Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/969423
10 maltatoday SUNDAY 15 APRIL 2018 News Graffitti: Since 1994, fighting the power Since 1994 Moviment Graffitti has been a fixture on the fringe of Maltese politics. Himself a founder of the group in the mid 1990s, James Debono takes a trip down memory lane GRAFFITTI struck again, only last week in the boardroom of the Planning Authority, unfurling a banner right before the eyes of the unwitting decision-makers, saying 'ABZ mill-ODZ?'. I witnessed the spontaneous action of commit- ment. It captured the public's at- tention, livestreamed by the press. Even this very newspaper sang the praises of this band of demonstra- tors in its leader last week. Moviment Graffitti has now been around for nearly 25 years. And of the original crop of activ- ists only a couple remain, with this left-wing movement having seen an enormous turnover of activists over the years. It has seen various generational changes as activists left and fol- lowed new pastures. Yet, defying the odds facing similar organisa- tions which tend to dissipate with time, Graffitti continues to out- live its members and now thrives among a new crop of millennials. Its central message, playfully left wing, anti-racist, socially liberal and largely focused on land use issues, has remained constant. Moreover its militancy and affin- ity to counter-cultural tastes in music and lifestyle gives activists a strong sense of identity… some- thing which triggers in myself the foggy nostalgia of ideological dis- cussions on the merits of Louis Althusser while listening to the righteous sound of Rage Against the Machine, a major influence on the group's founders. This was the early 1990s, well before the age of Facebook and social media, when the move- ment communicated its messages through amateurish pamphlets sold on the University campus. Some of the idiosyncrasies of Graffitti's early days are captured in Guze Stagno's novel Inbid ta' Kuljum and in Karl Schembri's Il- Manifest tal-Killer. And while the movement's radical image may have turned off boorish and so- ber types, it was one of those few spaces on the island where diver- sity in matters like sexual orienta- tion and lifestyle were part of the norm. Its ideology has shifted from defiant Marxism and an affinity with Zminijietna, which included former militants of the Maltese Communist Party, to something more akin to anarchism, green politics and new left politics. For years it even used the of- fice of the defunct Communist Party in Strait Street, Valletta. In 2000, the internal debate and vote to support EU membership was taken under the watchful gaze of portraits of Korea dictators Kim il Sung and Kim Jong Il, remnants of the old Communist Party, always the butt of jokes of the young ac- tivists. In local politics, Graffitti had shifted from open support for La- bour before the 1996 election to an on-and-off romance with AD, sometimes acting as a recruitment pool for the Greens. But the movement's leftish identity did not prevent active cooperation with the Studenti Demokristjani Maltin (SDM) dur- ing the stipend protests in 1996. While it remained ideologically exotic and sometimes sectarian, Graffitti also played an important role as a coalition builder espe- cially on land use issues. While many praise the movement for its non-partisan consistency after having protested against all kinds of governments, it was its remark- able ability to get its hands dirty in alliance building which may be its long-lasting legacy. To do this it had to resist the constant temptation to see itself as a vanguard. Over the years Graffitti's tendency to distinguish itself from the crowd – sometimes openly antagonising potential al- lies – may have been its greatest liability. One major success was the Front Kontra l-Golf Kors, a broad alli- ance of organisation ranging from farmers' and church organisa- tions to hunters and vegetarians, which successfully stopped devel- oper Anglu Xuereb's Verdala Golf course in 2004. This had been preceded by the Front Kontra l-Hilton, which saw Graffitti activists team up with Friends of the Earth and YMCA activist Jean Paul Mifsud, himself a fixture in student activism dur- ing the early 1990s before dedicat- ing himself to the voluntary sector and lately to the production of ol- ive oil in Sicily. This alliance tradi- tion was kept alive with variable success, in sub- sequent fronts and alli- ances formed in the next two decades. And such alliances were always TOP: The Graffitti newsletter: the first issue, replete with news of its political stands, some ideological disquisition lightly bandied about, anarchic cartoon strips, music reviews TOP RIGHT: 'Mark Fottimenti' (Fiddled results). Michael Briguglio unfurls a banner just as University rector Peter Serracino Inglott addresses students at the start of 1995 student year RIGHT: Taking on the Church and protesting the control of the University of Malta's Faculty of Theology by the Maltese archdiocese