By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)
Our Minister of Education, Darjo Felda, has been negotiating with the Islamic Mufti, Nevzet Porić, this week about how to remove pork from the menus in our schools and kindergartens for children from Muslim families. Authorities are nationalising children’s nutrition, even at the request of individuals like Nika Kovač and others, arguing that otherwise, children would be hungry. However, the Mufti is now rejecting part of this state-provided food. Until now, it was considered that healthy nutrition in schools was not the responsibility of muftis and ministers, who are trying to secure additional voters in one religious community or another. For healthy children’s nutrition, we previously relied on completely different experts alongside parents, who did not point out any dangers of meat on children’s menus. On the contrary. How parents feed their children at home is their own matter.
Unusual ideas have already been spread by politicians. At the beginning of his term, our Prime Minister Robert Golob attracted a lot of attention with the initiative that we should eat less meat, which we then attributed to the influence of his new younger partner Tina Gaber, who needs to “watch the figure” for both of them and the fashion of vegetarianism, veganism, and extreme environmental protection, where we can only eat salads.
So far, this has had no serious consequences for the offerings and menus of our children.
Negotiations to remove pork from school meals will likely be followed by the government of Robert Golob, Matjaž Han, and Asta Vrečko ensuring the import of meat from Bosnia and similar countries for Muslims, as meat for believers must be slaughtered in the right way to be permissible, which is not currently possible. Food may be followed by other areas as well. Religious leaders could also demand new dress codes in our schools, such as covering hair and faces, similar to Iran.
According to our constitutional court’s ruling, animals cannot be slaughtered in the “right” Muslim way in Slovenia. Halal. Pure. In 2018, the Muslim community and Edin Kumalić failed to overturn the animal protection law, which prohibits ritual slaughter of animals as part of practicing their faith. The constitutional judges unanimously decided that the ban on ritual slaughter of unsedated animals, a ban on inflicting suffering that can be prevented, protects an important moral command in our cultural space and does not excessively infringe on the right to religious freedom.
The Muslim community tried to convince the constitutional court that ritual slaughter of animals without prior sedation is an essential part of Islamic faith and should be carried out professionally and supervised, in an authorised facility. They argued that the ban restricted religious freedom and worship interests of Slovenian Muslims and made access to meat from ritually slaughtered animals difficult for daily consumption, especially during Kurban Bajram, an essential part of Islamic faith.
The judges decided that the state can prohibit actions incompatible with the fundamental rules and moral framework of a given society without excessively infringing on the right to religious freedom. They pointed out that access to halal meat is only made difficult, not impossible, as ritual slaughter of animals during Kurban Bajram can be ordered from abroad (e.g., in Croatia).
As Muslims are not the only religious group with specific dietary rules, a true revolution in state school nutrition could be ahead if this direction continues. Importing special food will also be necessary for more orthodox Jews who have similar issues with pork and improper production and processing methods. Kosher. Not to mention others.
It is no surprise that ministers in this government are negotiating with muftis about what will happen with children in schools and kindergartens. The governing bodies have already legislated that children with parents from other republics should be taught in their languages. However, they firmly rejected the proposal from the opposition to provide additional lessons in the local language for immigrant children, even though there are indeed problems, and it would be beneficial. Before every election, left-wing parties determine additional benefits for people from the former common Balkan country, trying to declare them as minorities similar to Italians and Hungarians, but not Germans, who have no rights. They sell us the ideology that minorities are better cared for in other republics. Even though in Serbia or Sarajevo, it has not and will not happen that the head of the supreme court, police, state television, and the mayor of the two largest cities are all originally from Slovenia or Kosovo. For nationalist reasons, they were killing each other in the Balkans a few decades ago. They are not a model of anything.
I still remember having to speak a language that was not mine in the former Yugoslav army because our politicians did not care about our language in the previous system. Many high officials were even inclined to abolish the local language and culture because it did not fit with the avant-garde of international socialism in Yugoslavia.
This generous part of our former leaders’ history is omitted in schools and historiography, as is the fact that they persecuted those who opposed the madness of subordinating to foreigners and denying their language and culture, labelling them as nationalist extremists and even fascists.
We can see the brutal consequences of such approaches in Ukraine, which the Russians declare as their own because many people there speak their language due to traditions of the once common state. The Russians would erase the entire Ukrainian nation to secure even more rights.
We used to fear this kind of help from the East as well. The wise still do.
I can understand that someone refuses school meals for religious or other reasons. However, I do not accept that muftis, rabbis, and bishops, by negotiating with politicians, will determine what school snacks or lunches will include, how students will dress, and which is only a little further, what will be taught and to which god or dictator they will pray.