By: Gašper Blažič
Some may have noticed that my contribution also appeared in recent submissions for the Slovenian national programme, which may be somewhat unusual. I addressed the issue of Slovenian national reconciliation, but not so much from a political as from a spiritual perspective.
Unfortunately, the ideal of reconciliation is, admittedly, becoming increasingly distant, because there is still far from a consensus in Slovenia that all three totalitarianisms of the twentieth century inflicted great harm on the Slovenian nation. The prevailing part of Slovenian public opinion still clings to the Hegelian dualist thesis that only Nazism and Fascism were true evils, against which the communists fought most bravely. And anyone killed by the communists must have surely been a fascist or a Nazi.
It is for this reason, among others, that in my contribution “An Alternative Path to Slovenian National Reconciliation”, I emphasised concrete, personal stories of reconciliation between descendants of victims and perpetrators. This kind of reconciliatory act may have touched only a small part of the nation, but it is nonetheless a great sign of hope, that reconciliation among the living is possible, even though we are witnessing “hardened hearts,” as the Bible puts it. Hardened hearts still think in simplistic dualist terms. They are not interested, for example, in the fact that Home Guard officer Ernest Peterlin was deported to Dachau; that the murdered theologian and patriot Lambert Ehrlich came to Ljubljana as a refugee from the increasingly violent German nationalist pressure in Carinthia; that the similarly murdered Marko Natlačen, shot by the same killer as Ehrlich, was persecuted by fascism as a native of the Littoral region, only to be later killed by communists; that Jaroslav Kikelj, who grew up in Maribor and was murdered by communists, was the son of refugees from fascist oppression in the Littoral, and so on. But communist propagandists could not care less. To them, “far right” is everything just a little to the right of the far left, except for those few real Slovenian far-right extremists, who ironically often act as leftist allies when it comes to attacking SDS.
This rhetoric especially intensified after Janez Janša attended a concert by Marko Perković Thompson in Zagreb, an event attended by more than half a million people. It is well known that mainstream media, along with many progressive politicians, have for years labelled Thompson as a promoter of Ustašism and Nazi-Fascism. True, Thompson is an interesting and controversial figure in the world of pop culture. He bears a name from a model of rifle, often dresses in military-style clothing, and emphasises patriotism and Christianity in his lyrics. With this agenda, he enters a sector of pop culture that was previously thought to be monopolised by the left. And that is what hurts the left the most, apart from the spiritual conflict, because Thompson projects the image of a warrior, not a lukewarm, timid Christian who would hide at the first sound of trouble. That is also why there is such furious outrage not only against Thompson, but against anyone who attends his concerts. Of course, it is easiest to use the greeting “Za dom spremni” – which predates the Ustaša NDH – to run propaganda that he is a Ustaša musician. But we face a similar problem with the blue eagle, which in the 19th century was actually a symbol of the Slovenian nation (originally of the Duchy of Carniola) – yet today, regime propaganda portrays it as a “Home Guard symbol.” Even the term “Home Guard” comes from the military system of the former Habsburg Empire.
You may have also noticed how quickly Thompson disappeared from Slovenian media coverage as soon as the European Parliament passed a resolution that slapped all advocates of preserving and promoting revolutionary traditions. President Nataša Pirc Musar slipped badly when she tried to criticise the MEPs’ decision. A self-destructive move? Perhaps.
