Opinion 08/09/2002

The Boundaries of Journalistic License

In this opinion Sammy Vella invites Simone Zammit Endrich who has voiced anti-Arab sentiments to re-examine her position and her determination to call a spade, a bulldozer

My reaction to the duels emerging between those supporting Simone Zammit Endrich’s racist article, and the few who refused to be bullied into endorsing her xenophobic outbursts was initially one of dismissal. However, although her statements were so offensive and prejudiced that they could only gratify the irrevocably converted, nevertheless, the gratuitous rubbishing of the Arab Nation and the cynical distortion of historical facts could not but serve to inflame minds and passions in a situation that was already extremely volatile . The temptation to allow Ms Zammit Endrich to dig her own grave was outweighed by the recognition that Simone Zammit Endrich can contribute original ideas and is quite willing to air her views even when they are not popular. This kind of spirit and commitment to free speech is not so thickly spread about in our society that we can afford to suffocate any of it. Therefore, I was perturbed to see her faculties being applied so destructively.

Simone Zammit Endrich is too intelligent to actually believe that there exists a typical Arab or a typical Jew or a typical Maltese. In the same measure I believe that she cannot be so banal as to imagine that Arabs can be characterised by " laziness and a confinement to religious idiosyncrasies." This is simply her aversion to Arabs and to Arab culture seeping out of her pores. It may also be a genuine form of phobia. It certainly is not grounded in fact or even in common perception or experience. Although, come to think of it, I have come across Englishmen who believed that the Maltese were all whoremongers similar to the dozen or so they had met around Greek Street in Soho!

I am astounded that Ms Zammit Endrich had the impudence to spew so many untenable assumptions when she obviously failed to research her article at all. Her statements are most counterproductive in the context of the Mid-East peace efforts because they are bound to provoke anti-Arab sentiments and unleash an anti-Jewish backlash at the same time. Indeed her whole article seems to be hellbent on letting loose the hounds of war rather than restraining them. In attributing violence and intolerance as the hub of Arab culture, Simone Zammit Endrich seems to have gleaned her historical facts from some Zionist comic strip.

She also makes the banal mistake of equating Semitism with the Hebrew people. The Semitic people include: the Hebrews, the Arabs, and the Ethiopians. The ancient Phoenicians and the Aramaens were also included amongst the Semitic people. Even the Maltese have the right to regard themselves as a Semitic people. Our language definitely is a Semitic language. To declare that anti-Semitism has become some kind of battle cry for Moslems is tantamount to saying that Moslems have become anti-Arab. At this juncture Zammit Endrich’s arguments become very confused. An argument about the Middle-East has developed, first into an anti-Arab diatribe and then into a generic Anti-Moslem attack. The conflict in Palestine is one about land. It is about a colonial adventure that started when colonialism was being rejected worldwide. Period. Why are we trying to turn it into something ethnic?

I personally condemn the myopic intransigence of the Israeli Government and its military suppression of the Palestinian people. I do so as unconditionally as I condemn all violent actions – not just suicide bombings – that threaten civilians. I do not introduce into my arguments any notions of innocence. I do not believe that there is any more innocence fluttering around in the Middle East. There is only hatred, open wounds, resentment, hopelessness, battle fatigue and weary souls. Yet one doesn’t need to be innocent to be entitled to protection from violence.

At the same time I cannot equate the repressive Israeli government with the Jewish people’s sentiments or ambitions. I firmly believe that there are many Israeli citizens who acknowledge the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and to equitable apportioning of land. There are Israeli citizens who have had to endure jail terms because they have expressed themselves in this manner and who have concretely translated their convictions into acts of disobedience and open dissent. I cannot just lump all the Israelis together and attribute to them the atrocities engineered by Sharon and his cronies.

It is not Israel that carries out the massacres against Palestinians defending what’s left of their homeland. It is a hawkish minority of Zionist Jews who have hijacked the Jewish people’s aspirations. These hawks are not interested in survival, as Simone has speculated, but in expansion, in empire. They do not even care how many of their fellow Jews are sucked into the vortex of their hegemonic machinations.

I invite Ms Zammit Endrich to re-examine her position and her determination to call a spade, a bulldozer. I suggest that her Jewish origins have a great deal to do with her clumsy prejudice and selective racism. My mother’s maiden name was Attard which is definitely of Jewish extraction. That doesn’t hinder me from endorsing the Palestinians’ inalienable rights nor does it impede me from recognising that Jews could gain no advantage from insults hurled at Arab national pride and culture. At the same time I agree with Ms Marie Benoit and Ms Pamela Hansen that it is difficult to support someone who writes such inflammatory invective – especially when it is so patently incorrect.

Yet, I do not believe in the suppression of such opinions by bringing on the clout of the law. The Press Club would have proved a much more congruent a tribunal. I also believe that the newspaper which published the article should assume full responsibility for Ms Zammit Endrich’s article –from the legal standpoint. That is why the newspaper has an editor. Simone Zammit Endrich should not have to face the harassment of a criminal charge. It should be enough – and fair enough - that she has to endure the intellectual and political flak of the aftermath.

Those – like Mr Muscat Inglott and Mr Alfred Grech – who were so quick to attack Ms Marie Benoit and Ms Pamela Hansen for their refusal to support Ms Zammit Endrich seem to be committing the same sin which they are trying to lay at these journalists’ door. According to them, Simone Zammit Endrich has an inviolable right to express her opinion even if it incites racial hatred, but Pamela Hansen and Marie Benoit do not enjoy the equivalent right to express their own opinion. That is called kicking a colleague when she’s down!.

On the contrary, while I believe that the burden of any legal action should have been borne by the newspaper or the editor, the journalist should take the brunt of facing all the criticism. After all, the ideas and opinions were her own intellectual property and only she can possibly defend or justify them. Where exactly does freedom of the press begin and end? It seems that these boundaries are increasingly being determined by the constraints of our prejudices. We all seem to be extremely solicitous about our own right to air our opinions but quite reluctant to extend that same right to

others.