Seven years on: Making sense of the Daphne Caruana Galizia legacy

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 Galizia was murdered, it was clear that her legacy was going to be a complicated one. She was called a ‘One-Woman Wikileaks’; she was also called ‘The Witch from Bidnija’. On the same day people began to mourn her death, others celebrated it.  

Others sat with their anger until it turned into something different – an urge to do something, change Malta, and inadvertently 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 understand 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 activism pre-dates Daphne’s murder, 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 emotional process. “It starts off as anger, and then you start to think, and when that anger passes you can think more strategically about what else you can do.” 

Meanwhile, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation was set up by the journalist’s family with an aim to securing justice for her. Matthew Caruana Galizia, Daphne’s son, describes its initial purpose as “a framework 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 really needed, and that Daphne 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 murder, didn’t know Daphne personally either. However, he had approached her with information in the year before her death on the resignation of former FIAU chief Manfred Galdes. 

“I had clear evidence that Manfred Galdes was constrained to resign because he wasn’t being allowed to do his work properly. I passed on the evidence I had. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know.” 

Robert only ventured into activism after Daphne’s murder, specifically when he felt that there was a gap in civil society. “At first, I thought other people 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 initiative 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 organised 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 situation,” 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 president 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 impunity that existed at the time, and that facilitated Daphne’s murder,” Robert said. “I told the people around us that we weren’t supposed to protest with these people but against them.” 

A second protest was organised on the same day in front of the police depot in Floriana. “I found that more appropriate,” he said. When he arrived, there was a young girl passing around flyers to people. “This young girl approached me and said, ‘I have a few flyers for the protest. If I give you one, will you promise to stick around?’. I said of course, but let’s just block the road. It was as if people forgot how to protest in a certain way. 

Between the founding of Repubblika and the setting up of the Daphne Foundation, Matthew Caruana Galizia feels that Malta is more resilient as a country. “Civil society has taken root; it has structured itself.” 

A symbolic battleground 

A day after her murder, an impromptu memorial was set up on Valletta’s Great Siege monument, right in front of the Law Courts. People started to place floral bouquets at the foot of the monument and used the space to grieve and make sense of the matter. 

However, the memorial also became a point of contention – a symbolic battleground between those who wanted to celebrate her memory and those who felt that she did not deserve to be memorialised in such a way.  

Shortly after the memorial was set up, it kept being removed by government workers, acting on instructions from above, namely minister Owen Bonnici. In defiance, activists placed the candles, flowers and photos of the dead journalist back on the monument after each clearing.  

Robert is of the belief that it was not the minister’s intention to remove the candles and flowers every night. “I’m certain it wasn’t... but this ‘monster’ they created, this hatred that they allowed to foment against Daphne, came back to haunt them. People reached their conclusions: if Daphne hated Labour and Malta, how can we let a national monument be used in this way?” 

“I think we weren’t in a place to maturely confront this situation because Daphne was dehumanised, and so there was a large section of people who didn’t recognise that a living person was killed in a most macabre way. They spent years hearing that Daphne was a witch, and in their subconscious, they didn’t see Daphne as a person but rather as a traitor to the Maltese public.” 

Full justice first 

Here, Robert places some blame on the two presidents who were in office: Marie Louise Coleiro Preca and later George Vella. He feels that they failed to fulfil their duty as ‘moral leaders’ because they did not speak out soon enough.  

Some people have floated the idea of having a more permanent memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia. After all, memorials the world-over are part of the process by which people honour those who have suffered or died. They allow us to examine the past, address conflict, and eventually recover from it.  

However, Matthew Caruana Galizia feels it is still premature. One cannot move towards full recovery without full justice. 

“For me, before anything like a memorial is considered, we have to approach a situation of full justice. I don’t see us being close to that,” he said. “It would be possible, and even ideal, to have a physical reminder of what happened, but I think that has to come hand in hand with actual justice.” 

Moreover, Robert is of the opinion that a government-commissioned memorial for Daphne Caruana Galizia would be dishonest and hypocritical. Instead, he prefers the improvised memorial for the time being. 

“That memorial has an element of protest in it. At a time when we still have main institutions that have been infiltrated by criminal elements, the memorial in front of the Law Courts is more appropriate than to have a monument as if we’ve finished the fight. A monument would be better at a time when we’ve made more progress.” 

Changing the narrative 

It is no secret that Daphne Caruana Galizia was a controversial figure, and with reason. But those who revere her as a hero, like Robert, understand that fully – they just don’t think one fact doesn’t negate the other. 

“When I say that she was a hero, I don’t mean to say that everything she did was perfect. Daphne was a person like you and me. She certainly had her defects, but that doesn’t negate someone from being considered a hero,” he said.  

Robert pointed out that some of his own colleagues in activism had been criticised by Daphne back in the day. “This didn’t stop them from fighting for her legacy.” 

Despite the controversy, Daphne is well alive in the collective memory. 

Matthew himself has been approached by many people who say his mother inspired them into action. “Some would tell me: ‘I did this thing in my personal life because I was inspired by your mother’. They wouldn’t be things of national importance, but they would be matters of huge individual importance; positive and life-changing decisions that were inspired by my mother.” 

Even for Matthew, the memory of his mother is difficult to condense into a single moment. “People are multi-faceted. If you give one example, you leave the impression that they were like that all the time, and that there were no other facets.” 

As time passes, as justice is slowly served out for murder and her stories, people begin to look back on Daphne and revise her image in their mind. “People have been discovering that she wasn’t the way propaganda portrayed her to be,” Matthew said. “And I see that as one of our victories.” 

Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb outside her house in Bidnija on 16 October 2017. She was 53. Three men have pleaded guilty for placing and detonating the bomb, while two others are facing charges for procuring the explosive. A sixth person is awaiting trial for contracting the assassination.