Kitsch – the absolute denial of shit Milan Kundera’s description of kitsch as ‘the absolute denial of shit’ best fits the rector’s decision to suppress student newspaper Ir-Realtà. By this I don’t mean that Alex Vella Gera’s short story Li Tkisser Sewwi – a graphic description of an unmistakably Maltese man’s sexual experiences and fantasies – is a shitty piece of literature. Quite the contrary. In contrast with a number of columnists (from Mark-Anthony Falzon to Daphne Caruana Galizia to Jacques Zammit) who have taken great care to distance themselves aesthetically from Vella Gera’s story while upholding his right to publish it, I think that Li Tkisser Sewwi is, in its genre, a well-written, convincing piece which achieves what it set out to do. Forget the redeeming factors and the supposed morality. Vella Gera’s short story is above all a descriptive piece whose power lies in its naked explicitness and its uncompromising depiction of an unspoken side of Maltese reality.
And it is that depiction of reality which the rector has attempted to suppress – a reality which threatens to strike at the heart of the reigning Maltese kitsch world-view. The same world-view that rejected Albert Marshall’s Il-Madonna tac-Coqqa thirty years ago and which, twenty years later, led a bunch of SDM students to order Spooky Monkey’s dancer off stage (“Nizzluha minn hemm lil dik!”) for gyrating her hips and pouting her lips too much during the group’s gig on campus.
Those who imply that it was correct to ban Vella Gera’s piece because it depicts an objectionable character – a “cowboy”, as the head of the Communications Department at the University, Father Saviour Chircop put it – prove my point. Besides, it is kitsch beyond belief to conclude that writing which fails to deal with “deeper human emotions” and which lacks “taste” should not be considered literature.
Incidentally, I shouldn’t need to point this out but it’s probably worth mentioning, seeing the way the debate has progressed, that women also write this type of literature, often based on their own personal experiences. The Secret Diary of a London Call Girl and Catherine Millet’s La vie sexuelle de Catherine M, which are both autobiographical, make Vella Gera’s home-grown character look like a bit of a novice. And it is neither here nor there whether these two books deal with deeper human emotions, ‘uplift us’ or whether the characters involved happen to be disgusting/attractive/audacious. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.
Freedom of expression – slowly does it! While the act of binning the newspaper, with all its gruesome historical implications, is scary in itself, the legal arguments which claim that the suppression of Ir-Realtà represents an unequivocal breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, ignore the fact that things are not quite as clear-cut as that. The Strasbourg court has accepted that definitions of what constitutes obscenity should be measured against each particular society’s development. In other words, the Court allows for the fact that something which is perfectly acceptable in Denmark (the first country to permit the sale of hard-core porn) may be suppressed in Malta or Azerbaijan. Yes, Azerbaijan is also a signatory state of the Convention…
So what type of society do we live in? It is a convenient trivialisation of the whole affair to imply that by ordering the suppression of Ir-Realtà, Juanito Camilleri was being ‘silly’ or a ‘little islander’ as Lino Spiteri put it. It would be closer to the truth to admit that the rector is well aware of his place in the system and owes his allegiance, above all, to that system’s decision-makers and value-system. Pathetically, the same seems to apply to the 20-year-old KSU President who has “refused to read the banned story”. Talk about intellectual curiosity!
That brings us to the crucial question. In what type of society does the rector of a university, following a tip-off from the university chaplain, feel obliged to order the physical suppression of a student newspaper which chose to publish a sexually explicit story? There are indications that Malta is a society which may be about to go through rapid change but we should ditch the illusion that real change will be achieved without a proper fight.
The first step is to describe clearly how Malta differs from other societies. The second step is deciding whether we want to change it, and how. The third would entail formulating a plan geared at bringing about that change. In the meantime, it would be wise to honestly assess whether the power structures currently in place are antithetical to the change we have in mind. I’m not convinced that we’re doing any of that seriously.
The power of home-grown literature That system’s most persistent claim – in terms of this nation’s identity – is that Malta is a special case: a unique country whose values mirror those of the Catholic Church and which must remain sheltered from the evil winds blowing outside the fortress. And it is a well-known fact that in societies like ours, political power partly results from organized religion’s control over sexual behaviour. As long as depictions of ‘alternative lifestyles’ (however desirable, shocking, disturbing or amoral) flow in from the outside world – broadcast on foreign TV and trickling through very slowly in foreign publications – that system’s players feel relatively secure.
By describing a Maltese character who uses common Maltese expressions and thought processes to describe his sexual exploits, Alex Vella Gera threatens, unconsciously or consciously, to undermine this system on its home ground. The significance of Ir-Realtà is that the newspaper made the story easily accessible. Therein lies the danger and that is why this story has been banned. No Bukowski, Henry Miller or Houellebecq can ever shake the system the way a Maltese writer can. Primarily, because foreign authors remain largely unknown to a general public which reads very little. Secondly because foreign authors speak an alien language, even if the action takes place up the road in Sicily or in London.
As has happened elsewhere, Malta might be liberated by its writers. Authors like Vella Gera who, unlike several others, owe absolutely no allegiance to our depressingly stagnant religio-partitocracy are well placed to do so. It matters little whether the establishment considers them to be literary giants.
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Milan Kundera’s description of kitsch as ‘the absolute denial of shit’ best fits the rector’s decision to suppress student newspaper Ir-Realtà. By this I don’t mean that Alex Vella Gera’s short story Li Tkisser Sewwi – a graphic description of an unmistakably Maltese man’s sexual experiences and fantasies – is a shitty piece of literature. Quite the contrary. In contrast with a number of columnists (from Mark-Anthony Falzon to Daphne Caruana Galizia to Jacques Zammit) who have taken great care to distance themselves aesthetically from Vella Gera’s story while upholding his right to publish it, I think that Li Tkisser Sewwi is, in its genre, a well-written, convincing piece which achieves what it set out to do. Forget the redeeming factors and the supposed morality. Vella Gera’s short story is above all a descriptive piece whose power lies in its naked explicitness and its uncompromising depiction of an unspoken side of Maltese reality. 
