Funny place, the University of Malta. It may boast its very own Faculty of Laws (or “Flaws”, as some nameless genius once abbreviated it); but its academics nonetheless seem to be rather woolly when it comes to the precise definition of what constitutes a ‘criminal offence’.
Obscenity on campus? Well, that’s a ‘big no-no’ in the rector’s book. But at the same time, Prof. Juanito Camilleri (never was a name more aptly diminutive, by the way) appears to be perfectly tolerant of other, considerably more serious crimes committed on his campus. Crimes such as theft, for instance... which is not just a frequent occurrence at Tal-Qroqq these days; it is almost a recognised part of everyday student life.
Consider the following illustration. Last Friday, it was announced that the 21-year-old editor of a small (and hitherto largely unnoticed) campus newspaper, Ir-Realta, will shortly be facing criminal charges for ‘distributing obscene or pornographic material and for injuring [sic] public morals or decency’.
It wasn’t clear from the bill of indictment whether the ‘injuries’ inflicted upon public morals amounted to grievous bodily harm, or were merely of a slight and superficial nature. One thing, however, is certain: they were caused by a pointed instrument... namely, the sharp, satirical bite of Alex Vella Gera, who actually managed to fool the University rector into mistaking his fiction for fact.
Interestingly enough, we now know that it was the rector himself who originally instigated criminal charges against the newspaper editor (whose name, just to add to the confusion, is also Camilleri: Mark Camilleri, to be precise.)
I suppose by now you will all be familiar with the details of the case: i.e., that the short story contained bad language (but no blasphemy to speak of, despite various suggestions to the contrary by the illiterate and the misinformed); that the newspaper was distributed on campus without any form of ‘warning’ on the front page; and that as a result of Prof. Juanito’s peremptory actions, Mark Camilleri could conceivably find himself sentenced to nine months in prison, as well as a fine of over €400... though I am the first to admit that’s a somewhat unlikely scenario.
What some of you might not know, however, is the official justification for all this hullabaloo. The way it was put to me last Friday (by someone who nearly urinated in terror at the prospect of being quoted by name in this article) was roughly this: whatever you make of the short story in question, its distribution on campus was by definition illegal. You may agree or disagree with the laws currently being cited by the police; but by virtue of their mere existence in the Criminal Code, you cannot really argue against their application in any given instance.
In other words, once the rector was given legal advice that Vella Gera’s short story constituted a breach of existing legislation, he had no option but to instantly report the matter to the police. Otherwise (I was told) he would be ‘seen to be tolerating an illegal activity on campus’.
Ah, yes. Cunning, I must say, to disguise such unmitigated bullshit in the garb of what appears, at glance, to be logic. But it is a logic that immediately raises another, unanswerable question: if Prof. Juanito were so punctilious in his observation of the law, so inflexible in his dedication to crime-fighting on campus, and so eager to report one of his own students to the police... then why does he limit his interventions only to cases of obscenity in a campus newspaper? Why doesn’t he pursue all crimes with the same zeal: starting with... tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, DING!
Plagiarism (n): a form of theft, illegal according to the Intellectual Property Act, but which has become so commonplace at the University of Malta that the government has just invested in a state-of-the-art computer programme in order to try and bring it under some sort of control.
Well, here’s a small newsflash for the University rector who cannot tolerate even the tiniest of crimes committed under his watch. Plagiarism is as much a contravention of the laws of Malta as the publication of Li Tkisser Sewwi in Ir-Realta’ last October. With one significant difference: plagiarising students are more likely to be hit by shrapnel from an exploding UFO, than to ever face criminal charges if caught downloading their end-of-term assignment directly from the internet.
If you don’t believe me, try this little academic exercise for yourselves (or alternatively, just copy the answer from someone else; no one will ever give a damn anyway).
1) How many University students have been caught plagiarising over the past three to four years?
2) What percentage of the answer to Question 1 was reported to the police by the University rector (who, if you’ll remember, cannot ‘be seen to tolerate crimes committed on campus’)?
3) And of this percentage again, how many students were actually arrested, prosecuted, tried and convicted/acquitted?
Well, I’ll spare you all the bother by working it out myself. Education Minister Dolores Cristina generously provided the answer to the first question herself, in answer to a Parliamentary Question tabled in July 2009. It is precisely 60.
The answer to question 2, on the other hand, is precisely 0%... which means that, for reasons which are fairly obvious for all but those who think that zero is not a number (a category that seems to include certain rather high-profile bloggers, by the way) the answer to Question 3 can only be... absolute zilch.
Plagiarism? A crime? Could have fooled me. Of the 60 persons caught in flagrant violation of the Maltese Criminal Code, not a single one was arrested or arraigned before a magistrate. Instead, they were ‘interrogated’ before a special board of discipline composed of the University’s own examiners, and the very, very most they would have faced for their offence was – a resit.
So Prof. Juanito: can you kindly explain to us why you consider obscenity as such an intolerable crime – but not intellectual theft? Actually, don’t bother. I think I can work this one out for myself, too.
It all boils down to ideology, Juanito. Plagiarism is, was and will always be culturally acceptable at the University of Malta... because it is a University which evidently doesn’t value original thought very highly in the first place. I do not say this lightly, or without any substantiation. I remember a lecturer (who taught us Roman history in HMC) reprimanding a student for the temerity of having read a book outside his recommended reading list. ‘How dare you read a book that I didn’t tell you to read?’ I remember him shrieking in class... anyway, needless to add, the students who fared best in that credit were the ones who memorised his notes to the letter, and simply regurgitated them back at him like the chicks of a barn owl.
Obscenity, on the other hand, is evidently not acceptable to the University rector, and the reasons for this are more complex than they at first appear. I don’t know (nor do I particularly care) whether Prof. Juanito really is as prudish and squeamish as his recent actions have made him out to be. What I do know, however is that his action conforms entirely to the general (backward) direction this entire country has taken over the past five years.
The case against Mark Camilleri must therefore be viewed within the context of a perceptible hardening of the country’s ideological stance against non-conformity in general, which has steadily gained momentum since we joined the EU in 2004.
It bears comparison to the obvious cases of censorship – last year’s ban on Stitching, for instance – but also to the less obvious: the recent clampdown on naked mannequins in a Mosta shop window; or the arrest, prosecution and conviction of a man for dressing up as a Biblical figure at Nadur Carnival in 2009.
Most of all, it bears witness to the declared aims of the Gonzi administration, which – lest we forget – got off to a flying start by fraternising with a group of radical pro-life extremists and trying to entrench in the Constitution a clause which would have effectively criminalised an entire way of thinking.
Remember also that Juanito is himself the direct product of the Gonzi government; as can be attested by his controversial appointment as Rector in 2006. His decision to report Mark Camilleri to the police can only make sense when seen as part of a much wider strategy – quite possibly dictated from above, in accordance with the mission statement of Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech (in their joint homily of 8 September 2008) – to reaffirm the so-called ‘Christian’ identity of the Maltese islands... supposedly under siege by an army of unseen secularists, and also by EU membership itself (which in turn makes one wonder why the ‘Christian Democrat’ ruling party was so keen on joining in the first place.)
From this perspective, a rather amusing irony suddenly becomes visible. Alex Vella Gera could very easily have avoided himself (and his editor) all this hassle, simply by downloading someone else’s short story from the internet, and passing it off as his own. Certainly, Mark Camilleri would not be facing a potential prison sentence, had his crime been merely to publish a stolen piece of literature.
As is, however, his crime was to bring an original piece of local work to a whole new generation of readers. And THAT, my droogs, is an offence our University just can’t stomach.
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