Category: Mediawatch

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Mediawatch Middle East

Trump u Gerusalemm: Titnehha l-maskra

Intervent li għamel Karl Schembri fil-gażżetta t-Torca. Din qiegħda tiġi riprodotta hawn bil-permess tiegħu. L-opinjoni espressa fl-artiklu hija tiegħu personali.

L-aħbar li l-Amerka tirrikonoxxi Ġerusalemm bħala l-kapitali tal-Iżrael m’għandha taħsad lil ħadd. Jekk xejn, fl-aħħar, tneħħiet il-maskra tad-dupliċita’ perversa tal-Amerikani lejn il-kwistjoni tal-Palestina. Trump, bil-vulgarita’ medjokri tiegħu, ineħħi kwalunkwe pretensjoni falza lejn l-hekk imsemmi ‘proċess ta’ paċi’. Staqsi kwalunkwe Palestinjan u jgħidlek, “xi proċess? B’min trid titnejjek?”. Trump fl-aħħar ta s-siġill tal-approvazzjoni tiegħu lejn kull illegalita’ li twettaq l-Iżrael fil-Palestina okkupata. Mit-tkeċċija tar-residenti Palestinjani f’Ġerusalemm, għat-twaqqiegħ tad-djar u l-iskejjel Palestinjani, sal-bini tal-kolonji Lhud fil-qalba tal-Palestina. Tneħħiet ukoll il-pretensjoni li l-Amerka hija l-medjatur ta’ rieda tajba bejn l-Iżrael u l-Palestina. Trump għamilha ċara iktar minn qatt qabel, imma ma ninsewx li taħt Obama nbnew l-iktar kolonji fl-Istorja u kellna l-ikbar gwerra mdemmija fuq Gaża.

Il-mistoqsija issa hi: X’se tagħmel il-bqija tad-dinja? X’se jagħmlu l-kapijiet Għarab? U x’se jagħmel Mahmoud Abbas? Diġa’ rajna ftit kliem ta’ rabja mill-kapijiet minn madwar id-dinja. X’se jagħmlu dwarha? L-Għarabja Sawdija, il-Ġordan, l-Eġittu u l-istati pupazzi kollha tar-reġjun m’huma se jagħmlu xejn. Bħalissa qed jittollerraw ftit protesti fit-toroq. Ftit ieħor jibdew jarrestaw l-imqarbin li jgħollu leħinhom.
Abbas, li kieku għandu ħabba waħda ta’ dinjita’, ixolji l-Awtorita’ Palestinjana, jagħlaq ir-rappreżentanza Palestinjana f’Washington DC, u jiddikjara darba għal dejjem li l-ftehimiet kollha, ibda minn Oslo, huma nulli u mitfugħin fil-miżbla tal-Istorja. Imma mhux se jagħmel hekk. Jiddependi mill-Amerikani biex iħallas is-salarju tiegħu stess u ta’ eluf ta’ impjegati tal-Awtorita’ Palestinjana.

Il-PLO — l-Organizazzjoni għall-Ħelsien tal-Palestina, imissha issa tagħmel dak li jgħid isimha — twassal għal-liberazzjoni tal-Palestina. Ma fadalx triq politika miftuħa. Għall-Ewropa, dan huwa ċans biex tidħol bħal qatt qabel u tiddefendi l-liġi internazzjonali. Malta għandha tgħolli leħinha fl-Ewropa u tfittex gvernijiet li huma tal-istess fehma sabiex jagħmlu pressjoni fuq l-Iżrael.

L-Iżrael issa, bis-siġill ta’ Trump, se tkompli tagħmel dak li ilha tagħmel għal deċennji. It-tindif etniku tal-Palestina. Din tħalliha b’żewġ possibiltajiet: Jew tiddikjara l-Palestinjani ċittadini tagħha u ttihom drittijiet indaqs bħal-Lhud tal-Iżrael, jew inkella taċċetta li dan huwa stat ta’ Apartheid. U lkoll nafu kif il-bqija tad-dinja trattat l-Afrika t’Isfel fis-snin tal-Apartheid.

Karl Schembri għex għal erba’ snin fil-Palestina okkupata u bħalissa jgħix fil-Ġordan fejn jaħdem bħala media adviser għal-Lvant Nofsani ma’ aġenzija umanitarja. L-opinjoni espressa f’dan l-artiklu hija biss dik personali tiegħu.

Categories
Mediawatch Values

The Truth when Lies are Paid for

Way back in 2005 I chose the slogan “the truth, if I lie” (la vérité si je mens) for this blog. The truth is an important aspect whether we are talking about reporting or opinion forming. Facts and the truth should be the basis of assessment in a normal democracy. We all know by now that in this age of post-truth this has changed:

“We have entered a new phase of political and intellectual combat, in which democratic orthodoxies and institutions are being shaken to their foundations by a wave of ugly populism. Rationality is threatened by emotion, diversity by nativism, liberty by a drift towards autocracy. More than ever, the practice of politics is perceived as a zero-sum game, rather than a contest between ideas. […] At the heart of this global trend is a crash in the value of truth, comparable to the collapse of a currency or a stock.” (Matthew D’Ancona, Post Truth, The new war on truth and how to fight back).

One manifestation of the manipulation of truth is the increasing use of space on mainstream media for paid propagation of information. Large chunks of public money are used to buy space on media to sell statements in an effort to turn them into universally accepted truths. More often than not the use of “statistics” is facilitated by the virtual disappearance of any proper watchdog and by the building of walls of silence that laugh in the face of the transparency that should be reinforcing the veracity of such statements.

Take the “record unemployment” figures that this government loves to flaunt. Behind such figures lie so many half-truths buried in statistical convolutions such as the reformed unemployment scheme that ensures that people vanish off the lists much before they enter gainful employment, such as the obvious reliance on a bloated civil service to take on more “jobs for the boys”. That same record unemployment was behind the use of the power of incumbency in the last election where famously Gozitan entrepreneurs and SME’s and employers in the entertainment industry found themselves short of staff simply because the government did the magic absorbing trick of vanishing their employees away into the civil service.

But there is another equally worrying trend. The government has found ways to buy “authenticity” by purchasing its way onto spaces in the media that could deceivingly be passed away as independent reporting. In the beginning it was close collaboration with houses like The Economist hosting talks in Malta packed full of government spokespersons and ministers. The Economist would be happy to lend its name to a national government paying its way into its discussion space. Two “The World in XXX” events plus one “Mediterranean Leadership Summit” were thus organised by the Economist in Malta at the Hilton Portomaso. The Mediterranean Leadership Summit, held in 2016, included Henley and Partners as its Gold Sponsor (we all know who these are), the Libyan Investment Authority as its Silver Sponsor (notwithstanding the fact that the LIA had had its assets frozen by the UN since 2011), and Finance Malta and Maltco lotteries as contributors.

It is not just events though. Articles can now be bought. Yes, you read that right. Articles on major international news portals can actually be “paid content”. Thus, the CNN article doing the rounds about Malta being one of the Top 15 country destinations for Christmas was apparently yet another paid article. Here are Andrew and Paul Caruana Galizia calling out another paid report, this time one that appeared on the Guardian:

Do not underestimate the government use of paid social media ads and posts (such as facebook campaigns). As time goes by, the Facebook algorithms are fine tuned to push to the top of your screens any paid information. While you scroll through the online papers and you see repeat adverts also paid for by government to promote its spin remember that. The campaign to disinform is much stronger than you think. The solution is to be vigilant and call out whenever you can.

Finally do not let the irony escape you that these lies and half-truths are funded by YOUR money. You are actually paying taxes that are then used to sell you untruths.

It’s a liars’ world out there. The truth, if I lie.

Categories
Constitutional Development Mediawatch

The Beautiful Garden

The atmosphere at the European Parliament this Tuesday was surreal to say the least. Not being too familiar with the building I arrived just as the debate on the Rule of Law in Malta had kicked off and took a seat hurriedly in the visitor’s balcony. Just as I started to take in the different speeches I noticed that I was seated a couple of seats away from Daphne’s family and the whole business took a wholly different perspective.

It was inevitable that different agendas would be pushed during such a debate. It was, as predicted, a repeat of the Pana Committee meetings with many deputies intent on taking advantage of this moment of weakness of the Maltese state in order to peddle their usual attacks on the island nation’s fiscal policy. Politics is politics and it would be too much to ask of all the deputies in the house to stick to the agenda at hand. Probably.

I felt very ill at ease though, for every other thirty seconds Daphne’s name was brought up. Whether it was to bolster an argument regarding the state of the rule of law in Malta or whether it was to harp on that spurious link between a legitimate fiscal policy and an atrocious cold-blooded murder, those three words would be repeated and would rebound along the walls of the Hemicycle. Each time I heard the name I did not dare look at Daphne’s family but I could not help wonder how awkward all this might seem, how distant from the warmth of a mother and a wife. True, we were there also because of what had happened and yet the way most politicians took over the name and memory of the recently departed did not seem right.

The weak respects jarred mostly in the mouths of those who could barely hide their contempt towards the very fact that we were there in that room, discussing the failure of a society and not only the failure of law and government. They went through the motions expressing regret for Daphne’s sudden departure though it sounded as convincing as a note of apology by the Transport Authority whenever the buses run late.

It was painful. Painful for me as a mere outsider who quite readily admits to having had strong differences of opinion with Daphne throughout the last years and who refuses to succumb to the temptation of creating false hagiographies. In fact I am quite happy to be clear that I did not find Daphne and her work to be perfect. Far from it. It is like stating the obvious. Somehow though I feel that it makes my case for demanding respect for her work all the stronger. Above all it puts the moment in perspective – there is an institutional crisis that led to a journalist being killed while doing her work and without any doubt because of the work she was doing. Daphne was killed with impunity because, in the words of her husband, she mattered.

The institutional crisis, the social deficit, predates Daphne’s assassination. The battle against the rot definitely predates Daphne’s assassination. The warning signs predate Daphne’s assassination. The side of Daphne that we want to remember and be inspired by is the one that was so ably described by her husband. It is the one who aspired to beauty in a world that she saw (as did many others) turn uglier by the minute. Before the situation became desperate it had already turned ugly. So ugly that it rendered others cynical. So ugly that many lost hope.

This is not about a sanctification of a person. This is about continuing the work that Daphne excelled in and that others too worked hard for with different results. The inspiration we should and must take is the Beautiful Garden. We should each build our own little garden and start to expand that slowly until the gardens take over.

The gardens are our hope, our courage, our future.

 

“But Daphne never grew cynical; she grew outraged and appalled by the increasingly sordid and frightening facts that emerged from her work. The more frustrated she grew at the state of our country, the more beautiful our garden became, the more trees she planted, the more books, art, ornaments and curiosities from all over the world arrived at our home. Daphne created, in the words of one of my sons, a parallel world of beauty in a country that slipped further and further away from European values and norms of behaviour which she held so closely. Meanwhile, Daphne’s work never slowed. With every story she broke, particularly about the money laundering network with links deep and wide connecting many of Malta’s political and business elite, her readership grew larger and more loyal.” – Peter Caruana Galizia

 

Categories
Mediawatch

Manuel Mallia’s Rule-By-Law

 

Speaking in parliament last night, ex-Minister Manuel Mallia took a swipe at whoever had anything to do with the leaking FIAU documents. In a scene befitting pre-1989 East Germany, Mallia told parliament that the leaker of the report as well as anybody having access to it (including the PN) should be prosecuted because they are guilty of a crime having violated the confidentiality of said documents. “The documents of the FIAU needed to be kept secret because the unit’s investigations were sensitive and disclosure of information would undermine those very investigations”, Dr Mallia said.

What we have here is a clear example of “rule-by-law” where the strict letter of the law is used to silent dissent and to annihilate any possible means of rendering the powers that be accountable. Manuel Mallia’s threats, for threats they are, do not come in a vacuum. They must be put in the context of the dismissal of former FIAU official Jonathan Ferris and of the FIAU Head of Compliance. They must be put in the context of the admission by most of the national press that they have been forced to revise archived reports under threat of expensive litigation. This must also be put in context of the lack of collaboration reported by the European Parliament PANA committee

In any other context but this, this matter would be considered as Whistleblower territory. In any other context the content of the leaked document would be of much graver concern, the consequences of the failure to act upon the content of such documents would be the focus of a responsible government. This is not another context. This is Malta of L-Aqwa Zmien – rule by law is misconstrued as rule of law, anything in the power of government to hide, to shut down criticism, to avoid proper scrutiny, to annihilate any dissonant narrative is fair game.

We are living in a time of Rule-By-Law. This is also why the calls for a return to a system of rule of law are being made.  In contrast to rule-by-law (rule by means of norms enacted through a correct legal procedure or issued by a public authority), Rule of Law implies also the safeguarding of fundamental rights and freedoms – norms which render the law binding not simply because it is procedurally correct but enshrines justice. It is the Rule of Law, thus understood, that provides legitimacy to public authority in liberal democracies.

Meanwhile Manuel Mallia’s witch-hunt had better expand internationally: Green MEP Sven Giegold’s website contains a link to leaked FIAU documents.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

We are all politicians now

This is not another “je suis” moment. This is a reaction to the idea that is being bandied about that the demonstrations and manifestations following the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia have to be sanitised in a bubble of non-political expression. It is probably a symptom of all that has happened in the country – of a nation that has grown up in a stultified environment and using a twisted code of expression where “politics’ became a taboo word.

The risk we are running here is that we misunderstand all that is going on and transform this into a symbolic shambles – a memorial for the sake of a memorial that is taken out of context. The constant exchange of diatribes between the two parties that have monopolised our official political scene has rendered the nation’s citizens immune to the understanding of real politics. The reaction to a tragedy is mechanical and predictable. Candle-light vigils, walks, demonstrations are meant to help the mourners to cope and get their closure. No lessons are learnt.

It is not just today. We can have an explosion in a fireworks factory, we can have a terrible traffic “black spot”, we can have multiple deaths on the workplace, we can have thousands drowning outside our shores, we can have hundreds of protected birds shot out of the air in the hunting season, we can have animals living in atrocious conditions in ramshackle zoos.

We are brilliant at mourning the dead, the victims. We kid ourselves that we will show some leftover christian empathy. However as a people we will continue to be blinded and ignore the reasons for the tragedy and the lessons to be learnt so that this will not happen again. Our political establishment has for a long time benefited from the fact that we have felt sufficiently consoled by the mere expressions of sympathy. Never again. At least not until tomorrow.

This cannot go on. The education of our citizen class needs to begin in earnest and there is no better moment than now. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia happened in a context. The appeals to the population not to make it a “political issue” are misguided. What they should mean is that this is not a “partisan” issue. It is not a cause that should be taken up for the benefit of one party or another. Because politics does not exist to serve the parties.

In their effort to sanitise the manifestations of anger and empathy some people are shooting down all the messengers. This is dangerous. This is an attempt to make the new normal a permanent normal. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia is political. I have no doubt that it is political. We do not know who the mandator and the murder are but we can only understand one thing: that Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed for something that she had written about or was planning to write about.

She was killed in a nation where the complete institutional breakdown aids and abets the functioning of criminal organisations. She was killed in a state where the absence of the rule of law means that the tentacles of the criminal organisations have spread deep into our society and where these can act with a feeling of impunity. She was killed in a country that has huge problems understanding the dangers and consequences of corruption. She was killed in Malta the super-economy that privileges easy money, fake jobs and no questions asked.

These are all the makings of a political murder because in order for this murder to take place the safeguards of a political society have to have broken down. That is what Daphne’s son meant when he mentioned the rule of law.

Civil society has had the ugliest of wake up calls. It has a choice before it now. Either to fall for the serenades of the old political establishment that are trying their damned hardest to abuse of the ignorance of the law, of the ignorance of the way a society should work, of the way people ignore why their commitment to changing this society is crucial. Either that or to commit to change. To understand that each and every one of us have the duty to be political, to become political and to be the agents of change in spite of the old political establishment.

We are all politicians. Every politician among us that wants to stand up and be counted should be at the demonstration at City Gate on Sunday at 4pm.

 

Categories
Mediawatch

The birth of a blog [3 days 6 hours]

[3 days 6 hours]

The 2008 election campaign was the first one to feature blogs heavily. The Maltese blogosphere had only just really kicked off and most times it was a case of blogs being quoted in what was then referred to as the mainstream media. J’accuse (already three years young at the time) was one of the leading blogs and the comments section also served as a forum for discussion between quite a varied group of individuals. Comments were full of heated exchanges of all sorts and I remember that at the time moderation was still a controversial issue with wild accusations of censorship or appeals to the moderator to intervene when things got too heated (or offensive). One major topic on these pages at the time was the “Wasted Vote” issue as J’accuse’s editorial line developed around the need to elect a third party that breaks the hold of the major parties.

It was around this time that Daphne became one of the regular persons to comment on the blog. Daphne being Daphne, whole discussions soon turned into a Daphne versus the rest kind of match. It was thrilling, it was lively and at times it was dangerously violent – as violent as words and accusations that could fly on the net could be. Daphne’s take on the wasted vote issue was that anyone thinking of voting for a third party was immature and unable to fathom the consequences of “risking” getting the dreaded Labour party elected. We argued. Oh how we argued. I scrolled through the endless arguments in the posts of February and March of that year. Daphne is all over the place. One minute she is arguing with persons who in the future would become trademark Labour trolls, another with Raphael Vassallo, another still with Claire Bonello, Justin Borg Barthet, Fausto Majistral, David Friggieri, Kevin Ellul Bonici and so many many other regulars.

There were times when life got in the way like when I had to absent myself from the keyboard for a few days because I had booked a skiing trip and when I finally found a cybercafe’ in the middle of the Alpes de Huez I noticed that J’accuse had been inundated with comments awaiting moderation. It is so ironic for me to see the comments by Daphne jokingly telling me off to have left the blog for such a long time – when would I be back? when can the discussion resume? Little would I have known that years later I would be the one wondering why Daphne was taking an inordinately long time between one blog post and another. That damn refresh button.

The closer the election got the less patience Daphne had with being moderated by others. It was not in her nature of course to accept to be told what was out of order and what was not. We were all on a learning curve back then remember. I did my best to keep the ensure that discussions on the blog remain civil but those early days already showed the worst of some people when interacting online – and Daphne, being Daphne, managed to get the worst out of some people (and I am not in any way excusing those people). I remember being told off by Daphne for having moderated a whole discussion thread – “we are not schoolchildren here”. In the end I like to think that it was not the random insults that were bandied around that made her move on. It was the need to be in control. Daphne had seen the potential of the blog and wanted part of it.


And that was it. The adventure began.  Running Commentary was here to stay. The first post on her blog was entitled (surprise, surprise) Zero tolerance for corruption. The first comment to appear on The Running Commentary? Why of course…

Why am I writing all this? It’s probably my way of coping with the grief and with the anger. 2008 seems like another world, another era. Lawrence Gonzi’s PN would win the election and the battle for constitutional reform would be postponed again. The Running Commentary would go from strength to strength shifting between punditry, cutting analysis and what seemed to me to be petty gossip-column like observations. When the “one man wiki-leaks” dimension came about first with the John Dalli scandal and then with the more recent undoings of the Labour government  (first among which is Panama but the list is endless) Daphne’s blog became much larger than an online opinion column. For what it’s worth my main criticism in recent times had been that Malta could not afford to have a “one man wiki-leaks”. First of all because I felt that it is not right that one person should be the gatekeeper of such information and secondly because of the dangers that were being borne by one person.

And those dangers were brought home with the horrendous assassination. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because of the collective institutional failure. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because nobody in his right mind trusts the police. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because it was evident that the whole apparatus of government would turn onto anyone who dared go against the tide of sanitised positivism as proposed by official propaganda. We had a one man wiki-leaks because the abuse of the libel system in the courts of law afforded little comfort to everyone other than the bravest. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because  because the fourth estate was an embarrassing shambles – sold out to the highest bidder or, in the case of partisan media, busy being their master’s voice. We had a one-man wiki-leaks because the system of the rule of law had broken down.

Often in her last posts since the last election, Daphne exhorted whoever could to leave the island. There was no future in Malta. The country was going to the dogs. She did say that she urged her successful sons to do so because the island had no more hope. I often wondered what stopped Daphne from leaving herself. What kept her going? Was it a sense of patriotism and some misplaced hope that one day this nation of egoists realises that it needs to think about its collective future? Really. I could never find an answer to that question until her son Matthew spoke to the Guardian. He said something very important: Daphne never gave in to cynicism. She believed she could bring about change. Her work in exposing the wrongs of the nation was all in the hope of getting people to understand why change is needed.

After last election I had given in to the cynicism. I would still be glued to the internet to follow the latest developments from home. Yes, I too would refresh my Running Commentary tab to see if there was anything new that the mainstream press was still unable to report. A few posts here and there on this blog were more the force of habit than anything else as the last shreds of hope waned. Cynicism and lack of faith in fellow citizens had almost dealt a final blow to my will to engage and work for change. Then came October 16th.

I am sad. I am angry. I am full of feelings of revulsion. I am responsible. I am helpless. I I I I. I is the word I feel most guilty of using. I needed to write something to break the blankness of the last few days. I decided to share this chronology of the beginnings of a blog that would change Malta’s history.

We are back. We want change and we will start to fight for it to happen as from today.

[3 days 8 hours] – the time for grieving is over. The time to fight has begun. For the change we all believed in – to make Malta the country we all want to live in again.