Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1495665
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 MARCH 2023 COMMENT Politics of compromise ROBERT ABELA INTERVIEW PAGES 8 - 10 The Skinny Malta, shrunk down MICHAEL FALZON The unravelling of Muscat's coalition PAGE 7 RAPHAEL VASSALO 'Get Whatsapp', they said. It's 'safe and secure', they said... PAGE 11 EDITORIAL An abdication of duty PAGE 2 JOSANNE CASSAR No, it's not because she is a woman, it's because she is an MP PAGE 5 "Not everything was right in these 10 years and like every other government the Labour Party could have done better in some instances…" What are we skinning? Author, historian and former Malta Book Council Chairman Mark Camilleri's decision to publish an extensive transcript of WhatsApp chats be- tween PL backbencher Rosianne Cutajar and alleged Daphne Caru- ana Galizia assassination mas- termind Yorgen Fenech, ahead of the former's libel case against Camilleri going to court. Why are we skinning it? Because it's been on everyone's minds, lips and the memes they con- sume over the past week. Really, it doesn't get more 'skinniable' than this. Shouldn't these chats be the pre- rogative of the courts? Technical- ly, yes. Then why isn't this an open and shut case, one that is most decid- edly NOT in Camilleri's favour? Partly because the content leaves a white-hot blast radius that nulli- fies all else in terms of public per- ception, for reasons that are both edifying and not. What's the other reason? Let's just say that content matters, and that there's very little about this that is 'open and shut'. You know you CAN elaborate, if you want to... Okay, I will. The chats do not only regale us with tales of onanistic prowess and du- bious metaphors involving Cordi- na pastizzi. They are also a literal, black-on-white representation of how the collusion between poli- tics and big business pans out in this country. You're saying they offer an x-ray into the machinations of Maltese corruption? You can sometimes be far more eloquent than me, and that makes me feel both inse- cure and proud. It's a mix of emotions I've picked up on while parsing through 'Ros & Yors' unbeatable (!) two-hand- er (!). The puns write themselves. They've already written them- selves in fact. To oblivion. But do you honestly think that the majority of the population will pick up on the deeper impli- cations of it, or will they just coast on the superficialities and forget about the whole thing soon after? Look, one leak (!) will not topple an entire political super-structure. But there's some value in the erst- while emperors being discovered with no clothes on (!). What value would that be? A chipping away at political omertà. An example – for the ages – of how sleazy, petty and ugly such an unholy alliance can be. How driven it is by petty interests and a blatant disregard for the common good. But we cannot rely on such vin- dictive actions to guarantee a level playing field, in the long run. We cannot and we shouldn't. But we SHOULD ask ourselves why this feels like such a cathartic lightning bolt for Maltese society as a whole. Do say: "There may be a legalis- tic case to be made for the publi- cation of these chats in a public forum when they should have technically remained in State custody to serve towards Yorgen Fenech's case. Neither should we dismiss issues pertaining to personal (online) privacy, and the right to even public individuals to enjoy a reasonable measure of it. But the chats do not merely traffic in prurient gossip – they re- veal, black-on-white, how the rot of corruption can take hold, and how it justifies itself and contin- ues to proliferate." Don't say: "Mark Camilleri contin- ues to prove how he was a more than adequate candidate for his post as National Book Council Chairman. The chats must have bumped up the average reading rate of the Maltese public some- thing fierce." No. 184 – Ros & Yors 4 Eva