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MALTATODAY 2 February 2020

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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 FEBRUARY 2020 NEWS CENSORSHIP returns. Ten years after a novelist faced jail for a short story deemed 'obscene' at law, it looks like Malta has come full circle. Now under a new liberalised regime, the new censorship laws are being tested by a bizarre car- nival float whose designs offend- ed public sentiment by juxta- posing the Archbishop with two horned cherubs and the name 'St Joseph Home' – site of the his- toric sex abuse that took place in the children's home – as well as inserting an LGBTQI rainbow in the pastiche. Did we fail the first test? Definitely the context is differ- ent. In 2009 novelist Alex Vella Gera and editor Mark Camilleri faced a possible six months' im- prisonment for writing and pub- lishing Li Tkisser Sewwi – a short story related from the perspective of a male chauvinist rapist, which ultimately exposed the brutality of sexism. Just a few months earlier, thea- tre company Unifaun's attempts to stage an Andrew Nielsen play, Stitching, were thwarted by the Stage and Film Classification Board, resulting in a Constitu- tional case that the producers of Stitching were to go on to lose. But instead of a chilling effect, the two cases of blatant repres- sion on seasoned artists served as an awakening for the artistic community, culminating in a mock funeral for free speech. The dark side exposed The evocative image of the Uni- versity of Malta rector's beadle seen dumping piles of the left- wing newspaper Ir-Realtà placed in the university's hallway to be taken for free, had exposed the darker side of a conservative Malta. The police report filed by rector Juanito Camilleri led to a court case, which was ultimately thrown out by the law courts in a landmark sentence in 2011 which upheld freedom of speech. Riding on the crest of a more liberal social climate ushered by the watershed divorce referen- dum, the newly-elected Labour government proceeded to undo anachronistic laws limiting free- dom of expression. Criminal sanctions for "vilifica- tion of the Roman Catholic reli- gion, and other cults tolerated at law"– an offence that previously entailed imprisonment of up to six months – was removed. The 1975 obscenity laws invoked against Vella Gera and Camilleri, which generically outlawed any expression that 'unduly empha- sised sex, crime, horror, cruelty and violence', were removed. But a decade after Li Tkisser…, the artistic community is itself faced by the moral dilemmas posed by universal distaste to- wards a carnival float, which was not allowed to carry the words 'St Joseph Home' or be banned from the national carnival defilé organised under the auspices of the culture ministry. Newly-ap- pointed minister José Herrera insists the case has got nothing to do with censorship, but legal ad- vice that the float is "defamatory and constituted hate speech" – ostensibly for linking Archbishop Charles Scicluna to a history of sex crimes in the St Joseph In- stitute, Malta's singular case of major child abuse in a church in- stitution. "If a student at a church school is caught dealing drugs, we shouldn't perceive the arch- bishop as a drug dealer just be- cause he is the head of the institu- tion… There is always a limit, and we shouldn't tread maliciously on others," Herrera said. But his interpretation was shot down by the anti-censor- ship campaigner and National Book Council chairman Mark Camilleri, who says only the courts should establish whether something is defamatory or not: "Against whom is it defamatory? The Archbishop? The children's home? Herrera is incorrect, he is clutching at straws." Now that the float will still make it to the defilé after the reference to the children's home was removed, it seems the official intervention did result in chang- es to an "artistic" exhibit – which begs the question, why would not the same reasoning lead to cen- sorship of any satire on public figures linked to nefarious acts like corruption? A test case for a new minister Author Alex Vella Gera con- siders the controversy over the carnival float as a test case for these changes. "I have been asked a number of times on the impact of these legal changes and I have always answered that one has to wait for another case where the temptation to censor is too big for the authorities, perhaps to ap- pease public opinion… and final- ly eight years after my case was concluded, we have a test case for the new law… And finally we have a good test case for the law. And what does the minister do… he censors… It just shows that this was a cosmetic change." Sure enough many in the artis- tic community did not feel there was much to defend in the carni- val float itself. Vella Gera himself thinks it was done in "bad taste", but then bad taste is no justifica- tion to censor. "The more it is felt to be in bad taste, the greater the test case, because what makes a decision difficult is to accept the right of expression of someone you find irritating and who insults your own values." For, as happens the world over, it is often bizarre and distasteful cases often pose a test for case law. So how far can tolerance for the distasteful be extended? Would it be ok to exhibit a float mocking stranded asylum seek- ers? It such questions that could put us between a rock and a hard place. One overlooked aspect of the controversy is the context: that of a float in an officially sanctioned carnival defile. MaltaToday edi- tor Matthew Vella commented as much that the problem with the float was "its inappropriate place in the grand Defilé" – an aspect of carnival which unlike the sponta- neity of counterparts in Nadur and Hal Ghaxaq "has always had a degree of sanitisation… there are expectations of certain levels of profanity which a carnival that has the 'blessing' of national au- thorities will never be able to go beyond". Moreover, it may well be un- fortunate that the limits of insti- tutional tolerance to free speech have been tested with what Vella calls "unsophisticated juxtapo- sition of images", which many, including LGBTIQ activists and social workers, found offensive to their sensibilities. But it's songwriter and compos- er Alex Vella Gregory who made one of the most succinct points in a Facebook comment, where he identified the float's most prob- lematic aspect: the lack of social responsibility by its creators "to make sure that any satire is not made at the expense of the weak and vulnerable" – in this case, the St Joseph Home residents. Further muddling the affair was the "inability of the artists to ex- press a clear thought or position, and throwing in further unrelat- ed elements including two men holding hands standing over a cake – what exactly are we sati- rising here? Same-sex couples? Confectionery?". For Vella Gregory the float con- troversy reflects a poor under- standing of satire. "Satire should make us ask fundamental ques- tions – and Carnival can be a su- perb platform for it. But if we re- duce it to mere spectacle, that is precisely what we will get. In this case it's a macabre spectacle of ignorance, anger, and frustration. He contends that the ban on censorship has not "liberated" Carnival, which till some time ago was dominated by Disney characters. "Most of the floats are mere eye-candy, devoid of social commentary. Some have made efforts but the end result remains weak, precisely because they lack the depth of thought," and warns that as long as we justify medioc- rity with the excuse of freedom of expression, "the result will be From 'Li tkisser sewwi' to a carnival pastiche Has the St Joseph Home carnival f loat exposed the mediocrity of our satire, or the cosmetic quality of our censorship rules? Float-maker Rayvin Galea with the giant effigy of Charles Scicluna, the centrepiece of his float, and (inset), the original design

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