By: Mag. Andrej Aplenc
The Janez Evangelist Krek Institute organised a public debate on the state of reconciliation in our country under this title on August 23rd. The speakers included Dr Mitja Ferenc, former President of the country Borut Pahor, and Dr Aleš Maver. The main highlights were that despite efforts, genuine reconciliation has not yet been achieved, not all victims have been laid to rest, and there is still no general consensus in the nation for reconciliation.
This is already the fourth commentary on reconciliation that I am writing for the Demokracija magazine. I try to make them interesting, but they are, of course, short comments. Important publications on this topic include “Mednarodna diplomacija sprave” by Peter Merkur, a Slovenian from Trieste, “Razdeljeni narod” by Dr Tamara Griesser Pečar, and “Slovenski razkol” by Dr Jože Možina. Despite the importance of these publications, they have not had a decisive impact on the current state of reconciliation. Some reasons why we have not achieved reconciliation were also mentioned in the discussion, but I believe that there are some decisive ones among them. Young people are very poorly or not at all informed about our recent history in schools. Let me illustrate this with what my daughter told me when she was visiting Slovenia. In a conversation with two friends, she said, “My father was on Goli Otok”. One of her friends said, “What is that?” and the other said, “My great-grandfather was also there.”
One of the decisive events for the current state of affairs was the so-called Dolomite Statement on March 1st, 1943, in which the Communist Party of Slovenia, with the death penalty, prohibited resistance against the occupiers outside the party leadership. This is a Slovenian peculiarity; there was nothing like it anywhere in Europe. On the contrary, in France and Poland, both communist and democratic leaderships led resistance activities, but neither of them imposed the death penalty for resisting the Nazis against each other. There were no confrontations between them either.
I have another personal memory related to the Dolomite Statement. Ladislav Kiauta, a journalist, was also on Goli Otok; he was with the partisans and told us in a conversation that there was a VOS unit at the meeting of the parties that formed the Liberation Front. They threatened all signatories that if they did not sign the statement and thus recognise the absolute leadership of the Communist Party, they would shoot them all.
In Slovenia, this mythological and false glorification of the Communist Party continues. The Slovenian Parliament has not yet adopted the resolution of the European Parliament of April 2nd, 2009, which condemns all former totalitarian regimes and their crimes against humanity, and thus, it is unable to condemn the former Yugoslav regime. On the contrary, we have Yugoslav nostalgics in the parliament who worship the red star. Therefore, we still have monuments to Tito, Kardelj, Kidrič, and others, even though we all know that they are responsible for the massive violation of basic human rights and for all post-war killings, for more than 700 mass graves in Slovenia, for the Kočevski Rog, and for Barbara Pit. For those who oppose reconciliation, this is a heavy moral burden, and they are aware that they cannot get rid of it. There is no way back for them.
This is politically understandable. Furthermore, I believe that for opponents of adopting the resolution of the European Parliament and opponents of reconciliation, the current situation is politically favourable. They follow the ancient Roman adage “divide et impera” or in English, divide and conquer. The political division among the Slovenes suits their purposes.
This undoubtedly has a significant impact on the subconscious of Slovenes. We still divide ourselves into “ours” and “yours”, and this hinders us as a nation in making decisions that are of great importance for the future of our country.
Finally, I would like to mention the quote from George Santayana, a philosopher of international renown, who said that nations that do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. This is not a democratic prediction for us. I believe that only our membership in the EU and NATO protects us from this actually happening here.
I could talk here about the American Civil War, after which reconciliation followed, and the magnificent exhibition about American independence in Philadelphia, which practically covers the entire city quarter. In our case, the planned exhibition about our path to independence was cancelled.
Therefore, my personal opinion is that reconciliation will not happen for some time. However, historical truth always prevails in the end. Divide et impera did not work out for the Romans in the end; their empire fell apart, and the same will happen here.