The people versus... | Alex Vella Gera

It’s been a productive year for Alex Vella Gera. In July he launched two new books: a novel (L-Antipodi), and twin short story combo (Zewg), with the latter placing second in last Thursday’s National Book Awards ceremony. Next month his acclaimed rock group Hunters’ Palace will be launching a 10’’ single with a gig in London, and he is even now finishing two new novels: the first due for publication later this year.

And all along, the case against Li Tkisser Sewwa – the short story which catapulted him to national notoriety when published in a student pamphlet in 2009 – has been steadily chugging along in the background.

On Tuesday, an assortment of writers and academics gathered to testify in his defence:Lino Spiteri, Kenneth Wain, Ranier Fsadni and Maria Grech Ganado, among others. The following day, Vella Gera himself circulated a letter explaining his reasons for boycotting this year’s book awards. Namely, that an item on the PN-owned Net TV had described Mark Camilleri (Realta’ editor) and himself as “promoters of paedophilia”.

“Not only is it an unacceptable accusation and libellous slander,” Vella Gera wrote, “but an allegation that lacks any professional or human ethic.”

In the same letter he specified that he could not attend a ceremony presided over by “a prime minister who leads a party that dictates such an editorial policy.” I ask him if he holds the Prime Minister responsible for the oft-cited ‘cultural regression’ that landed him in court to begin with; but Alex Vella Gera openly doubts that the situation with regard to censorship has actually deteriorated since 2004.

“Whether there has been a ‘cultural regression’ or not, in concrete terms, is debatable. If there has been, I’m sure, as Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi would have had a say in it; though I’d be guessing the Bishops also have their fingers in that particular pie, perhaps even more so than the PM. What I do hold the Prime Minister responsible for – and also the leader of the opposition – is the mediocrity of their parties’ TV stations: especially the news reports which the few times I watch leave me dumbstruck…”

I confess I am surprised to hear him doubt that the censorship situation has deteriorated in recent years. ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’ was not the only item to have provoked a furious response of late. Equally seminal was the ban on Anthony Nielson’s ‘Stitching’ by the Stage and Film Classification Board; and there have been prosecutions even over Carnival costumes ridiculing religion. Elsewhere we have seen exhibitions (including a nude mannequin window display) shut down altogether… and more recently it was revealed that even classics such as Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Voltaire’s Candide have been removed from school libraries.

To cap it all, Parliament unanimously increased the penalties for Article 208 of the Criminal Code: the same article cited in Vella Gera’s own case, and to which he also alludes in his letter of protest against the book awards.

But Vella Gera remains unconvinced. “I’ve spoken with Mark Camilleri about this alleged regression you are referring to. Mark is 22, I’m 37, so there’s a big difference in our point of view, historically speaking. He claims the 1990s were far more liberal than the noughties (if much more politically bleak), but I’m not so sure. Remember the Duchess of Malfi scandal at the Manoel Theatre? Remember the army roadblocks arresting people with half a joint? What about people buying films on video by mail order (pre-Internet days) and having them stopped by customs, and having to sit before a board of censors to explain why you want your video released to you? I’m talking here about titles like Last Temptation of Christ, not pornography. Let’s face it, Malta was never that liberal. What’s happening now is that the mass media can easily create a fever pitch level of excitement about these issues which perhaps belies their importance in the public psyche…”

Be that as it may, immediately after the ban Vella Gera’s case was taken up by a Labour MP (Owen Bonnici). Did the involvement of politics help or hinder his situation?

“It hindered, if truth be told. The PN media immediately went onto the offensive, tried to tar and feather both Mark and myself… plus, when Owen Bonnici was ambushed outside the law courts and pressed by a singularly asinine journalist to read excerpts from the story, he mumbled, looked confused and embarrassed, and definitely did not impress me as being of the political stature required to bring about some changes.”

Vella Gera is also sceptical about Labour’s claims to being more liberal.  “There’s also something else to keep in mind. Although generally speaking, the left in Malta has definitely contributed more to Maltese literature (Guze Ellul Mercer, Guze Orlando, Alfred Sant, Frans Sammut, to name a few), there is a strong socially conservative element within the party which is definitely not going to lie down and die if PL takes power. I’m also not too convinced of this progressive tag. But that’s just me. I hate to get into political analysis because I don’t follow party politics too closely…”

On the subject of past authors: in a recent Facebook exchange, Vella Gera described Oliver Friggieri’s 1986 novel ‘Fil-Parlament Ma’ Jikbrux Fjuri’ as ‘politically naïve’, while also commenting that Linji Godda (the ‘progressive’ literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s) was not as ‘revolutionary’ as it was sometimes made out to be. I ask him to expand on these views, but the question seems to perplex him.

“Where did I say that about Linji Godda? I have no recollection of having said that...” (It was admittedly a very fleeting reference in the same thread). “As for ‘Fil-Parlament Ma’ Jikbrux Fjuri’, yes I believe it is a very politically naïve novel. Perhaps that was its intention: to explore the child inside the rebel, the village idiot as wise man… but if that is the case it gets nowhere and is not a very effective statement. I found it very disappointing, apart from a number of passages which are truly beautiful. The portrayal of Mintoff is also very weak. You can sense the author is pussyfooting his way around a hazardous obstacle course, trying to be effective yet stay safe. Which is impossible.”

Alex Vella Gera admits that up to a point he can understand Friggieri’s caution. “Back then there were real dangers hanging over one’s head if you dared to be outspoken. But to think that even the fact that a local author had dared address the political situation was in itself a challenge back in 1986 – never mind the actual content failing to stand up to rigorous intellectual and political scrutiny – goes to show just how repressed, how cowardly, how frightened, how sycophantic a large proportion of Malta’s intelligentsia and artists really were. Are they any better now? Not really.”

Nor is Friggieri the first author to stop short of rattling the cage. “Let’s go back even further. Frans Sammut’s ‘Il-Gagga’ is truly an excellent novel – one of the best ever in Maltese – but, for all its bravery and groundbreaking daring, there is still no mention of the Mintoff/Gonzi clashes of the time. Everything is implied, very vaguely. Once again, the author pussyfoots around a subject which may have got him into serious trouble if he went straight for the jugular. So the way I see it (and here I’m willing to be debated and proved wrong by anyone – I am hardly an expert on Maltese literature), self censorship is deeply ingrained even in the best examples of Maltese literature.”

As it happens, Sammut was among Vella Gera’s foremost critics: justifying the University rector’s ban on Li Tkisser Sewwi, though he publicly disagreed with the criminal charges. Vella Gera seems to imply that this, too, is part of the traditional caution of the Maltese novelist.

“Even today, when referring to Li Tkisser Sewwi’s lack of literary merit, Frans Sammut keeps harping on about the artistic skill necessary to be subtle. Alex Vella Gera is a bull in a china shop, while he’s a ballerina. Granted. As regards Li Tkisser Sewwi, I accept that criticism. But there are times when subtlety is the way to go, and other times when you’ve got to aim straight for the heart of the matter. That is something Maltese literature has rarely done. In fact, the only Maltese authors I have read who come close to hitting that nerve unselfconsciously are Alfred Sant and Immanuel Mifsud, although I’d say that ‘L-Ibleh’ by Guze Orlando is my favourite Maltese novel of all time…”

Paradoxically for the author of a proscribed text, Vella Gera seems to believe that ‘more censorship’ is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, it would also be an indication that Maltese writers have become more daring. This is not the case, however, and he argues that individual Maltese writers are often their own worst enemy.

“I’m quite sure that if things were really moving forward in this country, we would be seeing many more cases of censorship or attempted censorship. But in reality, self censorship still reigns supreme. And here I’m not referring to selectivity, that is part and parcel of the creative process - it is not ‘censorship’ anyway, regardless what Anton Bonnici claimed in his recent talk at a Front Kontra c-Censura function – but active self censorship where some subjects are avoided, some words are avoided, and a moral must be introduced to excuse whatever transgressions are portrayed by the artist/writer, whatever. The only thing I can say for sure is that things have certainly not got any better, except superficially. You’ll get someone saying ‘zobb’ in a TV serial, when in the 90s it was still practically unheard of…”

Alex Vella Gera’s own recent experience illustrates the point. “For ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’ to have caused such a furore, just because I refused to turn the reader’s eye away from the explicit details and the explicit language, makes one think how far Maltese literature has to go  to overcome this taboo. And in this respect, yes, whether I said it or not (I can’t recall), the so-called revolutionary literature of the 60s and 70s in Malta was not as revolutionary as it makes itself out to be. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be up to me to do the dirty work. They’d have done it themselves back then. This is not to say that an artistic revolution did not happen in the 60s. But it was largely technical and philosophical, a simple distancing from Maltese romanticism, and rather hermetic. I’m not saying that that was not important, and not an achievement… but it was not a moral revolution, and nor was it profound or radical. And once again, I am very willing to hear arguments to the contrary from those who know better, those who were there and who led that so called revolution…”

Coming back to 2011, and Judgement Day in his own case has now been set for March 14.  If he wins the case, would he expect University rector Juanito Camilleri to resign?

“No, absolutely not. Let me make this clear. I understand the rector’s position. Although he could have taken a different stance, and reacted in a more thought out and reasonable manner, I can see where he’s coming from. What happened is not entirely his fault. He had no choice, the way the law stands. So I see what happened as necessary to bring about changes. But besides the law changing, the whole mentality must change, in that the shock value of seeing obscene words in print must be eradicated for this nation to mature, to stop being infantile, as Kenneth Wain put it in court last week. I hope that in its own, roundabout way ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’ is contributing towards one day reaching that maturity, and if that is so, then even the rector has done his bit. I truly believe we are all in it together, although it doesn’t look that way at first glance.”

And for all the media brouhaha surrounding ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’, Vella Gera says it has not affected his private life too much. But he acknowledges that the issue may have damaged his standing within the local writers’ community.

“I know of at least one ‘critic’ who has refused to review my latest novel, ‘L-Antipodi’, while others seize every opportunity that comes their way to insist that I’m an upstart who – while not deserving to be charged in court (how thoughtful of them) – is definitely a legitimate target for derision and ridicule.  This used to bother me, but now I’m quite sure it’s a good sign that all this is happening. It means I’ve shaken things up. However, it irks me that I’m considered this Johnny-come-lately with no literary credentials at all who uses cheap stunts to gain fame, because that accusation cannot be further from the truth. But what can I do? They’ve made up their minds, probably to justify their knee-jerk reaction, and what’s done is done. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you’ve planned it and real events are always more interesting than imaginary ones. What’s happening with ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’, with the court case and the rest, is very real and is taking me somewhere I never dreamed I’d be destined to go. And for that I’m grateful to whoever it was that reported Ir-Realta Issue 8 to the rector…”