This column first appeared in Malta Today

My Dad used to have a saying: once you tell a small lie you have to keep telling bigger and bigger lies to cover up the first one until you finally become so entangled in your fibs that you trip up.

It was a lesson on always telling the truth and believe me, it worked. As an impressionable child, I absorbed this maxim with my eyes closed and was always convinced that if I did lie, I would be caught out. For the same reason, I have never been able to understand how people can tell bare-faced lies and still keep a straight face. It took me years to realise that some people can lie quite glibly without any pang of conscience or any sense of guilt, because it comes naturally to them. Of course, body language experts tell us that there are usually dead giveaways – the reluctance to look you in the eyes, the shifty glances to the side, even touching one’s face are all what they call “tells” which, if you are observant enough, you can spot right away.

What has always fascinated me, however, are those habitual liars who are so arrogant that they think no one will notice that what they are saying is pure hogwash. Tall tales trip off their tongue with remarkable ease and even if they are challenged, they will insist they are telling the truth. If they are cornered, they will divert with another far-fetched story which is so implausible you start doubting yourself: could it be true, after all? The problem with pathological liars is that they believe their own lies, and eventually forget what they would have said before. When you tell the truth you remain consistent because you don’t have to “remember” the previous lies and the twisting of facts.

Without getting into the details of the ongoing Yorgen Fenech trial, one thing which has stood out are the various conflicting versions of the events as they unfolded. Joe Public is, understandably, confused: someone is lying or else everyone is lying. Who knows?

No matter how many legal experts and detectives we have on Facebook, it will ultimately be the jurors selected to be on Malta’s most notorious trial who will have to decide. It is they who will have to shift through the reams of evidence, to keep their focus on who is standing trial and to, perhaps, get to the elusive truth in order to reach a verdict. It is a summer they will never forget, for not only have they been sequestered for over a month, but it is anyone’s guess how long the court proceedings will drag on. To add insult to injury, the huge responsibility they have been landed with is being compensated by the laughable sum of €10 a day (€40 if you are self-employed or unemployed). The least we can do is give these people who are sacrificing their time away from their families, a better renumeration.

It will also be an unforgettable summer for Labour supporters who are having to face some cold, hard facts about the party which is so close to their heart. The diehards, of course, will not accept what is being revealed, because the denial runs too deep. These are the ones who try to grasp at straws by talking repeatedly about Daphne’s laptop and about the car being left outside and who, in a very twisted, convoluted way, even go so far as to point fingers at the victim’s own family, rather than the culprits who are there in plain sight. Beyond the laptop and the car, the constant vitriol is inexcusable and reflects more on the person spouting the venom than on the intended targets. Would it take too much self-restraint to simply keep scrolling and write nothing on a public social media platform which is read by the entire country?

However, as tempting as it may be, I do not think we are solving anything by calling people disparaging names like “ġaħan” or “sheep”; name-calling will just entrench people even further in their declared position and lead to even more partisan division and hatred . The cognitive dissonance being experienced by those who are Labour sympathisers is due to the fact this murder and the cold-blooded way it was carried out has shattered all their beliefs.

When a political party and/or politicians one supports are being accused of a heinous crime, different people handle it in different ways: some will just call a spade a spade, irrespective of party loyalty, because they are able to tear off their blinkers. Then there are those who know that they cannot justify what happened, but likewise cannot bring themselves to denounce their former heroes in public so they wisely choose to say nothing. Others, unable to align their long-held, unswerving support with what is staring them in the face, become defensive and lash out. They cannot find it within themselves to acknowledge that they were so wrong about everything, and that the people they trusted with their vote and years of support were, behind-the-scenes, operating in a nefarious way. We also cannot overlook the fact that there is such a deep-seated resentment against Daphne herself, because of the way she wrote about Labour supporters, that it has clouded people’s perception to such an extent that they cannot bring themselves to see beyond that.

I can understand that it is difficult, and almost impossible, to admit that one’s political idols are, in fact, just ordinary people who are capable of wrongdoing or committing crimes, just like anyone else. When politicians let us down in this way, our own sense of judgement is thrown into question and it is understandable to feel conflicted, embarrassed and even angry (although the anger is often misdirected). But no one is infallible and, likewise, no one should be above the law. Being elected by a vast majority, or occupying a high-ranking post near the seat of power does not mean that you are not prone to the basest of human emotions such as hatred, greed and envy. In fact, I would argue that it takes someone of the highest integrity to wield all that power and remain grounded with their principles and ethics intact.

The proximity of big business with politics in such a small country is, as we have seen, too close for comfort and so many lines have been crossed that I would hazard to say that there are no longer any lines. There are just too many opportunities to be corrupted and to corrupt; too many instances when people suck up to you in exchange for favours; too many examples of how those who call the shots because of their wealth and clout, can compromise all those around them whether wittingly or not, laying the groundwork for an unwritten, but very real, obligation.

We see it happening at all levels of society and in fact, “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” should be enshrined as one of our national mottos. That is, perhaps, the starkest, and most tragic, truth to come out of all this.