When being stupid does not do justice to being an ass

Neville Gafa is one of those nasty characters that exist in every party. A repulsive character who believes that the only way to convince people about the perceived supremacy of the Labour Party is to hammer the opposition with everything and anything.

Gafa is a Labourite for all the wrong reasons. To be frank, I am not quite too sure whether many understand why they are Labourites or Nationalists in the first place. 

His obsession with tarnishing the memorial of a dead person reveals a belief that borders on the obsessive and cruel. That would not be a problem, were it not for the fact that he is directly involved with the customer care service at the Office of the Prime Minister.

He was side-lined when Robert Abela was elected PL leader after Joseph Muscat’s fall from grace but has recently returned with a person of trust posting in Castille’s customer care department.

It was no coincidence that he returned to the fold. His return coincided with his repeated criticism of Labour including some ministers. A sort of pacifying gesture from Castille to silence his excesses.

But Gafa cannot stop being a maverick and a fool.

I was never a fan of Daphne Caruana Galizia; indeed, I was a harsh critic of her personal diatribes and commentary. Her obsession with class and her habit of destroying her adversaries by depriving them of their privacy was her trademark. Apart from being a daring journalist she was a careless and cruel commentator.

But you must give it to her that she was responsible for exposing the corrupt links between Castille under Joseph Muscat and big business. She also deserves credit for highlighting the serious implications of the Panama Papers scandal.

And when she was murdered by a plot clearly organised as a reaction to her decision to reveal certain elements of this story, a very thick red line was crossed forever.

Daphne, for all her faults, should never have been murdered and when we come to weigh things out, the fingers are pointing at the Muscat administration for allowing this to happen.  For all her attacks on me and so many other people, nothing forgives what happened then.  And the Labour Party should be really thanking the Lord that the Nationalist Party was in such a mess. Because in normal circumstances, a party with blood on its hands would be reeling at the ballots.

When the OPM communications office was asked on Friday to comment on the fact that Neville Gafa removed flowers from the Great Siege monument in Valletta on the day that marked the eight anniversary of Daphne’s assassination, the riposte was incredible for its dim-wittedness.

I cannot believe that no one vetted their reply or if their reply was indeed screened then it confirms my worst fears.

Castille said that Neville Gafa had, like everyone else, the right to his freedom of expression.  And if Repubblika had the right to express themselves why should not Gafa as a private citizen.

Now, just as an aside, I too have never appreciated Repubblika. Some of the characters militating within the group give me a stomach-churning ache. But I cannot understand why Castille needed to drag anyone into its argument.

Neville Gafa is involved in the customer care of the Office of the Prime Minister. It is a unit tasked with dealing with irate voters. Gafa is representing Castille and most of the time he is seeking the intervention of other ministries and departments to address complaints. It is a job best suited to someone who wields power and influence.

It goes without saying that Gafa is the face of the OPM. So, anything he does has an impact on the OPM’s credibility.

To walk to the memorial and remove flowers commemorating the moment a bomb explosion murdered Caruana Galzia is not exercising your right to freedom of expression but acting like an unforgiving and heartless ass.

The person from Castille who penned the riposte on his actions and compared it to the sacrosanct right of an individual to exercise his rights is an imbecile and living in some Trumpian utopia.

It also comes at a time when the person being accused of masterminding the murder is still awaiting trial.  Eight years down the line, Caruana Galizia’s murder in an open case.

Neville Gafa did what he did because he is reckless and simply because he thinks that his actions will embolden the diehards of Labour.

That may be true, but it will anger those who are neither red nor blue, but who elected Labour in 2013 and subsequent elections. And they do not number one or two, but thousands.

It angers me. And I was perhaps the harshest critic of Daphne Caruana Galizia. I was also the one who received more than her fair share of vitriol from 1994 until the day she was murdered. But I cannot be silent seeing such shameless shenanigans. Worse still, I cannot understand why Castille cannot simply tell Neville to fuck off.

What is the problem?

Here is a guy who adores Vladimir Putin and who writes from his backside, offends everyone and is willing to take anyone down, even if he lies.

There is a déjà vu here.

It reminds me of 2008 and 2013, when everyone was telling Lawrence Gonzi to dissociate himself from Caruana Galizia’s writings.

But there was a difference. Caruana Galizia was clearly a private agent for the PN government but not part of it. On the contrary, Gafa is employed at the OPM and this makes it so different.

Citing freedom of expression to justify being an ass is an awful way of tackling a problem.

The same argument follows for those who choose to increment their click baits by breaking all the rules or by departing from what is considered ‘decent’, such as interviewing a former top aide to Joseph Muscat who faces numerous criminal charges.

Life goes on, but as I see it, politics is all about layers. One layer adds to another and somehow the shine wears off. Neville Gafa has added another layer and if anyone is doing any thinking, they should be advising Robert Abela to rethink things.

I for one hope that this whole Gafa fuck up has been an oversight. I think I am wrong and the word deliberate best describes this state of affairs.