I have a small question. You know that elusive little part in the Constitution of ours about “freedom of expression” and “freedom of association”? Is it there just for fun?

Reason I ask is that last Wednesday I went along – or tried to go along – to Dr Rebecca Gomperts’ public lecture at the Castille Hotel in Valletta.
Dr Gomperts is a young, female Dutch doctor who seems to have put the entire country into a panic this week, by suggesting that the pro-life hegemony of this country might be… um… WRONG.
So obviously, she had to be shut up by any means necessary. And boy, did they try to shut her up.

Outside the hotel, there was a candle-lit vigil of the kind we tend to see outside US prisons whenever a death row convict is about to walk the green mile. You know how it goes: all those pious Christians, holding hands, chanting hymns, scarcely able to conceal their sexual arousal as the prison lights flicker, and 1,000 volts fry some poor wretch’s body to a crisp… and then, the gleeful, spiteful anticipation of the deceased sinners’ eternity of torment in the fires of Hell…
Anyway. Take away the perverse gratification that inevitably accompanies an execution, and that was roughly the sort of scene to greet the would-be audience on Wednesday evening.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, very few people actually braved this Rosary Gauntlet to listen to what Dr Gomperts had to say… which, of course, was exactly what the protest organisers wanted.
Of the few who survived the initial barrage of Hail Maries, around half were self-avowed Evangelist Pentecostal Christians, whose noble purpose was to heckle and disrupt the speaker, and reduce the question-and-answer session to an Evangelical version of the Twilight Barking episode from the 101 Dalmations (or was that Damnations? Can’t remember now…)
A very edifying spectacle, I hasten to add. In fact, I have already made a mental note to join the Church of Evangelical, Pentecostal Nutters from Heaven, so that I, too, can learn how to hiss like a snake, screech like an owl and strut my stuff like a Divine Peacock, snug in the knowledge that I am guaranteed a one-way ticket to Paradise, while the rest of you sinners fry in Hell for all eternity, Amen.

But this is all incidental. For the Evangelist Check-Point Charlie on St Paul Street, Valletta, was but a tiny part of an incredibly well-orchestrated campaign to keep this single little woman from even opening her mouth in this country.
The full list of machinations is too long for the purposes of this article, so what follows is but a small taster of the extent to which some will go to silence any opinion with which they disagree.

On Wednesday 10 October – the day of the seminar – Nationalist candidate Michael Bonnici filed a report with the Police Commissioner, claiming that the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act (2005) should be used to prevent Dr Rebecca Gomperts from being allowed into the country in the first place.
Please note: to prevent her from entering this country. This country being Malta. Not Libya, not Burma, not Zimbabwe, but Malta: a self-avowed democracy, signatory to the Universal Charter of Human Rights, and an EU member State since 2004.
Apart from revealing a shocking disrespect for the basic principle of freedom of expression, Bonnici’s argument is so visibly fallacious, so outrageously facile, that I am suddenly doubtful whether he was even being serious.
The former MEPA board member argues that the Domestic Violence Act recognises the unborn child as part of the family unit, a fact which (he claims) entitles it to police protection. By inference, one assumes that people who are not part of any recognised family unit, are for the same reason not entitled to any such protection at law… but let’s leave that aside for the moment.
The real flaw in the argument is that, for this particular law to apply, it has to established that the safety of at least one unborn child was somehow jeopardised by Dr Rebecca Gomperts’ visit this week. And yet, as should be painfully clear to anyone with even half a brain, Gomperts’ presence at did not pose any danger to any existing unborn child, for the simple reason that she was here to give a lecture, and not to perform an abortion.

This is really a very basic, very simple point, and Michael Bonnici’s failure to grasp it says a lot about his parallel failure to ever make any headway in politics. (Although from what I understand, he still enjoys a certain popularity among the fish farming industry.)
But even if Bonnici’s logic were impeccable – which it was not – the implications of his obtuse initiative are, for want of a better word, terrifying.
What Michael Bonnici seems to be implying is that a person can be arrested simply for being pro-choice, and saying so in public. Apply the same principle to other controversial opinions, and it quickly becomes apparent that what we are actually dealing is nothing less than lunacy.
For instance: can a person be arrested for suggesting that, in his view, the introduction of the death penalty might be justified in some cases? Not in any democracy I know. Or how about this example: on TV last night, (Thursday), a programme called Str82dpoint – or something equally SMS-ish – hosted a panel of youngsters discussing the legalisation of soft drugs. More than one speaker was openly in favour of the concept. And yet, drugs are widely viewed as a threat to the same family unit that Bonnici has vowed to protect. So why doesn’t he report Robert Francalanza, and all his guests, for violating the Domestic Violence Act?
Likewise AD’s Harry Vassallo is in favour of divorce. But isn’t divorce an affront to the family (at least, if you’re a Christian Democrat who was dipped in the River Hypocrisy as a baby?) So why…? Oh, forget it.

Had it just been Michael Bonnici, I would have said: fine. The less gifted among us evidently cannot get their heads around the simple fact that others have a right to an opinion, regardless of whether you, I or anyone else actually agrees with them or not.
But it’s not just Michael Bonnici. Also on Wednesday, The Times ran an editorial which included the following, deeply disturbing comment: "This country must not be seduced into thinking that moral codes are relative and that freedom of expression is an absolute right."

Huh? What? Excuse me, Mr Bugeja, but… freedom of expression IS an absolute right. More than that: it is a fabulously absolute right, cited as a defining hallmark of democracy across the globe. It is guaranteed by the Universal Charter, it is entrenched in the Constitution of Malta… honestly: how much more absolute do you want it to be?
What I’d like to think Ray Bugeja meant (because I’m suddenly in a half-generous mood) is that human rights come with obligations, and that one must therefore assume responsibility for how one exercises his or her right to freedom of expression. This is why we have laws against incitement to racial hatred, etc.
But the two statements are not interchangeable: one is correct, and the other is a pile of unadulterated hogwash. And I have to say it is sad – actually, tragic – that of all bloody things it had to be a newspaper to recommend the wholesale curtailment of the right to express an opinion, simply because it disagrees with the opinion expressed.

And just when you think things couldn’t get more inflexible, what happens? Why, the Bishops – bless their cotton little mitres – take time out from sorting out parochial band club rivalries, to get together and flex a little Episcopalian muscle.
Or so they think, at any rate.

"Abortion is not a choice or a right. Abortion is murder. Abortion is the denial of the right to life and the destruction of humans and civil society."

Wow. What a solemn declaration of authority. Of compassion. Of hysteria. And what fabulous, fabulous absolutism, from beginning to end.
Please note, for instance, the complete lack of any acknowledgement of the difficulties faced by woman caught up in unkind circumstances. Please appreciate the insensitivity towards women who may already have aborted, who are racked by guilt, and who fondly imagined the Mother Church might welcome them back with open arms. How would they react to that statement, I wonder? But then again, who cares? They’re just a bunch of murderers…
Please note also how categorically all cases – from the cosmetic to the therapeutic to the ectopic to the encephelopathic – are simply bundled into one basket; no distinction, no concession, no compromise, no discernment. I can only wonder what an intellectual like Pope Benedict XVI – whose own contributions on the subject are so infinitely more elevated – would make of his Maltese representatives’ efforts. Actually, better not. The thought of an angry Joseph Ratzinger is a little daunting, even for me.

But above all, please savour and appreciate the unmistakable taste of fear in that undignified outburst: the terror that this little woman has so clearly struck into the Mighty Curia’s soul. The unwillingness to discuss the issue, or to even permit that any discussion take place. The subliminal desire, so ill-disguised in our Bishops’ knee-jerk reaction, that Dr Rebecca Gomperts, and all she represents, should simply disappear, and take her ghastly subject with her. If their panic was any more audible, I’d feel compelled to drive over to the Archbishop’s Curia and offer them a hanky. It’s OK, Paul. You can come out from under that table, she’s gone now…

All things told, Rebecca Gomperts might not have won over many hearts and minds in this country. But her visit has nonetheless served a very useful purpose.
It has illustrated how unready we are to handle opinions with which the majority of us think we disagree.
It has illustrated with frightening clarity how scared we are of any real public debate – which in turn explains why what passes for “discussion” on programmes like Xarabank invariably take the form of loud, uncivilised slanging matches.
It has thrown into sharp focus our intense unfamiliarity with the European Union, which we evidently thought was just about roads and structural funds.
And it has once again established that at the end of the day, “democracy” is nothing but a nine-letter word beginning with a “D”.