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But 99% of the time, it’s really just to make people laugh. It’s more of a point I felt I had to make, at that moment. Obviously, that’s not intended to be funny at all. And yes, maybe occasionally to make people a little uncomfortable, too… like, for instance, the picture of a dead migrant I posted this week. My main purpose, ultimately, is to make people laugh. Then again, however: the fact is, I very rarely post stuff with the explicit intention of actually offending. It’s more the odd, random thug out there… who might not, let’s say, ‘appreciate the value of satire in society…’ So while I’m not really concerned with politicians knowing who I am, as such it’s more their supporters. In Daphne’s case, for example: we all know that it didn’t start with a car-bomb it started with slitting her dogs’ throats, and setting fire to her front door. Put simply, if someone doesn’t like what you’re saying… they feel as if they had an automatic right to commit violence on you.
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And while we’re not exactly North Korea, or Saudi Arabia… I do see what I tend to call an ‘undercurrent of brutality’ in Malta. Like I said before: if someone really wanted to target me, they would have found out who I was, sooner or later. More than anything else… I’d say it was a dick move. It wasn’t a very well-kept secret in the first place….īearing in mind that ‘freedom of expression’, in Malta, is invariably going to be overshadowed by the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017… how important was it for you to remain anonymous? Do you feel that Farrugia ‘crossed a line’, by possibly exposing you to retaliation? And I’m pretty certain that – Malta being the small place it is – they all knew who I was anyway. Like I told him in my reply: that was the first time, in 10 years of doing this sort of thing, that anyone responded by actually outing me. Bear in mind that he didn’t just tell me to ‘get a real job’ he also outed me as Karl Stennienibarra. I certainly can’t remember any politician ever taking a Bis-Serjetà joke so… seriously. Out of curiosity: what sort of feedback do you get in private? Is Farrugia’s tirade representative of a wider perception out there? But even if Bis-Serjetà’s brand of satire takes a softer approach… you still manage to elicit sharp reactions. There are, obviously, Tory and Labour supporters: but there isn’t the same sort of ‘mass-meeting culture’, for instance…īritish satire also tends to be far more brutal than anything we are used to here. I’m not really that familiar with Italian politics though I know they have a few satirical things over there… but in the UK, for instance: the whole ‘tribalism’ issue just doesn’t really exist at all. Part of the reason, I think, is because we put politicians on pedestals so much more here, than in other countries.
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But yes, there is definitely a section of society that just doesn’t get it. The idea of something totally dedicated to satire – and nothing else but satire – might, on the other hand, be something that people aren’t all that used to, here.Īll the same, I think there’s a lot of people who enjoy it more than we often give credit for. It’s given a page in a newspaper, for instance… or a regular cartoon slot. With regard to your point that we’ve always had a tradition of satire in Malta… it’s true, up to a point but then again, satire is always viewed as ‘part of something else’. Do you think there is still an element of people in Malta who just don’t understand the language of satire? Though it doesn’t always look that way, we do have a long satirical tradition here: mostly concerning cartoons in newspapers. You can more or less see the connection there: put those two comments together, and what they’re basically saying is… ‘f*** the arts’…Īnd yet, satire itself is not exactly ‘new’ in Malta. Got that? Thanks.īut I must say, it was funny that, just a few days later, Jose Herrera would also come out with his comment about ‘artists not being business-minded’.
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I still have this ‘fake job’ … but now that you mention it: seeing as I’m technically unemployed, at the moment… mind if I take the opportunity to plug my Patreon page (a funding site for artists, creators and serious journalists)? It’s ‘Without the hyphen. So… have you managed to find ‘a real job’ yet? His first comment, in that much-publicised online spat, was: ‘Get a real job’. Let me take my cue from something Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia told you earlier this week.