Tales from the Land of Serenity Part 11

‘Tales from the Land of Serenity’ came into being shortly after the horrific assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta on 16th October 2017. A well-known investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb, minutes away from her home in Bidnija. The title of these stories derives from words spoken by the Maltese Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, a few days after her murder: ‘When the MEPs visit Malta, they will do so with a sense of serenity…’[image error]

As a normal land with normal laws with normal people who stay indoors, the Land of Serenity was unexceptional. Likewise, each day was equally as unremarkable as any other. Nothing out of the ordinary, no dangerous bolts from the blue, and nothing to ruffle the feathers of the bird now limp and lifeless in the hunter’s happy hands.

Business, as always, carried on as usual in that rhythmic mundane tempo so expected of this land, with a bang bang bang and a drill drill drill and a beep beep beep and a pay-me-how-you-will, the citizens went about their work without complaint, although some did mutter unsavoury comments over breakfast about how that witch had got what she deserved.

In a land where freedom of speech was a natural birthright, the citizens, whose white robes mirrored their angelic aspirations, didn’t like to make a fuss when some of their brethren uttered sentiments which in many countries (including most of their neighbours) would have been condemned for being hateful, callous, cruel, vindictive, hideous, malicious, an incitement to violence, and grossly and grotesquely inhumane.

But the Land of Serenity had its name to live up to and so no-one in this haven of paradise was ever put to shame. “It takes all sorts to make a world,” they smiled and so serenely. “Shame is a shameful game,” the good citizens agreed. “No good ever comes from speaking evil,” they said, although this doctrine was not always applicable when one was speaking of the dead.

Still alive and still on vigilant duty, the Police Commissioner licked the final piece of rabbit from his plate. Still alive and still presiding over the clanking wheels of justice, the Attorney General made a quick call to his leader and reassured him that despite allegations made by their very own Minister for Justice, the politicians were categorically NOT responsible for the recent assassination of a journalist who had accused so many of these politicians of untold corruption on a widespread scale and had even used proof to support her allegations, proof which was now receiving ridiculous support from what was indisputably a fabricated body of evidence involving a mere 13.4 million documents dating from an insignificant number of years between 1950 and 2016 analysed by a handful of journalists – 381 to be precise – from a miniscule number of 67 countries.

“Nothing to worry about on that front,” the Attorney General smiled as he ended his phone call to a man – nay, a leader! – whose position at the helm of Serenity had no bearing whatsoever on the judicial procedures which had been praised for being an exemplary model of independence by everybody except those not lucky enough to live safely and soundly within this hush-hush of serenity.

In comparison to the harmless teasing taunts of those who spoke just a little unkindly of the dead, it could be nothing but brazen audacity or perhaps a wicked personal vendetta that had led the President of the Chamber of Advocates – tacitly expected to safeguard the laws of Serenity – to infer – and do so treacherously – that something was amiss. He even – and at this, the timid citizens of serenity covered their children’s ears – he even went so far as to suggest that this coveted land of cleanliness and truth was – oh, horror of horrors! – that IT WAS NOT A NORMAL PLACE!

This horrendous and brutal attack on the transparent procedures which sustain and feed and nourish the seamless structures of Serenity was, and to put it mildly, well below the belt in a land where nothing is, apart from the bone spat out into the Police Commissioner’s crotch as he choked on his over-cooked rabbit.