Heroes, Villains, Public Spaces and Public Memory: The Politics of Memorialisation in an Uneasy Democracy

What is the role of spontaneous memorials, erected in a variety of media, in symbolising and galvanising resistance to a corrupt, dysfunctional democracy? Who controls the memorialisation of heroes and villains in a bitterly partisan political system? This paper investigates these questions by focusing on an unusual memorial to a prominent Maltese journalist and blogger, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed by a car bomb within metres of her home on 16 October 2017. Within hours, an impromptu, unauthorised memorial consisting of photographs of the victim, slogans, flowers and candles, not unlike a Catholic shrine, appeared in a small square outside the Law Courts in Valletta. The shrine was laid at the foot of another memorial, a fine sculpture by the doyen of Maltese sculptors, Antonio Sciortino, commemorating the Great Siege of 1565, which is commonly regarded as a climactic moment and a turning point in Malta’s history. Two memorials to heroism and historical turning points compete for public homage in a contested public space, on the threshold of a public institution that is itself an arena of dramatic political contests. The government, which had been under relentless scrutiny by the slain journalist, quickly cleared the unofficial memorial. Its action triggered a tragic-comic tit-for-tat pitting the journalist’s and the government’s respective supporters against one another: no sooner was the shrine reinstated by mostly unseen hands than equally unseen hands cleared it in the dead of night - no less than two hundred times during the past fifteen months. The journalist’s shrine has come to symbolise resistance to a government and political system that are strongly entrenched but widely perceived to be autocratic and corrupt. Since time immemorial, art has played a prominent role in politics. Governments employ it to legitimise their regimes and to immortalise their heroes; artists employ it to criticise and to subvert. The Caruana Galizia memorial perhaps represents something new: an anonymous, collective initiative that becomes the focal point of a political challenge to an entire political system. This paper examines the saga of the Caruana Galizia memorial, with a view to drawing lessons about the politics of memorialisation in uneasy, illiberal democracies.