it is a cliché to observe that in Malta everyone knows everyone else, but it happens to be the truth. This was the historic strength of Maltese society, the basis of its deserved reputation for warmth and friendliness. The tie that binds was always strong.
But now that tie has become a serious problem. The investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia identified the malaise as what anthropologists call “amoral familism”: the desire to act not for the common good, but “in terms of spiting or rewarding, getting or preventing others from getting”.
Amoral familism is what most of us call the mafia mentality: the desire to look after yourself and your family at the expense of others and the wider community.
Until the 1970s, Malta was poor. It had no natural resources and lived off its dockyard, and later tourism. Then something changed. Money began to flow in. The original source was Libya. When that country was under sanctions, all sanctions-busting activity had to flow through Malta. Later came a financial services industry, along with other more questionable ways of making money.
Currently, Malta offers very favourable tax terms to international companies. The government will sell you a passport for €650,000 (£580,000). It sold about 900 in 2016, making up 16 per cent of its revenue. Internet gambling companies account for 10 per cent of Malta’s GDP. This is all in the public domain – unlike the money that they do not want us to know about.
Around the world, several politicians who featured in the Panama Papers have been forced out, including two prime ministers. Among the exceptions is Joseph Muscat, who has remained as Malta’s PM; indeed, he called and won an election with an increased majority even while Daphne Caruana Galizia was publishing allegations about his affairs (which he strenuously denied).
Where is the money coming from, apart from the sources mentioned above? Daphne alleged that Malta has become a global centre formoney laundering, and the preferred side-door entry into the European Union for the world’s leading kleptocrats.
All this has been accompanied by the rapid secularisation of Malta, as well as the introduction of divorce in 2011 and of gay marriage earlier this year. In a nation once legendary for its piety and deep sense of tradition, even the previously untouchable subject of abortion is coming into political debate. There is a sense of a country which has lost its identity.
The silencing of Daphne has been a long time in coming. She had been sued numerous times, and at the time of her death her bank accounts had been frozen. This legal persecution illustrates the way the law in Malta is no longer a vehicle for establishing justice, but rather a weapon in the hands of the powerful.
No one had a reasoned reply to her allegations: their response was demonisation and abuse. She was the “witch of Bidnija”, the village she lived in, the “hate blogger” and, incredibly, “a terrorist”. This prepared the ground for her murder: after all, what historically has been the fate of witches? Her son Matthew wrote on Facebook: “My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it.”
Now it is up to the police to investigate, but no one trusts the police. As if to prove this point, a police sergeant rejoiced at Galizia’s death on Facebook, saying she got what she deserved; one charged with upholding the law expressed his approval of crime. As for the government, one of their MPs, on the night of Daphne’s murder, spoke of the limits of freedom of speech and how journalists should not cross certain lines.
Daphne certainly did not recognise uncrossable lines. Everything and everyone was fair game for her. A superb investigator, she relied on what she called her “international network of spies”. One politician had only to go on holiday to a luxury resort to find his photo on the blog within hours.
Now Malta, like Russia, is one of those countries where journalists are murdered. Her murder proves the point she had been making for years. Malta is a seriously sick society; it has been poisoned by the flow of dirty money. Tourists, and investors, may start to wonder if they should stay away.
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