Dear Daphne

It’s already been two weeks since the cowards blew you up in your car and a part of me still does not want to accept the fact that you are gone forever. You’ve left a void that no one can fill because nobody has your inimitable style or your courage, We all thought you were invincible – one lone woman reporting and writing on an almost daily basis about all that is rotten in our society and our country, about the rampant corruption and the criminality that has infiltrated our institutions. The very institutions that should be there to protect us, but which are now turning not one, but two blind eyes at all that is taking place just beneath the thin veneer of respectability that still remains. You were one lone voice in the wilderness and we let you soldier on by yourself because it’s always convenient to have someone else fight our battles. Or maybe it’s because we never fully understood the implications of all that you revealed.

Whatever it was, we are all guilty of your death. Because of our collective complacency, our infamous Mediterranean apathy and laid-back attitude, our lack of discipline, our culture of silence and omerta’, our xenophobia, our unwillingness to educate ourselves about the Constitution of our country, our acceptance of so much that is unacceptable within our government, our judiciary and our police force, as long as it didn’t affect us directly. But now it seems as if your horrendous assassination has woken some of us out of our stupor. Journalists seem to be finding their voice again and, the Sunday after you were so brutally murdered, thousands marched in protest for justice to be done on your behalf. Your assassination has been reported in some of the world’s most influential newspapers and websites like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Politico, BBC News and many, many others. Journalists have held vigils in your memory here in Malta, in London, Rome and Brussels, and the European Parliament has named its press room after you. While your killers sought to silence you, the world is making sure that you, and all you stood for, will never be forgotten. In  their annihilation of your physical body they have given credence to all that you have been revealing, especially during the past two years. We all know that whoever did this did not do it because you mocked their fashion sense or because you called them out for parking on a double yellow line, but because of far more serious accusations. Like the cowards they are they thought that they could make everything you wrote die with you but I think they ignited more than the bomb that killed you, something they had not bargained for and could not foresee.. They’ve ignited little sparks of courage and indignation in many people that, if fanned properly, will blaze into a fire that will ensure that we will see the changes that many of us know are necessary for this country to regain a semblance of normality. At face value, it does appear to be normal, but you knew better and paid for it with your life.

Were you a saint? No, definitely not. You were human, like the rest of us and, like us I am sure you made mistakes. Figuratively speaking, you stepped on a lot of toes and managed to offend many, because the truth hurts, and too many people could not stand seeing their heroes knocked off the pedestals they themselves had placed them on. So they started calling you vindictive, a witch even. They would not mention you by name, called you ‘the hate blogger’, vilified and harassed you, calling your articles fake news, and had internet trolls hound you on a daily basis. They fanned the flames of hate so well that somebody thought nothing of placing a bomb  under your car and detonating it just a few metres down the road from your home. The message is clear: they want to scare and intimidate us into silence. It’s hard to believe this has happened in Europe, in 2017, in a supposedly democratic and sovereign member state of the European Union. And, of course, the powers-that-be in this country are continuing their campaign of discrediting and dehumanising you even in death, not openly, of course, but for those of us that can cut through the rhetoric, the message is very clear: you had it coming, is what they’re saying, because you had the impudence to uncover their sordid secrets; because their concept of free-speech does not extend to those that hold them to account. They are treating us worse than Marie Antoinette ever treated the French peasants yet, unfortunately, there are many amongst us who are content to eat cake, crumbs even, while the heads of the innocent roll in the dust of Maltese soil and any thought of revolution is blown away by sultry Mediterranean winds.

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This post is written in memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist and Malta’s most influential blogger. She was a columnist for The Malta  Independent and editor of Taste & Flair Magazine.. It was not uncommon for her blog Running Commentary to receive 400 000 hits in one day. Daphne was assassinated on Monday, October 16 2017. She was 53 years old.