By: Domen Mezeg / Nova24tv
“The attitude of the left towards totalitarian regimes is scandalous. They bow to their own, and they shout as loudly as they can against the two that have been gone for decades now, just to make themselves look better. The fact that their negative attitude towards their former comrades is not genuine is evidenced by the fact that they use Nazism and fascism to stigmatise their political opponents. Thus, anyone who does not think in the same manner as they do is immediately called a fascist. This is how they relativise Nazism and fascism, while at the same time insulting all of its victims,” historian Lenart Rihar believes. “The attitude of the left towards all totalitarianisms is extremely problematic and, as already mentioned, in an important part also immoral, as they divide the dead into those who are worthy of being remembered and those who are not,” said journalist and historian Jože Možina.
On Monday, we celebrated the Day of remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, that is, victims of Nazism, fascism and communism. We wrote about the fact that Europe will not be united if it is not able to form a unified view of its history, if it does not recognise Nazism and fascist and communist regimes as a common tragic legacy, and if it does not hold fair and in-depth discussions on their crimes in the past century. This is an especially important lesson for all Slovenian communists and their ideological heirs, who have still not acknowledged the truth about the criminality of communism, nor accepted the fact that the victims found in over 700 murder sites and those who later suffered in prisons, on Goli Otok, and elsewhere, deserve a dignified burial, respect, and recognition of their terrible suffering.
This time we asked the historian Lenart Rihar and historian and journalist Jože Možina to comment on the situation in Slovenian society, which is greatly influenced by politics, the media and education. We were interested in their opinion on how Slovenia is implementing the European resolutions on totalitarianisms. We also asked them what they think about the attitude of the political left towards all three totalitarian systems. Rihar gave a very worrying answer: “Slovenia is not implementing this resolution at all. Not even formally, as the Slovenian parliament never accepted it due to the parties that originate from the former regime. The so-called denazification, related to the totalitarian regime which was autochthonous in Slovenia and ravaged our country for half a century, never actually happened here.”
Not even the mildest form of lustration, which would have allowed democracy to breathe with full lungs, has ever been carried out here. One might think that we are implementing this resolution, at least when it comes to national socialism and fascism, but the matter is not as simple. The majority of Slovenians, of course, do not have and have never had any desire to sympathise with the two aforementioned regimes. And they did not sympathise with them. Unlike the communists. Precisely because this is the same socialism with two faces – the national and class socialism, which are identical twins, as the French historian and philosopher Besancon would say, we are celebrating this European Remembrance Day.
The left’s negative attitude towards Nazism and fascism is not genuine – if it were, they would not be abusing it to stigmatise their political opponents
“The attitude of the left towards totalitarian regimes is scandalous. They bow to their own, and they shout as loudly as they can against the two that have been gone for decades now, just to make themselves look better,” says Jože Možina. According to him, the fact that their negative attitude towards their former comrades is not genuine is evidenced by the fact that they use Nazism and fascism to stigmatise their political opponents. Thus, anyone who does not think in the same manner as they do is immediately called a fascist. This is how they relativise Nazism and fascism while at the same time insulting all of its victims. Whoever sincerely rejects Nazism and fascism would never do such a thing.
“Given that the resolution on European consciousness and totalitarianism expresses respect for all victims of totalitarian regimes equally, meaning for the victims of national socialism as well as fascism and communism, a dividing line is being drawn in Slovenia between the original democratic forces rooted in the Slovenian spring and among the forces that emerged from the communist regime.” According to Možina, the former, originally democratic, easily follow the idea of a resolution and build an equal attitude towards the crimes of totalitarianisms, while parties that rely on the communist past only condemn national socialism and fascism, but not communism, despite the fact that the latter caused the most victims and fatally affected Slovenia as well.
Why are the Roma children killed in Iška less worthy of memory than those killed in Auschwitz?
According to the author of the book The Slovenian Schism (Slovenski razkol), such an attitude is not only absurd but also, above all, deeply immoral. “I would ask them why, judging by the conduct, the Roma children killed in Iška or above Mavrlen, are less worthy of memory than those killed by the national socialists in Auschwitz?” This is a strong obstacle to Slovenia’s normal European future, Možina believes, adding that we can be proud that great strides have been made in the field of investigating and exposing silenced communist crimes and hidden history, which have in fact already demolished the reinforced wall that the communist historiography surrounded itself with, in fear of the truth.
“I am mainly thinking of the extensive research, recording and exhumation of mass slaughterhouses and burials in consecrated land.” The testimonies of survivors and others who have a vivid memory of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century are published here, and after all, in the field of historiography, we responded to the challenges of the time and, together with colleagues who Možina considers free historians, they unravelled the spell of party historiography and revealed the traumatic history as it really happened. “I myself am proud that my book The Slovenian Schism is also a contribution to the European resolution and the reconciliation process, which can only be based on the truth.” Extreme interest and reprints show that this historical period is still very much alive.
The attitude of the left to totalitarianisms is problematic and immoral, as it divides the dead into worthy and unworthy of remembrance
According to Možina, the historical period is still alive because, in the past, it was based on a lie – and the people want to know the truth. “I also see last year’s visit and address of the heads of state and government in Kočevski Rog as a strong act and a step in the direction of the resolution.” Both the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic showed respect and empathy for all victims. This is, clearly, the only path towards reconciliation. The attitude of the left towards all totalitarianisms is extremely problematic and, as already mentioned, in an important part immoral, as they divide the dead into those worthy of being remembered and those unworthy.
The fact that the party leader who considers herself the proud successor of the criminal Communist Party publicly pays homage to Boris Kidrič, a Bolshevik extremist who used terror methods to co-create the revolution and post-war massacres of thousands of unarmed compatriots, is a display of full support for criminal ideology and complete ignorance of the victims caused by it. How is that even possible, given all we know? “And another participant in the tribute to Kidrič, Marko Koprivc, who, as a government deputy, pressure RTV because of my interview with Dr Jože Dežman and threatened with ‘Death to fascism.’” He also attended a rally of fighters of the national liberation movement in Koper, which was directed against the public television and the show Pričevalci (Witnesses). Koprivc, along with other extremists, directly attacks the idea of this European resolution, which explicitly states that the documentation and testimonies of Europe’s troubled past must be supported “because, without remembrance, there can be no reconciliation.” “It is difficult to imagine that a person who goes against recording the testimonies of the oldest generation is a democrat,” the journalist Možina was critical, who finds it unbelievable that such a limited person, who is also an extremist, is part of Slovenian politics. The attitude of the left towards totalitarianisms as a sick phenomenon of the 20th century remained in the past century.
There is nothing modern or similar to reconciliation here. Why can’t they treat the victims equally? Apparently, they are still feeding on the ideology that triggered the fratricidal war. “My book also points this out in the sub-section,” Možina pointed out, highlighting the absurd situation of the leading communists responsible for the massacres of Roma families, including children, are still considered national heroes. When this is pointed out, their only responses are anger and hatred – not the level of self-reflection that distinguishes crime, and that is committed to the truth. “At the same time, it is ridiculous to conceal the now well-known and documented fact that among all the deviations and extremes among our ancestors, the communists were by far the most violent and bloodthirsty group in thousands of years of Slovenian history,” Možina concluded.