the abuse. It is the source of it - through its former whip Glenn Bedingfield, Jason Micallef and Abela himself.
Labour’s message is getting through to its grassroots - and it’s not respect they’re hearing. It is hostility, antipathy, and hate. “We’re not going to stop”, Alex Jones commented. Neither is Labour.