Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1411841
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 SEPTEMBER 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo Great: so now the EU is responsible for Daphne's murder, too… NEVER a dull moment in this country, is there? But let me start off with a small word of friendly advice to Repubblika's president, Robert Aquilina. Dear Robert: next time you de- cide to write an 'open letter' to someone of the stature of Pres- ident of the European Commis- sion – and especially if you also intend to distribute that letter to all local media (in PDF for- mat, too: you know, so sub-edi- tors can't even correct any mis- takes they find) – the very least you could do is… erm… run a spell-check first. Now: I know I'll probably end up kicking myself for this – be- cause it is not exactly 'good form' to gloat over other writ- ers' mistakes, is it? - but this is the very first sentence of the let- ter Aquilina so hastily sent out to all local media on Thursday: "Today is the 47th month since Daphne Caruana Galizia's assasination [sic]"… Yikes! Now: to be fair, that is what any sub-editor would im- mediately recognise as a 'typo' (as opposed to a 'genuine mis- take': in which case, we would have to conclude that Robert Aquilina doesn't actually know how to spell the word 'assassi- nation'). But he does, you know. In fact, he gets it right in the very next sentence. So I imagine he must have typed that first sentence – and probably the whole let- ter – in something of a hurry. And quite possibly, with more than a touch of… ANGER (be- cause – and here I speak from experience – that is when you are most likely to make such mistakes in the first place; and, even more so, to hit the 'send' button prematurely). I am, however, less convinced that his next howler is quite so innocent. Two sentences later, Aquilina writes: 'Last year, dur- ing the pubblication [sic] of the first EU-wide report on the rule of law…' Oh, dear. In a sense, I suppose it's just as well that Daphne her- self is no longer around to ac- tually react to that one. Judging by how she had once responded to a far more comprehensible misprint in The Times ('pur- gery' instead of 'perjury')… and also, the dim view she always took of such obvious 'Mal- tese-isms' - something tells me there wouldn't be very much left of Robert Aquilina at all, af- ter Daphne had finished tearing him limb from limb… But OK, I can guess what you're all probably thinking. I'm being quite the Grammar Nazi there, aren't I? And I think we can all agree (well, most of us, anyway) that 'Nazis' of any kind tend to be a rather unpleasant lot, when all is said and done. So… why am I attaching so much importance to a couple of (let's face it) minor, unimpor- tant mistakes, when there is so much else to comment about in that same letter? Well… it's a question that more or less answers itself. For while the typos, in themselves, may not amount to very much… the letter as a whole does amount to something rather ex- traordinary, when you read it all the way to the end. It's not just that the President of Repubblika – an NGO which aims to 'carry on the work of Daphne Caruana Galizia', if you please - would write an 'open letter' to someone like Commis- sion President Ursula von der Leyen… using a level of English that would be considered sub- standard, even coming from a dyslexic child… … no: it's that the logic of the argument it contains is even more alarmingly flawed than the spelling. Let's go over it again, shall we? Robert Aquilina first quotes extensively from the findings of the public inquiry into Daph- ne Carauana Galizia's murder, published last July (important detail, that: keep it in mind). In the interest of brevity, I will limit myself only to the main conclusion: i.e., that "the [Mal- tese] State must bear responsi- bility for the assassination […] because it created an atmos- phere of impunity […] leading to a collapse in the rule of law." Having made this point, Aq- uilina adds: "The impunity […] had long been exposed and been brought to the attention of the European institutions, however it is our considered opinion that the European Union failed to sanction it in a timely manner. This failure allowed impunity to grow to such an extent that Daphne was assassinated…" He then concludes that 'the European Union has a respon- sibility to [inter alia] acknowl- edge its failure in allowing such a situation to take root and de- velop in a Member State…' And I'll stop there for now, because… my illogicality meter has already lost track of all the fallacies and non-sequiturs, in just those few sentences alone. Let's start (as we did with the typos) with the most bleedingly obvious of all. Mapped out as a syllogism, Aquilina's logic runs as follows: a) the Maltese State has been found 'responsible' for the cir- cumstances that led to Daph- ne's murder; b) Malta is a Member State of the European Union; c) Therefore, the European Union is just as responsible as the Maltese state for the same failure. Q.E.D… I mean, honestly. That's right up there with the most famous historical example of this par- ticular logical fallacy: a quote attributed to the (deeply dis- turbed) French playwright/ director Antonin Artaud, who ended his days as a deranged beggar on the streets of 1920s Paris: 'Sir! The world has done me much wrong! You are part of the world, so you have wronged me! Give me five francs!" With the difference, of course, that there is something vaguely endearing about Artaud's trag- ic ramblings (I, for one, would certainly have given him 'five francs'… even if just for the sheer ingenuity of the demand). But coming from a supposed serious NGO, which has adopt- ed at its battle-cry the equally serious motif, 'Justice for Daph- ne'… I mean, come on. It's nuts. And even I – not exactly the big- gest fan of either the European Commission, or its current Pres- ident – can easily see that. It gets a lot worse, however, when you also realise that Rob- ert Aquilina has got his chro- nology of events all muddled up. Consider, for instance, his claim that: "the impunity […] had long been brought to the attention of the European institutions"… which, within the context of the entire argu- ment, can only be chronologi- cally placed at a point BEFORE Daphne was actually murdered (otherwise, how could the EU's 'failure to act' have possibly led to that assassination…?) Um… sorry, Robert, but that's bollocks. Not true at all. And anyone reading this can very easily confirm as much, by sim- ply running an Internet search for 'discussions about Malta's rule of law situation at EU level' (or key-words to that effect). I can guarantee that you will not find a single one that pre- dates October 2017…. for the very self-evident reason that it was Daphne's murder that ac- tually precipitated all the dis- cussions – and condemnations – that followed. Before that happened, however… there was, quite frankly, no real reason for any European institution to even discuss the matter at all. The very most that could have been (and was) 'brought to the attention of European institu- tions' – at any point before Oc- tober 2017 – was the fact that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had refused to sack Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, after their exposure in the Panama Papers. Repubblika president Robert Aquilina