Healing an injured nation

Sometimes we do not realise the extent to which words alone can cause injury. Malta and Gozo suffered serious divisions in the 70s and 80s, worsened by street violence and leading to a sense of injustice and lasting friction between communities.

Despite attempts for national reconciliation, those wounds ultimately festered on both the sides of both the Nationalists and the Labourites. Many years of feeling oppressed by a Labour government led Nationalist administrations to entrench themselves and guard the whole pie. The ensuing years of practically uninterrupted Nationalist rule led Labour supporters to feel unjustly excluded from the decision making table, and at times they felt belittled and made to feel they were inferior.

When at last Joseph Muscat delivered Labour from Opposition to government once again with such a sweeping victory, the euphoria was understandable. Surely, after being marginalized for so many years, at last they could feel vindicated. Past Nationalist crimes were then used to justify new ones - because in modern Malta, the Nationalists had written the rulebook, and Labour felt it had no obligation to change the system that had made others so rich, fat and comfortable. The new Labour movement felt that it was time for their place in the sun, for their years of plenty. Having felt ridiculed, excluded and ignored before, it was now justified to do the same to the Nationalists who had oppressed them.

In the end, violence was used to silence Malta and Gozo's most critical journalist, and many Labourites actively cheered what they saw was the felling of an enemy who had threatened to return them to Opposition. A hated enemy's death can only be celebrated through dehumanisation, and that is what propaganda then did to Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was dehumanised, to make the hate appear reasonable. When Joseph Muscat set the terms of reference for the Egrant inquiry to absolve his family of responsibility, without discovering who actually owned it, he was able to create and project the image of a victim to the country, feeding into the narrative of Nationalist oppressors.

The Nationalists, suffering the same treatment received when last in Opposition, found themselves back where it had all began. Thus the cycle of hatred had reached its peak once again. The wheel that is the tribal war between Nationalists and

Labour was allowed to keep turning, despite the promises of an inclusive movement for all. The oppressed had become the oppressor. Labour supporters, feeling that they were justified in being above the law, closed eyes to scandal after scandal, and renewed Labour's mandate in 2017, fearful that should their side lose power, they would return to being themselves oppressed and marginalised.

Justice came at too high a price.

With Daphne Caruana Galizia's brutal political assassination, the divide in the country became a chasm; a deep and black abyss. Blinded by hatred, even in death, Daphne Caruana Galizia was demonised and ridiculed by government supporters. Outraged that a human being could be subjected to such comments, that her son could be blamed for her murder, the spite was returned by many against those who proved themselves so vile. For whatever grievances many had with Daphne Caruana Galizia's style, to lash at her in death after the manner of her execution is inexcusable. One of her greatest critics, Saviour Galzan, recently said “Let us all accept that we did not see eye to eye. But we still talked to each other and disagreed with each protester violence, only play into the narrative of "Us vs Them". What Malta and Gozo need is to turn a new page - but for this to be possible, there must be truth and justice. Labourites and Nationalists alike need to punish wrongdoing wherever it originates from, and set aside old grievances. Amends must be made to Daphne Caruana Galizia's family for all the injury and the hurt they have suffered and will alway suffer.

In the end, Labourites must learn one crucial thing. They do not need Joseph Muscat or any Labour MP to make them feel proud and strong and free. They do not need to hide behind a strongman so as to feel strong. Within them is the fire and the humanity to rise above petty differences which set us aside, and reach their own conclusions and judgements. To achieve this new chapter, however, the chains of control wielded by the political elites on both sides must be broken. There is no greater way to do that by ending party controlled media stations like ONE and NET News, which feed biased narratives which do not reflect reality. Labourites and Nationalists must remember that they are all Maltese and Gozitans first, and members of a party second. They must learn that the State is not one and the same as a political party which governs it. The State and its institutions stand above any party, and if abused for partisan gain, will only lead to hurt and suffering and a sense of injustice. All must benefit equally from the system, and all must work together for a better Malta and Gozo. The appointment of former Green Party chairman

Harry Vassallo as the Guardian of Future Generations, on recommendation of the Minister of the Environment, is just the sort of positive and non-partisan thinking that the country needs. Striving for this better chapter in our history will require difficult truths to be accepted, but in so doing, we will come out of it all the greater and more united, should justice prevail.