Harry Vassallo | Wednesday, 04 March 2009

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The Crucifixion is such a well known event of tormented agony that it is commonplace, an easy metaphor, a cliché. We have been exposed to the sight of it so often that we stop seeing it. We are unable to see it with new eyes.
If Christ was crucified yesterday there would be no newscast of the violent scene. It would be too traumatic for most viewers and a clear breach of broadcasting standards to show it. Children could be watching.
On the other hand that awful scene has inspired great art and endless mediocrity. Some crucifixes stand among the greatest art treasures in the world. Others have become a fashion item worn without conscious reference to religious symbolism. From venerated relic to flippant bauble, the cross has meaning right through the range transforming outrage into divine sacrifice and unthinking caprice into imbecile outrage.
For some strange reason this is what comes to mind when considering the absurd reaction to a MaltaToday cartoon. Only those who stand in reverential awe of Richard Cachia Caruana could be shocked by his comical depiction as the Baptist in Caravaggio’s Beheading. The faithful are outraged and fuel the amusement of the infidels.
Our cartoonists are the spearhead of irreverence in a publication that abjures reverence in any form. Nobody is safe and our more prominent politicians have to bear the banter issue after issue.
What is it that makes Richard untouchable? Why should Lawrence Gonzi have his features stretched, his stature further diminished and his complexion corrugated further issue after issue without any chance of reaction while an almost unique appearance by RCC provokes official censure?
That must be it. We are unused to seeing Richard mocked, teased, poltrooned. Quite simply we are unused to seeing Richard at all. There has never been a Cachia CaruanaPN extravaganza. The man has never stood for election anywhere at any time. Except for the fact that he happens to be Malta’s Permanent Representative in Brussels, the man has no public life and seems never to have had one. He is awarded the reverence of the cross without the sacrifice, ultimate, penultimate, nor anywhere in the queue before that.
Reputedly aspiring to become our next EU Commissioner after a round of musical chairs taking Simon Busuttil from re-elected MEP to EU Perm. Rep., Richard remains a secretive man, the power behind the power, directing the orchestra without ever playing an instrument himself although he is reputed to be a true virtuoso in the string section.
With this apotheosis in the offing, he becomes fair game for irreverent journalists and he should get used to it. The public should learn all about him and not simply wake up one Autumn day to find that he has cornered the most lucrative public post available to the Republic of Malta. Everything should be known about him, vita, morte e miracoli as the Italians would have it. And he should have his fair share of cartoons.
The problem is that he’s not funny except when he seems to take himself too seriously. The hilarious spectacle of sober Richard throwing a tantrum over the MaltaToday cartoon is the rarest of treats. Too rare.
The rest of the time he is the J. Edgar Hoover of Maltese politics, setting the unattainable benchmark for unelected power founded on the cast iron promise of a crippling payback if and when he is thwarted. It doesn’t even inspire a smirk.
His defeat on the St John Co-Cathedral project seems to have unleashed the hounds and bitches of hell on poor Astrid Vella to gnash and slash at her in print and on the internet. That isn’t funny either. Or isn’t it?
He has been deprived of a chance to secure his legacy amongst the crosses, squares and triangles of the Religion’s temple just as he comes to the imperial throne in Brussels. His fury at squeaky little Astrid knows no bounds. FAA and its improbable heroine are to be crucified. If only it were possible to line a Roman way with these revolting slaves...
Now it starts to become ironic. The connection is too clear. The screen has worn too thin. The technique that once secured secrecy has been used too often and with increasing desperation in the last several months. Now it serves only to excite curiosity, the tantalizing prelude to indecent exposure... From the Beheading to the Crucifixion is a small step in a cartoonist’s world, an irresistible passage if the victim is no martyr and seen to be driving in the nails himself.

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