Silence, flowers and words mark Daphne’s murder in Bidnija in presence of grandchildren she never saw

The typical quiet of Bidnija on Thursday was broken by church bells that tolled to mark the exact hour that very same silence was shattered eight years ago.

On the gentle hill going up to the sleepy rural village, people paid their respects to Daphne Caruana Galizia who was murdered on 16 October 2017.

A big poster with Daphne’s face is stretched out in a field—it marks the exact spot where her burning car stopped. It is a reminder of the brutal assassination that hurt a family and wounded a nation.

Every year on the day, at precisely 3pm, friends, family, activists, journalists and dignitaries gather at the spot to salute Daphne’s memory in silence, with flowers, with words.

A poem is read out describing Daphne as a beacon of light in life and death; a reading of Isabel Allende’s Two Words in which one can identify Daphne’s mastery with words; a bite of Daphne’s blog from February 2017 in which she rails against misogyny at the way she was treated in court by the lawyer of former Economy Minister Chris Cardona.

And then silence once again as activists unfurl different coloured material tied together to form the number eight. Ambassadors from the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, France and Germany then move forward to place flowers, followed by civil society activists, the Institute of Maltese Journalists represented by its president and vice president, the Nationalist Party secretary general Charles Bonello and official Joseph Grech, and others who sympathise with Daphne’s cause.

And then, the grandson and grand daughter Daphne never got to see, stepped forward with pink roses, laying them down on the damp soil in honour of the nanna they never had the chance to meet.

It was a sober ceremony to commemorate the courage of a woman who picked up a battle against a criminal network that felt comfortable cavorting in the corridors of power. A network that finally eliminated her, only to unleash a powerful force calling for justice—that seven-letter word depicted on a banner, fluttering quietly in the field.

For another year, Daphne’s baton is passed on to those who persist in discovering the truth, uncovering wrongdoing, who shed light on those corners people in power want to leave in the dark, who demand transparency, accountability and justice.