On May the 8th of 2008 I wrote about how the Broadcasting Authority emerged triumphant in their battle to censor the satirical/comical puppet show Teletubi indirectly by continuously imposing hefty fines on material which was bleeped and certified 18 only. This was the first glaring case of censorship this blog has criticized.
One year later, on May the 2nd of 2009 I wrote about how intellectual stalwart Oliver Friggieri attempted to defend Malta's position on censorship by arguing that Malta is merely a "snail amongst elephants" which will lose its identity if it ever dares to adopt a liberal public policy as our European counter-parts have done. It was around this time that the censorship on the play Stitching was still in the news. It was also the time when a group of Muslims were vilified and openly threatened for daring to practice their faith in public... simply because they were Muslims and not Catholics who publicly practice their faith with drunken fervor during festa season.
In February of this year we also had the Nadur Carnival incident which had seen 6 or so youths taken to the law courts (on the insistence of Bishops) for allegedly offending the Catholic religion by wearing religious vestment. With a stroke of luck their case was dismissed but only because they dressed up as nuns which, according to Holy Canon Law, are not ministers of the Catholic Church. If anyone thinks that there was some sense of sanity in the Courts' judgment they better think again.
Today censorship still prevails, the most recent victim being the 'Ir-Realta' collective which was banned from distributing its newspaper on Campus because of an article that purposely used colloquial cuss words to make a point and not to deliberately offend or degrade persons (in this case women). Unsurprisingly it was the University Chaplaincy which won another battle against free speech.
The only way to change this horrid backwardness is to stand up to all the 'intellectuals' who profess to have a monopoly over wisdom; to stand up against the Church who has a monopoly over what people should hear, say and think and do; to stand up against the politicians who fear doing their job to represent all people and to defend human rights at all costs. Too much is at stake and it would be sheer folly to remain idle and apathetic to all of this.
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