Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Teenage Niece Moves Crowds With Call To Action For Youths
Photos: Occupy Justice
The 17-year-old niece of Daphne Caruana Galizia urged fellow youths to demonstrate and protest against injustice in a moving speech last night to commemorate eight months since her aunt’s assassination.
Megan Mallia’s speech, delivered in front of Caruana Galizia’s memorial in Valletta, marks the first time one of the late journalist’s relatives has addressed an action in Malta since the murder on 16th October 2017.
And it clearly moved the crowds who had turned out to commemorate the assassinated journalist, with many lauding her for her bravery and maturity.
We are reproducing her speech below verbatim:
A banner hung up at the law courts at the end of the vigil
“My message is to my peers and the rest of the young people in this country. Our future is at stake.
Demonstrating and protesting, calling for an end to injustice, is our duty, us youth, and not the responsibility of our parents or guardians, who at the end of the day are taking to the streets for OUR future. Independence means standing up for your own rights. It is our free speech that is under threat – the bomb eight months ago wasn’t planted simply just to silence Daphne alone. We are the doctors, the lawyers, accountants, designers and journalists of tomorrow.”
Former PN leader Simon Busuttil lays a candle at Caruana Galizia’s memorial
“Education in school only stretches so far – the rest is knowledge that should come naturally: knowledge that we are not being negative by speaking about impunity – we are only having hope in our future and our children’s future. Knowledge that in doing so we are fighting with our strongest weapons, the word and the pen, showing politicians on either side that they will not silence us into complacency. There is evil out there, but there is also some good left fighting for. One solitary voice can create great tremors and move mountains – Daphne’s did. But it shouldn’t be like that. We failed to recognise her fight as our fight too, and she was killed. This has now changed and some journalists have taken up the fight. Let us protect them, as we should have protected Daphne.”
“But there is something else I should say before I go: when people taunt you or criticise you for being “negative” or for failing to go with their flow, for not adopting an attitude of benign tolerance to their excesses, bear in mind always that they, and not you, are the ones who are in the wrong. What they want most of all is for you to join in the chorus of approval, or at least shut up about it.”
“I don’t think you need me to tell you that those last words aren’t my own. They were written by my aunt one year ago. Thank you.”
READ NEXT: Malta Shaken By The Assassination Of Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
