‘Nothing new under the sun’ | Karl Schembri

With hindsight, ‘Taht Il-Kappa Tax-Xemx’ appears almost ‘prophetic’, in some respects. One of the stories is about a proposed golf-course right next to Ggantija temples; another (It-Torri Tal-Kummerc) accurately foreshadows the mad scramble for high-rise, in the wake of the Portomaso Hilton Tower. And yet, the initial critical reaction wasn’t exactly very ‘positive’, was it? Writing in the Sunday Times, Paul Xuereb noted that: ‘Like most satirists, [Schembri] sometimes lets his fancy run away with him’.  Looking back: why do you think there was much resistance to your ‘dystopian future vision’, at the time? And how much of it do you feel has been vindicated, since?

In a way, it does feel like I’ve been vindicated. Because as you said, the book was dismissed, at the time: first of all, on the grounds that it ‘wasn’t really literature’: but more like ‘journalistic commentary about what was going on’; and even then: only my own ‘warped projection of reality’…

Not all the initial reactions were negative, however. Here, I’d like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Mario Azzopardi [Il-Mulej]: who was my mentor; and without whom I would never have written the book at all.

But coming back to what it felt like to me, at the time: I don’t think it was all that ‘prophetic’, really. I was just a 23-year-old, frustrated journalist, who was commenting – in a very thinly-veiled fictitious way – about what I was seeing all around me.  So if everything I wrote about, is still happening now… it’s only because it was also happening then.

You mentioned Ggantija, for instance: one of the [real] stories I worked on, was that a sports complex had been proposed - and was being backed by Fenech Adami’s administration – to be built right next to the temple itself.  So really, all I was doing was taking things that were already happening, and giving them a satirical bent to make them look ridiculous.

So my conclusion, 20 years on, is that… the faces have changed, but we’re still stuck with the same old ‘skeletons’.  The Tumas Fenech empire, for instance – that seems to have allegedly led to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia – wasn’t built ‘today’. It’s been going on forever. Another story I had worked on, back then, was about Charles [ic-Caqnu] Polidano, who had stopped paying his employees – from one day, to the next – because the Planning Authority had imposed a fine, over a planning infringement.

These things not only happened, in 2002; but I could also see that they were being taken very lightly, at the time.  As a very young, very inexperienced journalist, I had done quite a lot of work as a court reporter… and I remember being stunned, and shocked, by the sheer incompetence of the police, and the judiciary; and by the disdain shown by most lawyers towards their own clients (whom they very often completely misrepresented).

It was, quite frankly, the order of the day. And now, 20 years later, the same law-courts set the date for a domestic violence case, for within a year. They knew that this woman – Bernice Cassar – was at risk of being killed; and OK, we all know that ‘there’s a backlog of cases’, and all that… but still. Bernice Cassar is now dead; and its down to the same incompetence of the authorities, that I was writing about 20 whole years ago.

The same incompetence is still haunting us, today. And it’s fatal. It led, among other things, to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia: so much of which still remains uncovered …

At the risk of a controversial question, however: what you’re saying contradicts the widely-accepted narrative surrounding Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. The judicial inquiry, or instance, concluded that the Labour government under Joseph Muscat was responsible for ‘creating the circumstances that led to her murder’. What you’re now telling me, however, is that those conditions actually existed long before Muscat even became Prime Minister. Is that how you see things, yourself?

Well: that’s an important question, actually. And I would say that: yes, I do agree with that conclusion. As I said earlier: the skeletons of the past, are still haunting us today. Nothing came out of nowhere…

… which, if I’m not mistaken, is the entire significance of the title, ‘Taht Il-Kappa Tax-Xemx’..

Yes, it’s a quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes: one of the most interesting books of the Old Testament – and certainly the most existential – that says, ‘The sun rises; the sun sets; and nothing new happens under the sun’.

But that, I think, is also the existential question for any journalist to ask. Because a journalist reports daily events – under the guise of ‘news’ – but we all know that the same things have been happening, over and over again, since time immemorial.

At the same time, however: some things have changed, in the details, since 2002. Apart from the way that the media functions – and especially social media, which didn’t even exist at the time – the one thing I think has changed the most, is the ‘pretence of piety’.

As you no doubt remember, my book came out at a time of ultra-conservatism in government. So there was also the need to keep up a certain appearance of ‘devout Christianity’; a certain ‘moral standard’, that – however hypocritical, in nature – had to be maintained, at least on the surface.

In practice, this meant that… corruption was, up to a point, ‘only allowed to go so far’. There was a feeling, in government, that: “We cannot allow ourselves to be ‘overshadowed’ by these infringements’. For instance, when you look back at how the Nationalist Party had disowned Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando [in 2008], because of… a nightclub, of all things! I mean, what the fuck was that all about, anyway? Why was ‘Mistra-gate’ such a scandal: when there were so many worse things happening at the time; and even more so, today?

And this is what I think has changed most, in the past 20 years. There has been a progression – or a ‘deterioration’ - whereby even the most unacceptable levels of corruption and incompetence have since been normalized, and perpetuated. Basically: there isn’t even the ‘pretence of morality’, anymore.

And this is why I also agree with the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry’s conclusion. This same progression has ‘enabled’… not just Daphne’s murder, but also, the wholesale plunder of all our country’s assets: in anything from public gardens, to public procurement, to shady contracts for roads, to money-laundering… for while similar things had always happened, in the past:  it was never anywhere near as ‘in your face’, as it has now become.

Take Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, for example. Not only did they both screw this country over, in the most ‘in-your-face’ imaginable… but they even bragged about it: almost as if to say, ‘We’re screwing you over; and we ENJOY screwing you over, too!’

This brings up another aspect of your book’s initial reception. Just like you yourself were trivialized, for pointing out the corruption of the time: critics of Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Joseph Muscat, et all, were also derided by the Labour Party. And when these issues were raised in international fora – such as the European Parliament, for instance – the same critics were also labelled ‘traitors’. How do you account for this kind of reaction, yourself?   

There are a few factors, there. One is the overall Maltese propensity for servility. I myself am still shocked, at how political leaders such as Robert Abela, Joseph Muscat – and even nonentities like Michelle Muscat – are idolized by people, almost on the level of medieval ‘barons’. It’s the same servility that also manifests itself in an inability to ever accept criticism. Things are always kept internal; and whoever drags them out into the open, is ‘the enemy’.

Again, this is nothing new. It’s just another example of, ‘those who are not with us, are against us.’

There is also, I think, an element of ‘lacking confidence, when reaching outwards’. If an ex-pat living in Malta criticises something on Facebook, for example… the first reaction is usually: ‘Oh, just fuck off! Go back to your country!’, etc. And it applies to migrants and refugees, as much as to wealthy foreigners renting apartments.

Having said this: I don’t think it’s a uniquely Maltese phenomenon. It tends to be a little more pronounced here; because we’re so small, and people get so emotional about things, that even minor issues tend to get blown out of proportion…

There may, however, be something ‘uniquely Maltese’ about it. The word ‘traitor’, for example, by definition implies a betrayal of one’s country… and NOT merely of one’s preferred political party. Yet in Malta, this distinction is rarely, if ever made. As someone who has lived and worked in places like Israel, and the Occupied Territories – where (whatever other issues may exist) there is certainly a deep-rooted sense of ‘patriotism’, informing the conflict on both sides - what do you make of this total absence of ‘patriotism’, locally?

For what it’s worth: my own  take is that it’s is probably a legacy of our Colonial past; and also, ultimately, of a very nepotistic, very Mediterranean idea: i.e., that everybody need a ‘patron’; someone to ‘look out for their interests’; to ‘cut corners for them’; to help them get what, sometimes, they are not even entitled to… and even to make them feel that they ARE actually entitled to it; because it’s a ‘luxury’ that is being afforded to them, in return for their unswerving loyalty and allegiance.

As a result, we’re focused less on ‘what is ours by right’… and more on ‘getting whatever we possibly can; whenever we can; whether we have a right to it, or not.’ And while this is still by no means ‘unique to Malta’; it is probably more pronounced here, because of the sheer magnitude of how the two-party system actually affects our daily lives.

Simply put: it results in a situation of ‘total loyalty to the party’, in all circumstances. Even if those parties ‘do the unthinkable’ – like, say, ‘opening bank accounts in Panama’ – the automatic reaction will be: ‘Hey, but these people are helping us. Why should we turn against them?’

And it trickles all the way down, even to the most mundane of things. I remember, for instance, that when my grandmother was in hospital, people would come to visit their own relatives bearing little ‘gifts’ for the nurses: oranges, chocolates, that sort of thing.

Now: I’ll admit that it seemed like a nice little gesture, at the time.  But then, why were people doing that, anyway? Was it because they genuinely wanted to show those nurses their appreciation? Or was it because they wanted to ensure that they got the best treatment possible, for their own relatives… through a small ‘bribe’?

Obviously, I don’t want to blow it out of proportion: but then, when these small bribes start to become ‘expected’… the problem starts to grow.

And it wasn’t just ‘nurses at hospital’, by the way. The police are another example. I remember, from my childhood days, when the village policeman would be given, say, a ‘sack of potatoes’ every now and again. Again, it’s a small thing… but that’s also an ‘investment’. As such, it shifts the focus from ‘what is your right’, to… well, what the Sicilans call, ‘L’arte di arrangiarsi’. Which obviously, comes at the expense of the common good.

And these things become much more visible, when you compare Malta to how other countries operate. I work for a Norwegian company – even if it has a global presence: I’m actually based in Nairobi, Kenya – so I have visited Norway, and other Scandinavian countries, quite a lot recently. The difference you see is quite remarkable, really.

The issue of ‘what is right’, for example, is simply not even up for discussion at all. Why do people [in those countries] pay taxes? Because it’s part of ‘what being a good citizen’ is all about.  Because it’s what keeps their country going, at the end of the day. And the results are visible even at a glance. Those countries have some of the best health services, and welfare services, in the world…

We cannot achieve that here, until… well, until we change our culture completely, basically. Because there is this sense of entitlement, which is not in any way linked with ‘what is right’; And it’s devastating, for the country’s assets, its coffers… and what little is left of its countryside.

Are you hopeful that this sort of ‘cultural’ change can actually happen, though? After all, even the title ‘Taht Il-Kappa Tax-Xemx’ implies that things are, up to a point, condemned to remain the same forever. Is that part of the point you were trying to make 20 years ago? And if so: do you still feel that way now?

To be fair, there is a lot more of a critical approach, today, than there ever was 20 years ago. People are less willing to ‘accept everything’, nowadays; we see this, even in how NGOs like Moviment Graffiti are perceived. Twenty years ago, Graffitti – and all environmentalists groups, actually - were regarded as… well, ‘loonies’, basically. But now, I think most people can see that they’ve been vindicated, in pretty much everything they stood for…

Today, however, there is another ‘problem’, so to speak. There is this perception that, for instance, we have done so much ‘damage’, over the years – not just to our environment; but also to our institutions– that, quite frankly, there isn’t even all that much left to even ‘save’, anymore. That it’s a lost cause…

But that would be a totally defeatist attitude to take. And yes: it’s true that this takes us back to ‘Taht il-Kappa Tax-Xemx’: and that, if there really is ‘nothing new under the sun’, things can only be expected to just keep repeating themselves, indefinitely.

To me, however, it is more of an ‘existential’ question, than a defeatist one. And I would say the answer lies in Albert Camus’ ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. You have to keep going; keep fighting; because otherwise, you will only end up being enslaved by the very things that you detest…