Sapienti sat: A word of caution to the wise | Andrea Briffa

Andrea Briffa, lawyer at Aditus

It is a peculiar kind of ‘protection’ that requires 10 bullets fired at point-blank range into a restrained man. When shots rang out at a Minneapolis intersection on the 24th of January 2026, Alex Pretti was not the only victim; the very notion of state accountability died alongside him.

We must first be honest with ourselves. When it takes two handfuls of armed, masked men to pin a single individual to the pavement, we are not witnessing courage. It is mob violence wearing a government uniform. What we saw was the exercise of a trigger-happy personality, emboldened by a state-sanctioned impunity that treats a badge as a licence for cruelty.

The official propaganda that followed was reminiscent of George Orwell’s novel, 1984, in which the following warning is more than apt: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

But do not be fooled. This was a murder. Yet, it also served as a desolate reminder of how effectively a state narrative can strip a life of its inherent value. This is what happens when societies spend years reviving and regurgitating the rhetoric of ‘vermin’ and ‘blood poisoning’. Those words, which infamously used by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf to sway the populace, and which still echo today in political rallies, are not just mere insults. They serve as a moral opiate, designed to numb the conscience so that the trigger-pull feels like a civic duty rather than a crime.

By no means is this writing intended as a Reductio ad Hitlerum. However, in the interest of confronting an uncomfortable truth, it is a grave shame to see history repeating itself. The deeper tragedy is that we have clearly not learned from those rookie mistakes; and it is because of this paradigm that we must rely on humanity’s darkest era to understand the modern state of the world. We are currently witnessing a series of chilling similarities.

Just as Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland in 1936 to test a weak League of Nations, we see modern territorial gambles through Palestine, Venezuela, and Greenland, and a growing defiance of international law against the backdrop of an impotent United Nations. The primary tool has always been the ‘othering’ of people. Whether it is the antiquated

labelling of opponents as ‘pests’ or ‘criminals’, or the claim that migrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of a nation, the focus has shifted from external threats to internal ones. Both eras have utilised a specific brand of populism which renders traditional media, critical thinking, and fact-checking irrelevant to the loyalists.

Of particular concern is the weaponisation of the executive. Just as the Gestapo operated outside the traditional judicial system through protective custody, we now see an evolution of enforcement that relies on secrecy and the bypass of judicial safeguards.

When slogans like ‘One Homeland, One People, One Heritage’ are used in the US, mimicking Hitler’s ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer’, it provides the ideological branding to justify the ‘cleansing’ of a nation by an enforcement arm that answers to populism rather than law.

In the Maltese context, we see this being normalised (and applauded) when the authorities raid a public bus and racially profile passengers before hauling them off to detention. We see it in the sight of unaccompanied children being kept behind those wired fences—bullied, harassed, and maltreated. We see it in the treatment of those who are detained simply for the ‘crime’ of applying for asylum.

I must admit my contempt for the term ‘detention centre’. These words are, to me, nothing

more than a euphemism of the original term ‘concentration camps’. Yes, there are no gas chambers or death squads in Safi. However, there are vast human rights violations occurring, even as we speak. The methodology has changed since the 1940s, but the underlying philosophy remains identical: Demonise, ostracise, divide, and conquer.

A ‘state of exception’ generally refers to a situation of crisis in which a government invokes

extraordinary powers by suspending normal legal rules. As observers of the machinery of power, we see this state of exception being built brick by brick, both at home and overseas. Whether it is the resurrection of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in the US or the tactical crusades against NGOs and CSOs here in Malta and across Europe, the objective remains the same—manufacture a buffer-zone where the law exists on paper but is bypassed in practice. By rebranding a civilian migration flow as an ‘invasion’, a state conducts a dangerous pivot by replacing the sanctity of laws and the courtroom with the volatile whims of public opinion.

The responsibility for this shift does not lie solely within the halls of high office, for a regime is only ever as cruel as its public is indifferent. During the Nazi consolidation of power, the concept of Gleichschaltung (the systematic synchronisation of all social and legal institutions) was the primary tool of control. Yet the real danger isn’t just the coordination of the state; it is the coordination of the living room. It is the way we allow ourselves to play the role of ‘good citizens’, nodding along to the promise of security while the cost of that security is measured in corpses at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

We are being sold a bargain—national pride in exchange for our empathy. We are told that NGOs are ‘traffickers’ or a ‘cancer of society’, and that extending a helping hand to another human being is an act of ‘treachery’. It is a cynical tactic to rebrand compassion as a crime.

In Malta, we should not need reminding of where this path leads. We must not forget Lassana Cisse, murdered in a drive-by shooting in 2019 for the simple fact of being black.

While his murder was a rare and extreme act, it was the inevitable harvest of the institutional dehumanisation sowed in our current policies and discourse.

The historical tragedies of the 1930s were not solely the work of monsters. They were made possible by millions who convinced themselves that as long as they weren’t the ones pulling the trigger, they weren’t part of the violence. But silence is a signed confession, and ‘following orders’ hasn’t been a defence since the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trials. If we accept the false narrative that a human being can be ‘illegal’ by their very existence, we provide the moral cover for every bullet that follows and every cry for rescue that drowns.

In Malta, we hold a unique and heavy responsibility. We are not merely observers of the state of exception; we are its geographical frontier. The decisions given in our courtrooms, the legislation debated in our parliament, and the diplomacy we conduct with our neighbouring states are the true barometers of our democracy.

Reject the Gleichschaltung of the living room and move beyond the silence that serves as a confession. Dissent against a dehumanising status quo is not unpatriotic—quite the contrary: it is the cornerstone of Maltese identity. The tragedy of the 1930s was that many

only realised the cost of their silence once the darkness was absolute. Today, in 2026, the lights are still flickering. We have the privilege of speech and the capacity to act.

We are at a crossroads, and we must choose: To be the anchor that holds the line for thy

neighbour, or to be the weight that drags them to the seabed and regress 90 years of progress.

The darkness doesn’t fall all at once. It arrives in the moments where we decide it’s easier to shrug than to speak. The choice to speak is yours.