Novelist reacts to Attorney General's defence of Realtà appeal's 'god reference'

READ THE APPEAL: 32 pages in five PDF files on Google Docs

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The Attorney General has written in to the MaltaToday.com.mt comments-board stating his reference to God in his appeal of the acquittal of writer Alex Vella Gera invokes the right of people not to be insulted or treated to ridicule for their religious beliefs.

“The references to God were first made in what appears to be a rather capricious manner in evidence tendered by the defence,” he said referring to Vella Gera’s statement in court, which he quoted in his appeal.

“The submissions made on this evidence in the appeal aim at making the point that most people in our society believe in a God, that they have a right not to be insulted or treated to ridicule for believing and that religious belief is a much more important reality and element in shaping what constitutes public morality than the egos of individual writers – be they of the all-knowing, all arrogant breed or otherwise,” Peter Grech said.

But he said his lengthy 32-page appeal was not based on religious, rather than legal arguments.

“This interpretation is not at all objectively justified and represents a very one-sided view bent more on constructing a platform for treatment to insult, ridicule and contempt rather than on any real interest in informing the public about the true grounds of appeal.”

MaltaToday’s report was based primarily on Grech’s interpretation of Vella Gera’s reference to ‘god’ in his court testimony, and a succinct summary of his appeal’s main planks.

In court, Vella Gera said he wanted to give readers total immersion in his first-person monologue Li Tkisser Sewwi – narrated by a sex-driven man who treats women sordidly – “without any moralism, in the sense that I didn’t include the voice of God saying ‘look you’re going wrong’.”

Quoting this statement in his appeal, Grech says Vella Gera had to realise that there are others “whose ideas, preferences and tastes are unlike his; a society that must be protected, and its morality preserved.

“And there’s God above everything and above everyone, and God is certainly bigger than the biggest of egos of even more famous writers.”

But in a reaction, Vella Gera posted his own comment addressing Grech, saying he misunderstood his reference to ‘god’.

“I was referring there to the God-like point of view in a narrative, where everything is certain, and the protagonist of the story would be thoroughly condemned in the text itself, unlike in Li Tkisser Sewwi where the condemnation is left to the unreliable narrator himself, as so ably described by Adrian Grima as ‘jinqela’ f’zejtu’.

“My reference to god had nothing at all to do with the divine God-head, Christian or otherwise. Perhaps a crash course in literary criticism would help you along somewhat.

“The fact that you jumped so readily onto that point does seem to suggest a knee-jerk reaction and thoroughly deserves ridicule.”

In his appeal Grech will argue on “the element of free distribution of the work in question to young persons… It would certainly not appear to be at all reasonable to conclude that any work that may be published may also be distributed free of charge to young persons and it would do no disservice to your readers if some more information were to be given on this aspect of the appeal,” Grech wrote on MaltaToday.com.mt.

He will ask the Court of Appeal to consider that Vella Gera’s work was not in the public interest; that the witnesses Lino Spiteri, Profs. Kenneth Wain, Albert Gatt, Ranier Fsadni, Maria Grech Ganado, Adrian Grima and Toni Attard – presented by the defence – were not court experts and therefore expressed their subjective opinion; and that the short story does not constitute “an instrument of spiritual elevation or aesthetic pleasure”.

A total of 12 pages are dedicated to a lengthy exposition of the juridical interpretation of pornography, and its treatment by American, British, and Italian courts.