By: Gašper Blažič
For as long as I can remember, Slovenians have a special tendency to look to the West – not only because of following the most developed countries, but also because of expectations that perhaps “those above us” will solve our internal problems. Perhaps this is also due to our proverbial weak self-confidence, because in history various political masters have in the past instilled in us the awareness of our smallness and dependence on larger nations and countries.
Accordingly, we also nurtured various naïve expectations that were bordering on mythomania. For example, that the ideological partisan-Home Guard warfare would cease as soon as the last active participant in the Second World War dies. Which turned out to be a big mistake. Like the fact that Slovenia’s accession to Euro-Atlantic relations (EU, NATO) will automatically solve many problems that have arisen due to the unfinished transition. In two years, our country will mark the twentieth anniversary of joining such associations, but it seems that after almost two decades of dealing with the harsh Slovenian reality, many originally pro-European Slovenes are simply tired of the problems the EU has faced in recent years. Especially because of the already somewhat chronic conflict between the Brussels “headquarters” and the Visegrad Group, especially Poland and Hungary. The examples of both countries are particularly disappointing for many Slovenes from the spring pole, as Brussels, for example, did not react much when the spring camp presented its problems with the media, the judiciary, etc., to European politicians. Saying that that is their internal matter. Somehow, Brussels’ response could be summed up in this paragraph: “Do you have democratic elections? You have. Do you have a multi-party system? You have. Do you have a market economy? You have. What on earth, dear Slovenes, would you like from us at all??”
And that is also why the previous attempts to make Brussels act as a kind of “deus ex machina” in Slovenian politics have always failed. At most, it was followed by a background-sponsored public media lynching, saying what these right-wing speculators are doing when they wash dirty laundry in front of the public and disgrace their own country.
In 1991, the West showed its back to us…
In recent history, of course, it has not always been the case that Slovenes have uncritically relied on “uncles from America”. At the time of independence, all Western politics, both American and European (the European Community, then in the pre-Maastricht period, had 12 members), was almost united (perhaps except for Germany) against the possible emergence of new countries on the European map. Wilson’s principle of self-determination of nations, known from the time after the end of the First World War, was still a value that was respected only on paper. Even the rather courageous stance of the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from the Soviet-American summit in Malta immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, saying that there would be no new Yalta and that nations would choose their own future, did not come to life. Namely, the West nurtured the expectation that it must maintain a united Yugoslavia at all costs, as its disintegration would send the wrong signal to the “separatists” of the disintegrating Soviet Union, which raised the question of its nuclear weapons and possible old Soviet hardliners that could be used. Even three days before Slovenia’s independence, the then US Secretary of State James Baker strongly condemned Slovenian separatism during a visit to Belgrade, saying that Americans are for a united but democratic Yugoslavia. However, the Belgrade military leadership ignored his warning that he opposes the use of force in resolving the Slovenian issue. And with that, he shot himself in the foot.
What happened? Slovenia defended with weapons the decisions of independence supported by the plebiscite, which it immediately began to implement with an effective takeover of power. Quite different from, for example, Czechoslovakia in 1968, when it completely passively welcomed Soviet tanks. Not only the violent intervention of the Yugoslav People’s Army, but also Slovenia’s decisive response to it was the reason why Western politicians began to correct their positions on Yugoslavia, which was evident in both visits of the European trio in Belgrade and Zagreb during the Yugoslav People’s Army’s aggression against Slovenia. The lobbying of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister H. D. Genscher, as well as the position of Pope John Paul II, who understood our situation very well from his own experience with communism in Poland, certainly contributed to this. If we add messages from the civil public under pressure from friends from Slovenia (from Archbishop Dr Alojzij Šuštar to the New Revolutionary Circle and the Slovenian Writers’ Association), an atmosphere soon formed that surprised even very stubborn Americans, namely, the latter did not consider the course of events in Slovenia. They probably expected the YPA to complete the task and crush the resistance. However, it so happened that Slovenia sat at the negotiating table for the first time in Brioni as an independent international entity (although without international recognition). And in Washington the sentence “It seems that Slovenia will have to be released from Yugoslavia” was expressed quickly. The Gulf War with Operation Desert Storm was a priority topic for the United States at the time, so no one wanted to deal too much with European problems. When the Yugoslav army withdrew from Slovenia, the West had to finally admit that Yugoslavia was no more. Slovenia’s recognition was only a matter of time, although pragmatic and cunning European politicians tried to postpone it to as late as possible. However, when the Holy See announced its recognition in an unusually fast way (two days before the announcement of the recognition by the European Community), the speculation was over. Slovenia did not want to take a step back and it paid off, but with a three-month moratorium on independence, it gained some very valuable time.
Let’s make one little comparison e.g., with Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e., the geographical central republic of the former SFRY. The key problem was not only its multiethnicity, but also the fact that one of the national entities started aggression, and the other side (Alija Izetbegović) relied mainly on the help of the West, which proved to be a bad option in the long run. This is where the terrible impotence of the United Nations proved itself, where the Serbian side could always count on the support of Russia and China, as well as the silent support of the French in particular. The result of such a balance of power was devastating: the bloody war lasted four years, and the Republika Srpska managed to gain half of BiH’s territory (formally 49 percent). This is because its leader Radovan Karadžić has previously received a signal from the international community that the offensive is clearly paying off. The power argument clearly convinced even seemingly morally conscious Western politicians – as long as they were able to tolerate this kind of Byzantine manipulation of agreements.
A statement that triggered a pogrom against the signatories instead of a public debate
But let’s go back to Slovenia. Six years after independence, in 1997, a group of 31 (non-leftist) intellectuals – many of whom are now deceased, and among the signatories we can also find Archbishop Šuštar and lawyer Dr France Bučar, the father of the Slovenian spring Dr Jože Pučnik, writer Drago Jančar, this year’s Prešeren Award winner Dr Kajetan Gantar and many others – presented a statement with the interesting name European Truth Hour for Slovenia. Its basic message was that seven years after the first democratic elections, Slovenia is increasingly lagging behind European cultural and democratic standards. This was also reported by some very reputable newspapers in the Western world, which have long written critically about the state of democracy in Slovenia and expressed open doubts that the then Slovenian ruling elite (the LDS was in power, fn. G. B.) could establish a full and formally flawless democratic life. “Instead of confronting these criticisms, our government and the media are covering them up for the Slovenian public, reducing their seriousness or even brutally attacking them in the manner of a self-satisfied post-communist enclave,” the signatories wrote.
Of course, the context at the time needs to be considered. It all happened a quarter of a century ago, three years after the ground-breaking Depala vas affair. At that time, there was no will in Slovenia to resolve open issues of the consequences of the rule of an undemocratic regime, as well as privatisation. This was seven years before Slovenia’s accession to the EU. And this was also reflected in the statement, which highlighted the issue of the rule of law between the lines. “Unfortunately, the situation has reached such a devastating level that it will not be possible to improve it if we continue as before. The current situation requires a significant change, which will create a modern and democratic European state from a transition Slovenia, buried with both feet in old thought patterns and old practice,” the signatories wrote in the conclusion of the statement. And experienced a media pogrom of unimaginable proportions. Well, of course, one must also consider the fact that the web was not yet well developed at the time, so the mainstream media had a lot of power. Among the political media, only the magazine Mag and the newspaper Demokracija offered resistance.
The mentioned group of 31 intellectuals did not go to Brussels at that time. With the statement, it addressed mainly the Slovenian public, which was mostly manipulated. One of the influential newspaper columnists of the time even wrote that intellectuals are like dandruff to be shaken off the shoulders. The expectation that a decent public debate on Slovenian social issues would take place at that time did not materialise. And it did not come true even two years later, when a similar statement came out (the May Declaration) and when the collection “Sproščena Slovenija” was published. However, with each such signal, the well-known deja vu was repeated.
Lenarčič is not Admiral Brovet
I was reminded of that statement because the mainstream press has recently made the name of this statement public again. Saying that the European Union is setting a mirror for Slovenia, we have found ourselves on the list of problematic countries, which was – under the right-wing government – only a matter of time. If during the first Janša government in 2007, the holders of infamous journalistic petitions tried to discredit Slovenia before the presidency of the European Union, in 2021 both MEPs (Tanja Fajon) and the Slovenian member of the European Commission in charge of crisis management, Janez Lenarčič, launched an attack. The latter recently made some ambiguous assessments of the Slovenian presidency for the Slovenian media, and then said between the lines who he wants in power after April 24th this year. And this is certainly not the current government or coalition. Lenarčič’s ill-concealed lobbying for the majority of people to support the “anti-Janša” option in the elections quickly turned into a millstone for the otherwise barely noticeable European commissioner, who has so far played the card of political neutrality. It turned out that the Slovenian representative in the EU executive body supported the views of those of his colleagues who demanded action against Slovenia, but EC President Ursula von den Leyen did not accede to their demands. Of course, the commissioner later denied everything to the Slovenian media, but there was no direct evidence of the untruths. It is different now, of course.
But Janez Lenarčič is not Stane Brovet – that Slovenian YPA’s admiral who in 1988 bent over “mangupi” in the editorial offices of Slovene alternative media, and during the Yugoslav People’s Army aggression against Slovenia the Deputy Yugoslav Defence Secretary was Veljko Kadijević also an advocate of armed intervention who expressed at a press conference on June 27th, 1991, the hope that “the task will be completed in the course of today”. All those Slovene officers and generals from the ranks of the Yugoslav People’s Army who took part in the aggression were thus silently expelled by the nation. They had to stay in Belgrade, and if they wanted to return to Slovenia, they had to do so very covertly. Lenarčič is also not Dr Janez Drnovšek, who at the time when he was a member of the presidency of the SFRY, despite his intimate beliefs about Yugoslavia, did not dare to support restrictions against Slovenia. However, the situation is significantly different than then: the European Union is not attacking us militarily, but a part of Slovene politics is trying to create the impression through the alliances in Brussels that the right-wing option in our country has serious problems with democracy and shows this every time it comes to power. That is why it is necessary to use the EU bodies for this purpose. Of course, without success.
However, this kind of lobbying ended badly for Tanja Fajon. Ever since the “uncles” declared Dr Robert Golob, SD became just another appendix that may survive politically on April 24th compared to LMŠ and SAB. Regardless of the election results, Lenarčič will probably be acquitted of the Brussels slip (after all, he is strongly supported by the mainstream media), but Fajon will be able to remain an MEP and come to terms with the fact that Slovenia’s EU presidency was far from her wet dream. And probably no one will stumble upon her “snitching” her own country to the European authorities. Which, if the “wrong” government remains in power from spring onwards, will continue.
Which is also a sign that the European truth hour for Slovenia 2.2, which was launched to the public by the “Euro-KUL”, is no truth. But this is what we know to be the immortal soul of communism.
Gašper Blažič is a journalist for Demokracija, editor of its daily board and editor of the Blagovest.si portal.