Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1527863
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 OCTOBER 2024 NEWS Seven years on: Making sense of the LEGACIES aren't written when a person is still alive. The first words start to take shape after a person dies - but it's up to those who knew them to pick up the pen and start writing. When Daphne Caruana Gali- zia was murdered, it was clear that her legacy was going to be a complicated one. She was called a 'One-Woman Wikil- eaks'; she was also called 'The Witch from Bidnija'. On the same day people began to mourn her death, others cele- brated it. Others sat with their anger until it turned into something different – an urge to do some- thing, change Malta, and inad- vertently rewrite the narrative around the polarising figure that was Daphne Caruana Galizia. MaltaToday speaks to the people who have been at the forefront of this process to un- derstand what has changed and how we can recover from the murder. From anger to activism Martina Urso, who works with The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, didn't know Daphne personally. She did, however, read her blog religiously. Her political activ- ism pre-dates Daphne's mur- der, although it had been more casual and informal. It was only after her murder that she and her friends took their activism more seriously. "We were angry, but there are two things you can do when you're angry. You can either complain and do nothing about it, or it can motivate people to act," she said. "My friends and I hadn't even discussed it; it was just something we knew we wanted to do. We exchanged ideas, we all had different ideas and political backgrounds, but we were all angry about one thing." What started off as anger for Martina became a longer emo- tional process. "It starts off as anger, and then you start to think, and when that anger passes you can think more stra- tegically about what else you can do." Meanwhile, the Daphne Caru- ana Galizia Foundation was set up by the journalist's family with an aim to securing justice for her. Matthew Caruana Gal- izia, Daphne's son, describes its initial purpose as "a frame- work for the advocacy and legal framework to secure justice for the murder and corruption". "We felt that Malta was weak institutionally, and we still do to some extent. What was missing was this resilience to corruption. Civil society didn't have the tools to make the country more resilient to state capture," Caruana Galizia said. Since then, the work of the Foundation expanded. For Martina, the amazing thing about the Foundation was that it filled a gap and provides the support that could have helped Daphne if she was alive. "I think in everything we set up we always had this in mind. It's something the country re- ally needed, and that Daph- ne would have made use of. If these are projects that she would have used, then there's a need for it." Silence not an option Robert Aquilina, a notary who founded the rule of law NGO Repubblika after Daphne's mur- der, didn't know Daphne per- sonally either. However, he had approached her with informa- tion in the year before her death on the resignation of former FI- AU chief Manfred Galdes. "I had clear evidence that Manfred Galdes was con- strained to resign because he wasn't being allowed to do his work properly. I passed on the evidence I had. It wasn't any- thing she didn't already know." Robert only ventured into ac- tivism after Daphne's murder, specifically when he felt that there was a gap in civil society. "At first, I thought other peo- ple will take the lead, and that I would participate as a member of the public. When I saw that this wasn't going to be the case, I felt compelled to take the ini- tiative with some other people." It wasn't just Martina and Robert who were angered by Daphne's murder. The same day of her assassination, a vigil was held in the Sliema and St Julian's area. Robert decided to attend, but he felt the initiative was misguided. "I understood the idea and motivation of whoever had or- ganised that vigil, but I don't think it was the measure that should have been taken that night. The anger and shock that people felt at the time shouldn't have been wasted in a vigil where the attendees simply walked in silence. We should have taken action that respected the gravity of the sit- uation," he said. Six days after; a protest Six days after the murder, a protest was held in Valletta. Robert attended the protest but was disappointed to see Labour ministers Chris Fearne and Helena Dalli, and the pres- ident at the time Marie Louise Coleiro Preca a few steps away. "I felt it was absurd to protest with the same people who could have stopped the state of im- punity that existed at the time, and that facilitated Daphne's Her murder sparked outrage, but it also sparked inspiration. Seven years later, how is the perception of Daphne Caruana Galizia changing? Nicole Meilak speaks to her son Matthew and others who were pushed into activism by her murder.