Fire Destroys and Fire Cleanses - Reflecting Upon an Assassination

The Maltese Islands are currently reacting to the car-bomb killing of a blogger and self-professed journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia.

It is not the first car-bomb killing - there have been several over the past years. However what stands out about this one is the nature of the "target" concerned. Speculation surrounded the other persons who were allegedly both known to the police as well as being known by their nick-names. They had checkered pasts.

In a sense the fatality in today's car-bombing also has a bit of a checkered past - but less of the criminal kind. She was very well-known for getting very personal in her brand of journalism - blending insinuations, revelations and cynically biting words - with a tendency of getting under a person's skin and testing the boundaries of what is considered 'fair game' in journalism (and collateral from her writing has been a matter of course).

In short - her kind of journalism was as 'in-your-face' as you could imagine - but as a result of that (or perhaps in spite of that) she also covered topics that other journalists would be highly wary of touching.

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While she was hardly politically unbiased - both sides of the political spectrum had come under the harsh criticism of this personality. She was pushing information on government officials' involvement in scandals like the "Panama papers" from before that story took off internationally. She made many enemies - in equal measure due to the style of her journalism - as well as her exposure of stories.

In a sense she was the sort of personality that people either admired or "loved to antagonize" (I was going to use the term "hate" but that doesn't quite fit - for most). I personally appreciated her guts but I didn't appreciate her methods - and I personally put it down to her really wanting the attention that such brought.

The sad truth is that her life has been terminated early. Just a short time before her death - she confided with a friend that she felt that her time was running out - and that she had so much more that she wished to do and that she won't get to do. In this I can relate.

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That being said, there does exist a silver lining with her demise - and the 'way' that she was assassinated.

It may not seem like it - especially to those whom she has been forced to leave behind. For them the mourning process has but begun and the nightmare continues as the FBI crosses over to Malta to assist with the investigation (and perhaps to plumb her connections - Julian Assange has gone on record to offer a significant reward for information that leads to the conviction of her killers - a slightly awkward apparent "alignment" of interests).

However... just as the fire has robbed her of her remaining life, I believe that the fire may also sweep over her past life, burning up or otherwise melting and smoothing over much of that which could have been considered her flaws. This along with the passage of time could lead to the rise of this personality anew as a phoenix - a larger than life representation of herself - her legacy.

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And, to be clear, in a sense I cannot believe that I've written this (and sketched the title image). This eulogy is quite uncharacteristic of me - and I have to believe that it is due to a mixture of seeing beyond the above-mentioned flaws to appreciate the refined and gutsy individual behind the pen and keyboard.

For readers interested in learning more about Daphne Caruana Galizia - there is her website (while its still up) and a review on Politico.

She died minutes after posting her last blog. It reminds me of a post that I made 3 months prior to this. I never imagined when I wrote it that I'd be attributing it to this person.

Somebody needs to pick up the pen from her tight grasp. Preferably more than one person.

It is unlikely that I'll be that person as I already have a path to forge...

...but maybe the same is not true for yourself.