Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1414163
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 SEPTEMBER 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo If you can't handle the heat… don't turn it up to maximum FUNNY, isn't it, how the same old pattern just seems to keep repeating itself - over and over and over again – and yet, we al- ways end up somehow falling for it, every single time? But in case you're unfamiliar with this pattern, it goes some- thing like this: Step one: Someone, some- where, makes a grand, defiant (and/or attention-seeking) state- ment, which – intentionally or otherwise – sparks a social me- dia furore; Step two: Everyone rushes blindly to react to that state- ment… needless to say, without ever waiting to find out if there is any more to the picture than meets the eye… Step three: Inevitably, a pre- viously-unknown piece of the jigsaw puzzle suddenly emerges out of nowhere, to offer a whole new (ahem) 'perspective' on the situation… Step four: And just like that, we're all firmly entrenched back in our original positions… (un- til, of course, Step One happens again; whereupon, the entire pattern just starts over from scratch). Starting to sound familiar? Well, that's hardly surprising: seeing as it's happened around a giga-zillion times in my own living memory… and especially after such a glaring example sur- faced this very week. Oh, Ok: I may as well admit it: that 'pattern' I outlined above was tailor-made to fit one spe- cific case – you know, the one that goes: Step One: Manuel Delia an- nounces his imminent departure from these islands, out of 'fears for his personal safety'; Step Two: Everyone rushes to comment – and I mean lit- erally everyone: even the Prime Minister (!) took time out of his schedule to condemn the alleged (and so far, it must be said, un- specified) threats – without, of course, having a clue what may have been lurking in the back- ground; Step three: Inevitably, Shift journalist Caroline Muscat blows his cover, by revealing that he was actually going on a six-month paid sojourn in an undisclosed European city… (a safe-house programme offered by the ECPMF). And as for Step Four, it can al- most be reproduced here verba- tim. The only real consequence of all this brouhaha, it seems, is that those who all along sympa- thized with Manuel Delia, now have that much more to be sym- pathetic about; while those who mistrust (or despise) him, can now do so with even greater gus- to and relish than before. In all other aspects, however: the 'show' – as Delia himself so aptly described it on his blog – 'goes on', just the same as ev- er. So yes: make no mistake, it remains a textbook example of precisely the syndrome I de- scribed above; but still, I have decided not to comment on it any further… or at least, not to comment in a way that many of you might be expecting… for a number of reasons. Stating with this one. All things considered, it is my studied con- clusion that most of the ques- tions now being raised regarding Manuel Delia's motives – both for wanting to leave Malta in the first place; and also, for the ap- parently 'misleading way' he an- nounced his decision – are, quite frankly, irrelevant. Regardless whether or not he received any direct, credible threat to his own, or his family's, safety… there is no doubt in my mind – none whatsoever - that Manuel Delia himself was genu- inely unnerved ('spooked' would probably be a better word) by certain recent events. Not that I have any personal experience of being 'hacked', myself – not yet, at any rate – but I have received my fair share of aggressive, creepy, or just downright 'weird' phone-calls in my time. And though none of them could realistically be described as 'threatening' – you can't exactly report someone to the police for phoning you up at 6am, every Sunday, to ask if you had any 'tuna for sale', can you? – I can still confirm that the ef- fect (until you get used to it, at any rate) can indeed be discon- certing. Enough, perhaps, to make you look over your own shoulder a good deal more often than usu- al… or even question whether you really feel like writing that follow-up article after all… Besides: it would certain- ly come as a shock, to wake up one morning and find that your identity has been stolen by anonymous hackers… and is be- ing used – in ways that you can't either predict, or even properly fight – to publicly discredit you, damage your reputation, and God-knows what else besides... So even if Manuel Delia wasn't the sole target of this particular- ly unpleasant strategy – in fact, it remains a mystery to me why more importance was attached to his own case, than that of, say, Prime Minister Robert Abela (who, after all, claimed to be vic- tim of the exact same crime) – it is still the sort of experience that puts a whole different perspec- tive on things. You know: that sudden 'chill down the spine', that jolts you out of your previous compla- cency… so that the next random phone-call you receive (even if it's from your own mother, en- quiring why you're late to din- ner) makes you 'jump out of your skin'… Naturally, however, it is also tempting to point out that parts of the above – minus the iden- tity theft, of course – is equally applicable to some of what Ma- nuel Delia himself has written about others (not least, me), in the course of his own career in journalism. There are, after all, other ways to misrepresent someone's char- acter – and discredit them, dam- age their reputations, and all the rest of it – which do not involve actually hacking into their home mainframe computer, and steal- ing their personal data… But still: it doesn't change the fact that the general atmosphere, in this country, has indeed be- come a little 'too hot to handle', of late. And closing an eye at the paradox whereby Delia himself has so consistently turned up the heat himself… to me, it is highly indicative that the temperature is now too high for even the likes of Manuel Delia: so recently de- scribed (by Giovanni Bonello, no less) as "a dauntless journal- ist" with "the withering writing skills, the resilience, the passion, and, overall, the unflinching daring to tread the minefield…" Hmm. Now, I freely admit that may well come across as a rather unkind satirical dig, on my own part – though whether aimed at Delia, or Bonello, is up to you to decide – but trust me, it isn't (or at least: not entirely). This is, in fact, the single over- riding reason why I was initial- ly reluctant to even write about this matter at all. And it's not exactly easy to explain, either… But here goes anyway. My own experience – as someone who, like it or not, has written articles for public consumption for a fairly long time – has taught me to at least try and distinguish be- tween two, very different things: 1), the person who's doing the actual writing, and; 2) the fictitious 'persona' they adopt for that purpose. To offer myself up as an exam- ple: my own writing career has led me to develop a very thick skin – far thicker than I would even like, to be perfectly honest – but also, the sort of tempera- ment that traditionally goes with that sort of protective outer lay- ering. A bit like a rhinoceros, really: Manuel Delia