Rose Marie Vella’s poisoned legacy lives on in her children and grandchildren
There is a saying: “Do not speak ill of the dead.” But when the dead were influential in shaping generations, when their words and attitudes poisoned family and society alike, silence is not a virtue — it is complicity.
This is why we must speak about Rose Marie Vella. She was not simply a mother or grandmother. She was the matriarch who nurtured a legacy of arrogance, elitism, and contempt — a poison that flowed directly into the veins of her daughters and her grandchildren.
In Rose Marie’s household, compassion was not celebrated, it was mocked. Kindness was seen as weakness. Superiority was taught as a birthright. And tearing others down was elevated as a sign of strength.
It was under this roof that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s children were raised. And it is no surprise that today they mirror the very traits their grandmother embodied: elitism, arrogance, and a cold contempt for the ordinary Maltese. They look down from their ivory tower not because they discovered superiority on their own, but because they were groomed into it — groomed by Rose Marie Vella.
When we see the hate-filled articles of Daphne’s sisters, or the sneering arrogance of Daphne’s sons, we must remember the source. These are not isolated characters acting on their own. They are the direct product of a matriarch who built her family’s identity on disdain for others.
To pretend otherwise would be to whitewash history. To stay silent would be to allow the myth of dignity to overshadow a life that, in truth, poisoned generations.
So yes — do by all means speak ill of the dead if they were influential in life. Because in speaking the truth about Rose Marie Vella, we uncover the roots of a culture of hate that continues to stain Malta to this day.
