Click Click Kill!
Mona Farrugia thinks that the ridiculous quantity of public outpouring of 'love' towards a dog nobody knew is just a manifestation of a detached nation that doesn't have the guts to stand up for real issues. {Adult content and photo}
I would like to say that I am shocked about the reaction to the arrest of ‘Star’s Killer’ but I am not.
I am not shocked that some of my closest friends are suggesting that ‘we shoot him in the head when he is 50’, that we ‘lynch him in public’, that we ‘send his picture all over’ so that everybody knows what he is as if you can gauge somebody’s character just because he is wearing fake Armani sunnies or whatever. I am not shocked that they find the sentence of three months imprisonment and a €10,000 fine to be ‘nothing’ months after a woman is beaten up in the street and her boyfriend is not prosecuted ‘because she did not come forward’. I am not shocked that they want to know who the magistrate is as if from behind their keyboards they could mete out some of their justice to her.
I am not shocked because I expected it.
The whole Star/Buttons/Furry Cute Dog who was ‘murdered’ has tapped into something in our country – and out of it, as most of the ‘likes’ on Star – The Dog Who Lived, an ironic name if there ever was one, and one which may need to be changed to 'Buttons: The Dog Who Died’ are from the US and the UK– something in our psyche that was just waiting to explode.
Ever since I was all of sixteen years old, people used to say that we had forgotten how to protest. That students were passive and ‘did not participate’. That the Maltese would only react if you touched their mothers, their salaries or their favoured politician. We do not even do that any more. Hundreds lose their jobs in a year and do you know what we say? ‘The Air Malta staff had it coming; the Go people should have known’. Well oh well, aren’t we kind?
So now this slightly scaring outpouring of what they would ‘like to do to’ Alfred Vella, the farmer from Birzebbuga, for killing ‘their Star’.
Like many others, I find myself apologizing before protesting at this ridiculous quantity of bile by saying stuff like ‘I adore animals – I have loads of them myself’ and then even getting into detail like ‘Two of our cats are drop-ins, Ganni was a ‘Roza cat’ and then shutting up because Mia the rottie is not a stray at all. She’s a pure-bred whose mummy and daddy were show-dogs. You even have to apologise for choosing a dog these days. You need to pick them from the street or from a sanctuary ‘because there are a lot needing homes’.
All outpouring, except for the silent protest some weeks ago, is online. The blogs have kept away, but that is mostly because bloggers tend to be a little cynical. The comments on facebook are beyond belief. Like most keyboard terrorism they come from people who, faced with a serious argument that does not take place behind a screen, freak and have no idea what to say or how to justify their calls for eye-for-an-eye.
This outpouring is nothing but a result of a detached nation, one that does not have the guts to face serious issues such as human violence (that’s from human to human, not human to animal), a thousand people losing their job in a few months and political argumentation which makes some form of sense and which challenges our politicians rather than panders to their crazy ways.
It is the result of thousands of people who are really sick of calling 112 and the police station to report whatever they have noticed and being ignored or challenged to ‘leave their name’ by policemen who will not give you theirs.
The Maltese nation is made up of a bunch of gutless people who stab quietly but surely by reporting people for crimes they have not committed, leading to the police force becoming a bunch of passive employees who do not even bother turning up to the scene because it will just be another vengeance call. Even 179 – the phone line which was set up to protect the most vulnerable in our society, abused children – was and is still used as a vengeance line: do you hate your neighbor, has she really pissed you off taking out the rubbish just after the truck has passed? Then call 179 and allege something about how she treats her children. Hekk. Pattihiela ja baghla.
It was Dr. Ramona Frendo, writing for this website, that first mooted the point that Star/Button’s killer could only get away with it because nobody had reported him. But it turns out somebody had: a neighbour, who ended up with his knickers in a twist: scared, retracting his report, and prosecuted for false reporting. Lord almighty: that’s a brilliant example of how we do things in this country.
This Alfred Vella, who I do not know (hailing from Birzebbuga myself, I have wrecked my brain to try and remember his face in that town which grew exponentially and hideously in the past 30 years but I simply cannot) is not a nice guy. As I have mentioned before, he was still running around with a gun (does the court report say what has happened to that?) and that, combined with his ‘method’ of putting the dog down, frightened me.
Then again, I am also worried about my friends, who seem happy scoffing a t-bone and a burger but would never kill a cow. Or slay a goat. They would even freak at the thought of twisting a chicken’s neck, even though they consume inordinate quantities of industrially-reared chicken breast ‘because it is healthy’.
This public, emotional outpouring of ‘love’ towards a dog they never and will never know and the cries of ‘off with his head’ towards a man they do not know either (and in some cases, sickeningly enough, the rest of his family) is only the result of one thing: we have made Star our emotional dart-board. Faced with really fixing our country we run miles. Faced with ‘killing’ a ‘killer’ we sit behind that keyboard and shoot.
Comments
"aren't we kind?"?? 98% Catholic, what percentage actually Christian? A question I never found an answer to in 4 years of living on the island.
Tbh, it's not just Malta, some of the most disgusting comments on facebook pages and petitions have been from non-Maltese, although wtf any of it has to do with us I don't know!
@Mona
It's part of our culture to get hot headed about something - anything. This whole Star situation is yet more proof. As is the comment you just pasted. Another excuse to get aggressive (and offend people's family members one by one!) - probably without really meaning much. Just a whole bunch of words to sound hamallu/hamalla. It's ridiculous.
Bunch of time wasters.
I'm out of here :)
@Melissa
Because they are too busy posting comments such as this one: From a local blog site, and not to me of course, but to its writer: "jekk ghandek il bajt pufta ordnat halli ismek mux tistahba bisem banali bhallek. nirrah jigri li gara il star lilek , il uliedek u l ommok!"
The majority of the people have nothing substantial to contribute to this issue. Like most every other issues our society presents. Which is why they are "protesting" from behind their keyboard. Why doesn't everyone just shut up and go back to chit-chatting in bad English!
@Mona
Wow.. it's frightening to see the extent of people's ignorance and how quick they are to judge others. "We hate you with all our heart" - horrible words to the family, which we don't know much about at all (unless there are some details I don't know about, apart from the fact that the dog previously belonged to them). However, as they say, holding on to hatred is like grasping a hot lump of coal - in the end they're only hurting themselves.
@Daniel
This is what I'm talking about: just ONE of the comments on the page I linked above. And it's from a Maltese person. At this point I am avoiding reading the ludicrous comments from all the foreigners:
PERSON A: Star we love you♥ You will stay in our hearts forever. We hate that monster and sadist including all his family especially that old witch mother in law of his that unfortunetly was your owner. You loved them and trusted them and they betrayed you :( Lets hope that they will be punished from this world. Family of bastards, we hate you with all our heart :(
13 hours ago · Like ·
2 people like this.
PERSON B: Their all bastards i hope they all rot in hell..If they didn't want Star why didn't they just put her in the shelter!
5 hours ago · Like · 2 people
PERSON A: He said that she was old. he's a liar also apart from he is an assassin because I assume that she was called Buttons after Buttons of teleserial' Simpatici ' which relatively is not that old, AND BY THE WAY WHY DID THAT SADIST NOT TAKE THAT BITCH MOTHER IN LAW WITH HIM AND BURIED HER ALIVE AS WELL? BECAUSE SHE IS OLD TOO HAHAHA BASTARDS
@TCM
Spot on.
Although I think we've always been screamers. We throw the stone and hide our hands while asking for others' hands to be cut off because we finally saw them.
Personally, the sad transformation from a culture of keeping everything in the family to one of emotional incontinence begs the question:who's been peeing in the gene pool?
ok, but then again taking my recent experience with the paving mess outside my door as an example, the only option left for me to do was to complain on facebook & fix it myself, after i reported the case to water services, the local council and mepa, and they did nothing about it! so i think the authorities are the most passive!
@Dan
Check: I never wrote that 'the case was blown out of proportion'. I said the public outpouring was not commensurate. Vide examples of 'Star died at the same time as Jesus: at 3pm' and wanting to kill another person - regardless of what he did - because of what he did. In that case, we are arguing for capital punishment, no?
People ARE passive. That woman's case was viewed so that everybody could have a good laugh at the madness while doing nothing about it. Beaten women normally do nothing against their aggressors: it is the duty of the police force to take action, based on such evidence as a full-blown video. The law would be better off if it were more stringent but the police need to be pro-active. That is the thrust of my comments.
Can we agree on one thing? That we are spending most of our time 'complaining' on facebook and then not really doing anything about it? By 'anything' I mean putting direct pressure on our politicians who are the ones that can change the law.
that the case was blown out of proportion, that people are passive about other important cases and the comparison to the beaten woman's case
@Daniel
What I do not understand is which part you actually disagree with? The entire article?
i totally disagree with this article. our poor penalties for animal cruelty ARE a real issue as much as the other issues you mentioned! i can also understand why many are passive - its because when they're not, and forward them to the authorities, nothing is done about them anyway. And for once all this ado served a purpose. The beaten woman's case can't be compared to Star's or Button's. She chose not to bring her abuser to justice and the dog had no choice!
Mona, you shame us. But I do agree with you on the subject of the non-action by our police. Worst of all to me is the information that the police did actually investigate a case of domestic violence - after the TOM wrote about it - and discovered that the man "slapped" the woman, insinuating that it is alright to "slap" a woman. If it consoles you, I had an almost equal case in Germany, where the neighbour's little girl came to me, crying and trembling with fear, saying "Papa is killing Mama". She was 5 at the time. I phoned the police, who spectacularly drew their revolvers before entering the open door. Later they came round to tell me "he hit her because she was drunk". So there, too, the men agreed that the man was within his rights. There was blood all over the floor.
Spot on, as usual. Especially the part about the animals we rear for consumption - I, for one, would gladly fork out more cash if it meant that my chicken/beef/pork was treated well before giving it's life up for me to eat.
I also find it ironic how 'fans' of Star/Buttons made use of one of Gandhi's quotes quite often (“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”) but paid little or no attention to other things he said, such as “An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” and “Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong”.
It frustrates me that people have reacted like this - I can't help but think of the positive impact that could be possible if all the energy directed at hating Alfred Vella was transferred to other causes.
