Post mortem: The demise of Integrity

Causation: A plethora of afflictions

The patient: Integrity

Age: 13 December 1974

Nationality: Maltese

Condition on arrival: Catatonic

1. The external examination

A superficial examination might have missed it. Malta had become adept at appearing healthy while hosting various symptoms of a deeply ingrained moribundity and since the regression had been incremental, the organism had adapted. Corruption rarely announces itself as such. It arrives camouflaged as ‘naqra ta’ spinta’ or a little push in the right direction. Precisely because everybody knows somebody, ‘il-famużi ħbieb tal-ħbieb’, the distinction between public service and private favour becomes harder to maintain, in the absence of robust legislation and stringent implementation.

Our patient, Integrity, had not been murdered. Integrity had been accommodated to death.

2. The internal examination

The first scrutinised organ was the political system which evidenced patronage. The pathology lay deeply rooted in the expectation that politics exist to deliver for one’s individual benefit so that the politician becomes less a custodian of the public interest than a broker between the citizen and the state. The citizen, in turn, becomes less a citizen and more of a client. This is how a republic quietly changes its moral identity—when ethical conduct is replaced by self-interest. The relationship becomes toxic; a morbidly co-dependent arrangement.

The outcome is profound civic deterioration.

3. The heart

The heart of democracy is trust. Malta’s heart showed signs of severe atrophy. One may safely surmise that many of its citizens now believed that either all politicians are corrupt or that they have the potential to be so. Resultantly, when citizens assume that laws are negotiable, rules become suggestions so that those who obey them look naïve. The honest citizen becomes the fool and the person who refuses the favour does not understand how things work. The person who insists on procedure is being difficult and the one who asks uncomfortable questions is causing trouble, whilst yet another who exposes wrongdoing becomes the villain. A complete inversion of values.

When trust crumbles, the constitutional body may continue to function mechanically but something essential has stopped circulating. At this point, enter institutional decay.

4. The lungs

The lungs showed signs of chronic institutional suffocation. Independent institutions require oxygen: Transparency, accountability, enforcement and political distance. Without these key elements institutions become mere monuments; structurally intact but operationally inert. This outcome may be more insidious than any individual act of corruption because once impunity becomes predictable, corruption no longer requires daring. It requires only a sense of entitlement on the one side and the bystander effect on the other.

5. The liver

Toxicology revealed prolonged exposure to money, influence and proximity to power. Although the poison was not money itself. The poison was the belief that money and power could be separated from accountability. A wealthy society may be decent and conversely, a prosperous society may be corrupt. Economic growth does not disinfect political culture. Indeed, prosperity can effectively mask corruption because economic growth creates an illusion of expert governance where clandestine activity hides behind increasing incomes and high-volume markets.

6. The immune system

The nervous system displayed another familiar symptom—selective outrage. We condemn corruption when the “other” does it and rationalise it when our side indulges. This is how tribalism protects corruption. The tribal primal instinct murmurs: ‘Yes, this is wrong, but I’ll be damned if I will admit it.’  ‘Mhux meta l-gvern tagħna.’ Not when there is an impending election. Not when the outcomes might hurt us. Eventually, principle becomes negotiable. The patient loses its moral reflexes. A healthy republic should react to corruption irrespective of political affiliation. The immune system has become compromised, attacking the pathogen when it belongs to the other side and protecting it when it belongs to its own. The republic’s integrity had begun attacking its own capacity for moral judgment.

7. The brain

The brain revealed yet another grave condition—jadedness. This is corruption’s most useful enabler because the cynical citizen does not demand better. The cynical citizen shrugs it all off: They are all the same; Only in Malta; Nothing will ever change; Everyone has something to hide; ‘U jien x’nista nagħmel?’; ‘Il-ħuta l-kbira qatt ma kielet il-ħuta ż-żgħira ta’; If you can’t beat them, jump onto the bandwagon.

And just like that, the corrupt system receives its greatest protection—cynical inertia. A population does not have to love corruption for it to flourish. It merely must stop believing that resistance is worthwhile. It merely has to scoff at and become comfortable with dismissing those who raise concerns, labelling them negative, impractical, one dimensional, pedantic, out of touch, ‘pulċinelli’. The ones speaking about corruption are the dullards, the harbingers of bad news, the lame ducks. The normalisation of deviance has now set in and one of its most grave abnormalities concerns  selective memory. Memory remembers only events which confirm one’s tribe whilst forgetting that which implicates it. The perfect storm for cognitive dissonance.

8. The journalist

The investigative journalist performs a dangerous function within such an organism. She performs an open procedure on the body, dissecting and bisecting. She digs beneath the skin and follows blood vessels to identify connections invisible from the surface. She follows the trails and joins the dots.

Daphne Caruana Galizia performed precisely this vital function for which we should all feel indebted. Daphne repeatedly opened the political body and examined what lay beneath its seemingly respectable exterior and questioned the impunity. This is precisely why investigative journalism can become so threatening to systems built upon hidden relationships.

When Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated, the immediate victims were a journalist and her family. The wider injury was inflicted upon the republic. “There are crooks everywhere, the situation is desperate”, indeed.

9. The assassination

The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia constitutes one of the most profound civic traumas suffered by the Maltese Republic in modern times. It demonstrated that the hidden machinery of power could carry consequences far beyond political embarrassment. She exposed hidden relationships and forced the republic to look at itself. Perhaps that is precisely why some people derided her so much. She brought information into the public domain. Feigning ignorance was no longer an option, or was it? “Biċċa blogger, is-Saħħara tal-Bidnija, Traitor, Bitch” were all attempts to dehumanise and denigrate. Moral disengagement. It is horrifying to think of how prophetic the witch slur turned out to be. Intelligent, assertive women or “witches” were traditionally burnt at the stake.  Daphne’s stake was a modern-day one—the car bomb.

Hers is the most blatant example of testimonial injustice. Her testimony was discounted because of her assigned status (witch), political affiliation (the perception that she was advocating for the PN) and lack of influence (biċċa blogger). The truth was marginalised even though the information was readily available.

The public inquiry that followed subjected the state itself to a thorough examination. Its findings were devastating. Not only had the state failed to adequately recognise and address the risks confronting Daphne Caruana Galizia but rather the inquiry found that the state had ultimately created a climate in which the murder could occur. The wound was therefore not confined to the victim. It had entered the institutional body where it is still festering.

10. The verdict

The shock from Yorgen Fenech’s acquittal by a quasi-unanimous 8–1 verdict on both charges relating to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination is still reverberating. The legal result stands. An acquittal is, after all, an acquittal; Maltese law does not require that jurors are accountable to the state and victims by justifying their verdict, perhaps because collectively we don’t do accountability very well.

Conversely, whilst the court determines criminal responsibility according to law and evidence, the citizen must still ask what the case has revealed about its institutions and their independence or lack thereof. We must still ask questions about political relationships, evidence, accountability, critical thinking, juries and their composition. We must hold our courts to account in establishing the entire truth promptly as opposed to a decade later and counting. All legitimate questions. Yet, tribalism is in full swing and agnotology is a study which is long overdue.

John and Jane Q. Public are finally stirring.

Meanwhile, the prosecution will be appealing...

11. Autopsy conclusion

The disease survived because for years Malta tolerated what it ought to have rejected. We learned to live with moral injury, conflicts of interest, to laugh at absurdity, to have our intelligence insulted, to justify mediocrity, to shrug at scandal. We learned that blind loyalty could be more rewarding than critical thinking. We learned that speaking up could cost more than remaining silent: Rajt ma rajtx u smajt ma smajtx; tgħidx mhux se nagħmilha jien tal-hero jew; jaraw huma hux...

The tragedy is that a republic cannot be governed by the formula of our people versus their people. Us versus them. The divide and rule concept which the Brits knew how to wield so well to keep those who came before us in check and busy squealing on each other.  It is time to shrug off and do away with this dualism in our collective DNA. We are no longer a colony, but we are still enslaved.

A republic exists precisely because there must be something larger than the network, the party, the individual. That something is called public interest as opposed to a partisan one.

Whilst outwardly a democracy, the Maltese State is crippled by dysfunction on so many levels. Many of us have scandal fatigue and are morally exhausted. The rest appear to be either in denial and quite possibly, oblivion.

If we wish to rebuild our integrity which is vital for a healthy society to thrive, we must stop pretending that corruption is someone else’s problem.

We must look inwards and ask what part have I played in all of this. What have I enabled, reinforced, advocated for, represented, defended, mocked and endorsed?

There is always a choice to be made. We can decide to close the morgue, re-enact a Pontius Pilate, return to our tribes and pass the buck. Otherwise, we can admit that this is not the Malta we aspire for.

Yes, there is always a choice to make, and we need to make one presto because the final finding of this post mortem is perhaps the most wretched one of all.

Our integrity perished because too many of us found ways to live with the disease that had afflicted it for decades.