The Maltese people consistently prove to be exceptionally
great at creating and fueling the fires of moral panic. In paraphrasing Stanley Cohen’s definition in
‘Folk Devils and Moral Panics’ (1972), moral panic is a state of collective
anxiety that occurs across a population, when individuals, groups, or
occurrences (folk devils) are perceived as deviating from, and by virtue of
that deviance compromising the, established structures, values, and order of
that population. In the creation and
perpetuation of moral panic, the perceived threat is exaggerated and the
associated deviant habits are amplified by the media, as well as by
individuals (defined by Cohen as moral entrepreneurs) who occupy prominent positions
within the ranks of political and religious institutions.
An example of moral panic can be drawn from Malta of the early 90s. At the time, widespread
concerns about imminent accession into the EU, especially ones associated with immoralities
and transgression that a freer economy and inward flow of foreign people and their vices would
bring with it, became crystallised in an overall heightened state of anxiety
about the Devil having come down amongst us.
Local newspapers ran headlines about acts of devil worship and ‘Black
Masses’ (Quddiesa Sewda) taking place in the darkest and most remote corners of the
islands. Popular imagination ran wild,
escalating into narratives of consecrated hosts and babies being stolen from
church and hospital, only to be combusted and offered to Satan. The archbishop of Malta established the
Diocesan Commission on Occult and Satanism, involving a number of local
exorcists who, like Mulder and Scully in the original The X-Files series airing
on Italia Uno at the time, were tasked with investigating the sinister
happenings that were supposedly taking place all around us. Much to my disappointment as a fan of The
X-Files, concrete evidence supporting the claims that Satan had been conjured
and was walking amongst us Maltese was never produced then. It is interesting to note, however, that the
Diocesan Commission on Occult and Satanism still stands today, and its members
still hold ‘reparatory masses’, meant to somehow counteract satanic rituals
occurring at the same time, on nights of full moon.
In also suggesting that folk devils are alive and well today, another example can
be drawn from Malta of last week. A man,
reportedly Libyan, got into some argument or other in the local equivalent of
the biblical city of Gomorrah – (nighttime) Paceville. The argument escalated, the man wielded a
switchblade or knife of some sort, threw it around and injured six people. By morning, a grossly inflated version of
events had spread like wildfire. Some news
portals reported that a Libyan man who went on a violent rampage in Paceville
had injured twenty-five (25) people.
Maltese Facebook and message board users had their pitchforks out, raised
to outcries of ‘send them back’, ‘enough is enough’, and ‘no more immigrant terrorist
thugs’. My own first reaction to the
reported news was that it must have either been a case of The Hulk having gone
down to Paceville, or just another case of some of that good old moral panic. As it eventually transpired, it was a case of
the latter. Some local media channels
had based their news stories on an exaggerated eyewitness version of events, spontaneously
triplicating the number of people injured by the man in the process. Mass horror ensued.
Concern and reports about rites of devil worship in early 90s Malta were
founded in people’s anxieties about a sudden influx of and access to foreign
goods and commodities, and a moral ambivalence towards modern values that were
creeping up from mainland Europe’s horizon.
Popular imagination was also fuelled by the wave of heavy metal music
and associated imagery that had become popular with local youths at the time,
and that is traditionally also a product and symbol of youth resistance against
the status quo. The blatant exaggeration
of last week’s events in Paceville and the reactions that followed may have at
least in part been triggered by the current concern about the influx of
migrants from the opposite side of the pond and their values, or perceived lack
thereof. The violent acts of an
individual were rapidly appropriated, blown up, and transposed onto cries of
‘drive them out’ by the local vox populi.
Moral panic is of course by no means a localised phenomenon. I suspect, however, that the type that
manifests itself amongst the Maltese is of a particularly resilient sub species. This may have to do with persistent anxieties about the
outsider (il-barrani), the threats he could bring
with him, and more pressingly, where he fits within the Maltese people's dichotomous
conceptualisation of the world (Good versus Evil, Red versus Blue, et cetera). The walls and watchtowers erected along our
shores centuries ago for the purpose of keeping the evil alien out may not only
be consolidating the perceived threat in Maltese collective memory and
conscience, but also turning keeping it out into a matter of national pride. The resilient importance and strength of the
voice of moral entrepreneurs, who many times
take pride in stating and displaying how close and similar they are to the
regular Joe (minn ta’ ġewwa, qalb
in-nies, et cetera), may also be playing an important role in legitimising an
inflated sense of outrage whenever cultural homogeneity is threatened. The Maltese people’s flair for the dramatic,
and especially for dramatic public performances on Friday night television, may
also be a further reason for which folk devils keep rearing their heads here. At the end of the day, we might just love the drama.
The issue undoubtedly deserves further anthropological reflection. Armed with reasonable certainty that moral
panic is here to stay, I am sure that there will be ample time for it.
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